fundamentals of eDNA

This week’s readings centered around a report written by McKiernan et al. (2016); the purpose of this paper was to address concerns about open access (OA) that hindered scientists from publishing in OA journals. Throughout discussions held in the breakout room I was a part of, I brought up the paper’s claim that publishing in OA journals was often cheaper, or even free, when compared to other non-OA journals. This claim was disputed by a few members of the group who cited their own experiences in publishing in OA journals as being more expensive, than in traditional, non-OA journals. A point I had made in the larger group session about OA archiving could possibly be a work around for these matters. I am supportive of OA publishing as it is important for the general public to have access to findings that educate responsibly. However, I do have a concern about OA data, or making the entire research stream be OA, because of “scooping”. An example I brought up in discussion revolved around making data OA without the means to an analysis planned for the future. If another researcher has the means to conduct the analysis before the researcher who published the data does, there could be a “scoop”. My group discussed the ethics of this and ultimately came to the conclusion that there are barriers preventing this from occurring, more often than not. This paper brought about plenty of lively discussion, and having two faculty in our discussion group changed the dynamics of the discussion allowing for more personal anecdotes to be provided to counter some statements made by the paper. I am also enjoying learning about the R to git stream we will be using in class, and think it will be very useful for my own work moving forward!