Wacker shows off new models at ConExpo - KHL Group
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Wacker shows off new models at ConExpo - KHL Group:
Mining links, Mineral resources, Mining Engineering, Education, Facts,
Equipment
Oil Shale: Post-stripping processes and the landscape of mine...
Oil Shale: Post-stripping processes and the landscape of mine...: Valgma, I (2000). Post-stripping processes and the landscape of mined areas in Estonian oil shale open casts. Oil Shale, 17(2), 201 - 212. :...
VKG Kaevandused
VKG Kaevandused OÜ:
Ojamaa mine, which belongs to VKG Kaevandus OÜ, is the first new mine to be built in the Republic of Estonia since the country regained its independence. Ojamaa mine is starting its operation in 2012 and should reach its maximum capacity by the end of this year extracting up to 2,5 mln tons oil shale per year.
Ojamaa mine, which belongs to VKG Kaevandus OÜ, is the first new mine to be built in the Republic of Estonia since the country regained its independence. Ojamaa mine is starting its operation in 2012 and should reach its maximum capacity by the end of this year extracting up to 2,5 mln tons oil shale per year.
Kunda Nordic - HeidelbergCement in Estonia
About us - Kunda Nordic - HeidelbergCement in Estonia:
About us
AS Kunda Nordic Tsement was established in 1992 and belongs now to HeidelbergCement Group. From 1993 to 2000, cement production in Kunda underwent thorough renovation. One of the most essential goals was to eliminate dust pollution from clinker kilns and cement mills. To achieve this objective, the filters to clean waste emissions to air were installed.
Another important part of the company's restoration was building of a deep-water port in Kunda on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. In 1999, the company completed the mounting of a local electricity and heat co-generation plant operating on natural gas.
Cement producing in Kunda has long traditions. Production was started as early as 1870 (see also the History subfolder).The company has got a splendid location on the coast of the Gulf of Finland and it has its own port. There are large quantities of high quality limestone found in the vicinity of the plant and local oil-shale has been used as fuel for the kilns for many decades.
Today Kunda Nordic is a modern Estonian company offering constructional cements, crushed limestone and port services to customers from both Estonia and abroad.
Another important part of the company's restoration was building of a deep-water port in Kunda on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. In 1999, the company completed the mounting of a local electricity and heat co-generation plant operating on natural gas.
Cement producing in Kunda has long traditions. Production was started as early as 1870 (see also the History subfolder).The company has got a splendid location on the coast of the Gulf of Finland and it has its own port. There are large quantities of high quality limestone found in the vicinity of the plant and local oil-shale has been used as fuel for the kilns for many decades.
Today Kunda Nordic is a modern Estonian company offering constructional cements, crushed limestone and port services to customers from both Estonia and abroad.
Kiviõli Keemiatööstus
About company | www.keemiatoostus.ee:
About company
Kiviõli Oil Shale Processing & Chemicals Plant
Deposit occurrence, oil shale mining and processing
The Baltic Oil Shale basin is located in the northwestern border of the East European Platform, continuousing from northeastern Estonia to northwestern Russia.
The area of the Baltic oil shale basin is approximatelyy 50,000 km2. The Estonian oil shale (kukersite from the locality name) is geologically related to Middle Ordovician. The richer kukersite layers are located in the lower part of Kiviõli Member of the Kukruse Stage.
The deposit locating in north-east Estonia is approximately 3000 km2, and the oil shale comprises there up to fifty laterally continuous kukersite seams having thickness from several cm to 0,9 m.
The oil shale in Kiviõli Keemiatööstuse OÜ is mined in open casts. The modern surface miner Wirtgen 2500 SM - the first one in Estonia – is used in the mine. Enterprise has an ability to mine one million tons of oil shale per year.
Chemical and mineralogical composition oil shale
The main components of oil shale are the organic matter (content ranges from 10 up to 60%), carbonate minerals (20 – 70%) and clastic minerals (15 – 60%).
The kerogen in the Estonian Ordovician kukersite has a marine origin.
Kiviõli Oil Shale Processing & Chemicals Plant
The Kiviõli Oil Shale Processing Plant, founded in 1922, represents one of the oldest enterprises in Estonia, engaged in producing oil shale products and speciality chemicals.
Nowadays the production activity of the Kiviõli Oil Shale Processing Plant develops in two directions, i.e. oil shale retorting to produce shale oil and to produce oil shale – based chemicals, whereas shale oil is notable for relatively low level of paraffinic hydrocarbons, that determine the specific routes of their processing.
The production of our enterprise reaches up to 45,000 tons S-1 shale oil, 7000 tons shale road oil and 10,000 tons road shale bitumens per year. At the same time Kiviõli Keemiatööstuse OÜ produces thermal and electric energy (110 000 MWh and 35 million kWh per year), covering the need for central heating of Kiviõli town.
Deposit occurrence, oil shale mining and processing
The Baltic Oil Shale basin is located in the northwestern border of the East European Platform, continuousing from northeastern Estonia to northwestern Russia.
The area of the Baltic oil shale basin is approximatelyy 50,000 km2. The Estonian oil shale (kukersite from the locality name) is geologically related to Middle Ordovician. The richer kukersite layers are located in the lower part of Kiviõli Member of the Kukruse Stage.
The deposit locating in north-east Estonia is approximately 3000 km2, and the oil shale comprises there up to fifty laterally continuous kukersite seams having thickness from several cm to 0,9 m.
The oil shale in Kiviõli Keemiatööstuse OÜ is mined in open casts. The modern surface miner Wirtgen 2500 SM - the first one in Estonia – is used in the mine. Enterprise has an ability to mine one million tons of oil shale per year.
Chemical and mineralogical composition oil shale
The main components of oil shale are the organic matter (content ranges from 10 up to 60%), carbonate minerals (20 – 70%) and clastic minerals (15 – 60%).
The kerogen in the Estonian Ordovician kukersite has a marine origin.
Kiviõli Oil Shale Processing & Chemicals Plant
The Kiviõli Oil Shale Processing Plant, founded in 1922, represents one of the oldest enterprises in Estonia, engaged in producing oil shale products and speciality chemicals.
Nowadays the production activity of the Kiviõli Oil Shale Processing Plant develops in two directions, i.e. oil shale retorting to produce shale oil and to produce oil shale – based chemicals, whereas shale oil is notable for relatively low level of paraffinic hydrocarbons, that determine the specific routes of their processing.
The production of our enterprise reaches up to 45,000 tons S-1 shale oil, 7000 tons shale road oil and 10,000 tons road shale bitumens per year. At the same time Kiviõli Keemiatööstuse OÜ produces thermal and electric energy (110 000 MWh and 35 million kWh per year), covering the need for central heating of Kiviõli town.
Eesti Energia Mining
Mining - Eesti Energia:
Eesti Energia Kaevandused (Eesti Energia Mining) mines oil shale to supply the electricity and oil industries with fuel and raw materials. We also process the enrichment waste from oil shale, sending it as a raw material to the construction materials industry and as gravel for road construction.
The company has four mines, two underground and two opencast, and a rail transport unit.
In the financial year 2008/09, the company produced over 15 million tonnes of oil shale. Most of the company's production is sold to the power plants and oil plants within the Eesti Energia Group. During the financial year 2008/09, the company invested 362 million kroons in improving the production processes. This included completing the new crushed stone plant in the Estonia mine at a cost of over 100 million kroons.
Eesti Energia Mining)maintains the traditions of oil shale mining and is a leading researcher in the field. June 2006 was the 90th anniversary of the start of industrial oil shale mining in Estonia. In order to ensure the raw material for energy production in the future, we have started preparations for a new mine, the Uus-Kiviõli mine.
Read more about the progress of this project »
Read more about the progress of this project »
The oil shale resources of Estonia belong to the state and are located in the strategically important Estonian deposit. The state issues a licence for oil shale mining to each mine or quarry, assigning a part of the deposit and giving each mine a mining claim. The size of the mining area can be around a hundred square kilometres and the mining claim can cover several hundred million tonnes of oil shale. An opencast pit also requires a full land grant, while an underground mine needs land grants only for the land used for mining-related infrastructure. The procedure and conditions for mining are prescribed in the mining permit and in several laws regulating environmental protection and occupational health and safety.
Fact sheet - Oil Shale | Resources | Oresome Resources - Minerals and Energy Education
Fact sheet - Oil Shale | Resources | Oresome Resources - Minerals and Energy Education:
Oil Shale fact sheet
| Year Level(s) | Years 3-6, Years 7-10, Years 11-12 |
| Subject Area(s) | Engineering Technology, Geography, By Subject, Earth & Environmental Science, Science, SOSE |
| Topic(s) | Opencut Mining, Non-Renewable Energy, Energy, Geology / Mineral Formation, Mining, Liquid Fuels, Technology |
| Resource Type | Fact Sheet |
Discover what oil shale is and where oil shale resources can be found in Australia. Learn about oil shale’s potential as an alternative fuel for Australia, given our decreasing supply of crude oil resources. Discover how oil shale was formed and learn about the process of mining oil shale.
Educational Value StatementExplains the size and location of Australia’s oil shale resourcesDescribes the formation of oil shaleExplains how oil shale is mined and what oil shale products can be used forExplains the potential of Australia’s oil shale as a form of fuel.
Key Learning Objectives
Students describe Australia’s increasing need for fuel.Students understand what oil shale is and how it was formed over time.Students learn about the location and quantity of Australia’s oil shale resources.Students describe how oil shale is mined and how it might contribute to Australia’s fuel mix.Students learn about an oil shale demonstration plant in Queensland.
Australian Curriculum Content Statements
Science: ACSSU032, ACSSU116, ACSHE121, ACSSU153, ACSHE226, ACSHE136
oil shale - National Geographic Education
oil shale - National Geographic Education:
Oil shale is a type of sedimentary rock that is rich in kerogen. Kerogen is a part of rock that breaks down and releases hydrocarbons when heated. Hydrocarbons are substances made entirely of hydrogen and carbon.Petroleum and natural gas are probably the most familiar hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons in oil shale can be used as an alternative to petroleum or natural gas.
Like traditional petroleum, natural gas, and coal, oil shale and kerogen are fossil fuels. Fossil fuels developed from the remains of algae, spores, plants, pollen, and a variety of other organisms that lived millions of years ago in ancient lakes, seas, and wetlands.
When these organisms died and drifted to the seabed, they were buried under new layers of plants and sediment. They encountered intense pressure and heat, decomposed, and slowly transformed into the waxy substance known as kerogen.
There is not a consistent chemical composition of kerogen, because it has a variety of origins. Kerogen that formed from land plants (called humic kerogen) usually has a higher oxygen content than kerogen formed from plankton (calledplanktonic kerogen). However, all types of kerogen consist mainly of hydrocarbons; smaller amounts of sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen; and a variety of minerals.
Oil shale can be thought of as a precursor to oil and natural gas. With more pressure and over more geological time, kerogen would heat to its “oil window” or “gas window” (the temperature at which it would release crude oil or natural gas).
A sedimentary rock, oil shale is found all over the world, including China, Israel, and Russia. The United States, however, has the most shale resources.
Spanning the U.S. states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, the Green River formation is an underground oil shale formation that contains as much as 1.8 trillion barrels of shale oil. Although not all of this can be extracted, it is more than three times the proven petroleum reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Oil Shale, Shale Oil, and Oil-Bearing Shale
Oil shale, shale oil, and oil-bearing shale are three different substances. Oil shale is a sedimentary rock. As it reaches its oil window, oil shale releases a liquid known as shale oil. Oil shale is the rock from which shale oil is extracted.
Shale oil is similar to petroleum, and can be refined into many different substances, including diesel fuel, gasoline, and liquid petroleum gas (LPG). Companies can also refine shale oil to produce other commercial products, such as ammonia and sulfur. The spent rock can be used in cement.
Oil-bearing shales are underground rock formations that contain trapped petroleum. The petroleum trapped within the rocks is known as “tight oil” and is difficult to extract. Companies extracting tight oil often use hydraulic fracturing (fracking), while companies extracting shale oil most often use heat.
The Bakken formation, for example, is made of oil-bearing shale. It is a series of layered shale rocks with a petroleum reservoir trapped between the layers. The Bakken formation stretches from the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, through the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota. Improved drilling technologies have allowed companies to extract oil from the Bakken formation, creating an economic boom in the region.
Manipulating Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics
http://digibug.ugr.es/bitstream/10481/20469/2/scholar_en.pdf
Manipulating Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics:
simple, easy and tempting
Emilio Delgado López-Cózar1
, Nicolás Robinson-García1
y Daniel Torres-Salinas2
EC3: Evaluación de la Ciencia y de la Comunicación Científica
1Universidad de Granada
2Universidad de Navarra
edelgado@ugr.es; elrobin@ugr.es; torressalinas@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The launch of Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics may provoke a
revolution in the research evaluation field as it places within every researcher’s reach tools
that allow bibliometric measuring. In order to alert the research community over how easily
one can manipulate the data and bibliometric indicators offered by Google’s products we
present an experiment in which we manipulate the Google Citations’ profiles of a research
group through the creation of false documents that cite their documents, and consequently,
the journals in which they have published modifying their H-index. For this purpose we
created six documents authored by a faked author and we uploaded them to a researcher’s
personal website under the University of Granada’s domain. The result of the experiment
meant an increase of 774 citations in 129 papers (six citations per paper) increasing the
authors and journals' H-index . We analyse the malicious effect this type of practices can
cause to Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics. Finally, we conclude with
several deliberations over the effects these malpractices may have and the lack of control
tools these tools offer
KEYWORDS
Google Citations / Google Scholar Metrics/ Scientific Journals / Scientific fraud / Citation
analysis / Bibliometrics / H Index / Evaluation / Researchers
Referencia bibliográfica recomendada
Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio; Robinson-García, Nicolás; Torres Salinas, Daniel (2012).
Manipulating Google Scholar Citations and Google Scholar Metrics: simple, easy and tempting.
EC3 Working Papers 6: 29 May, 2012
1. INTRODUCTION
If the launch of Google Scholar in 2004 (a novel search engine focused on retrieving any
type of academic material along with its citations) meant a revolution in the scientific
information market by allowing universal and free access to all documents available in
the web, the launch of Google Scholar Citations (hereafter GS Citations)(a tool for
measuring researchers' output and impact (Cabezas-Clavijo y Torres-Salinas, 2012)) and
Google Scholar Metrics (hereafter GS Metrics) (a scientific index of journals ranked
according to their impact (Cabezas-Clavijo y Delgado López-Cózar, 2012)) may well be a
historical milestone for the globalization and democratisation of research evaluation
(Butler 2011). As well as constituting an obstacle to the traditional bibliographic
databases and bibliometric indexes offered by Thomson Reuters (Web of Science and
JCR) and Elsevier (Scopus and SJR), ending with their monopoly and becoming a serious
competitor; Google Scholar's new products project a future landscape with ethical and
sociological dilemmas that may entail serious consequences in the world of science and
research evaluation. Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 2
Without considering the technical and methodological problems that the Google Scholar
products have, which are currently under study (Jacsó, 2008, 2011; Wouters y Costas,
2012; Aguillo, 2012; Cabezas-Clavijo y Delgado López-Cózar, 2012; Torres-Salinas,
Ruiz-Pérez y Delgado López-Cózar, 2009) and which will be presumably solved in a near
future, its irruption ends with all kinds of scientific control or filters of researchers'
activity, becoming a new challenge to the bibliometric community. Since the moment
Google Scholar automatically retrieves, indexes and stores any type of scientific material
uploaded by an author without any previous external control (repositories are only a
technical filter as they do not review the content), it allows unprincipled people to
manipulate their output, impacting directly on their bibliometric performance.
Because this type of behaviour by which one modifies its output and impact through
intentional and unrestrained self-citation is not uncommon, we consider necessary to
analyse thoroughly Google's capacity to detect the manipulation of data.
This study continues the research line started by Labbé (2010). In his paper he
transformed a faked researcher called Ike Antkare ( ‘I can’t care’) into the most prolific
researcher in history. However, in this case we will enquire over the most dangerous
aspects of gaming tools aimed at evaluating researchers and the malicious effects they can
have on researchers' behaviour. Therefore our aim is to demonstrate how easily anyone
can manipulate Google Scholar's tools. But, contrarily to Labbé, we will not emphasize
the technical aspects of such gaming, but its sociological dimension, focusing on the
enormous temptation these tools can have for researchers and journals' editors, eager to
increase their impact. In order to do so, we will show how the bibliometric profiles of
researchers and journals can be modified simultaneously in the easiest way possible: by
uploading faked documents on our personal website citing the whole production of a
research group. It is not necessary to use any type of software for creating faked
documents: you only need to copy and paste the same text over and over again and upload
the resulting documents in a webpage under an institutional domain. We will also analyse
Google's capacity to detect retracted documents and delete their bibliographic records
along with the citations they make.
This type of study by which false documents are created in order to evidence defects,
biases or errors committed by authors has been used many times in scientific literature,
especially in the research evaluation field. The reader is referred to the works of Peters &
Ceci (1990), Epstein (1990), Sokal (1996, 1997) or Baxt et al. (1998) when demonstrating
the deficiencies of the peer review method as an objective, reliable, valid, efficient and
free of errors quality control tool over content published in scientific journals. Or Scigen1
,
a programme created by three students from the MIT for generating random papers in the
Computer Science field including graphs, figures and references. All of these works
raised an intense debate within the research community.
Therefore, this paper is structured as follows. Firstly we described the methodology
followed; how were the false documents created and where were they uploaded. Then we
show the effect they had on the bibliometric profiles of the researchers who received the
1
http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 3
citations and we emulate the effect these citations would have had on the journals affected
if GS Metrics was updated regularly. We analyse the technical effects and the dangerous
these tools entail for evaluating research. Finally we conclude emphasizing their strengths
and some concluding remarks.
2. MANIPULATING DATA: THE GOOGLE SCHOLAR EXPERIMENT
In order to analyse GS Citations’ capacity to discriminate academic works from those
which aren’t and test the grade of difficulty for manipulating output and citations in
Google Scholar and its bibliometric tools (GS Citations and Metrics), we created false
documents referencing the whole research production of the EC3 research group (Science
and Scientific Communication Evaluation) available at http://ec3.ugr.es in the easiest
possible way. This way we intend to show how anyone can manipulate its output and
citations in GS Citations.
Figure 1. Fake documents authored by the non-existent researcher MA PantaniContador
Following the example set by Labbé (2010), we created a false researcher named Marco
Alberto Pantani-Contador, making reference to the great fraud the Italian cyclist became
at the end and the accidental causes that deprived the Spanish cyclist from winning the
Tour. Thus, Pantani-Contador authored six documents (figure 1) which did not intend to
be considered as research papers but working papers. In a process that lasted less than a
half day’s work, we draft a small text, copied and pasted some more from the EC3
research group’s website, included several graphs and figures, translated it automatically
into English using Google Translate and divided it into six documents. Each document
referenced 129 papers authored by at least one member of the EC3 research group
according to their website http://ec3.ugr.es. That is, we expected a total increase of 774
citations. Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 4
Afterwards, we created a simple webpage under the University of Granada domain
including references to the false papers and linking to the full text, in order to let Google
Scholar index the content. We excluded other services such as institutional or subjectbased repositories as they are not obliged to undertake any bibliographic control rather
than a formal one (Delgado López-Cózar, 2012) and they were not included in the aims of
this study.
The false documents were uploaded on 17 April, 2012. Due presumably because it was a
personal website and not a repository, Google indexed these documents nearly a month
after they were uploaded, on 12 May, 2012. At that time the members of the research
group used as study case along with the three co-authors of this paper, received an alert
from GS Citations pointing out that some MA Pantani-Contador had cited their Works.
The citation explosion was thrilling, especially in the case of the youngest researchers
where their citation rates were multiplied by six, notoriously increasing in size their
profiles.
Figure 2. Citations increase for the authors of this paper
Emilio Delgado López-Cózar
WHOLE PERIOD SINCE 2007
BEFORE the
experiment
AFTER the
experiment
BEFORE the
experiment
AFTER the
experiment
Citations 862 1297 + 435 560 995 + 435
H-Index 15 17 + 2 10 15 + 5
i10-Index 20 40 + 20 11 33 + 22
Nicolás Robinson-García
WHOLE PERIOD SINCE 2007
BEFORE the
experiment
AFTER the
experiment
BEFORE the
experiment
AFTER the
experiment
Citations 4 29 + 25 4 29 + 25
H-Index 1 4 + 3 1 4 + 3
i10-Index 0 0 0 0 0 0
Daniel Torres-Salinas
WHOLE PERIOD SINCE 2007
BEFORE the
experiment
AFTER the
experiment
BEFORE the
experiment
AFTER the
experiment
Citations 227 409 + 182 226 408 + 182
H-Index 9 11 + 2 9 11 + 2
i10-Index 7 17 + 10 7 17 + 10
Figure 2 shows the increase of citations the authors experienced. Obviously, the number
of citations per author varies depending the number of publications of each of the member
of the research group used as study case as well as real citations received during the study
period. Thus, the greatest increase is for the less-cited author, Robinson-García, who
multiplies by 7.25 the number of citations received, while Torres-Salinas doubles it and
Delgado López-Cózar experiences an increase of 1.5. We also note the effect on the H-Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 5
index of each researcher. While the most significant increase is perceived in the less
prolific profile, the variation for the other two others is much more moderate, illustrating
the stability of the indicator. Note how in Torres-Salinas’ case, where the number of
citations is doubled, how the H-index only increases by two. On the other hand, we
observe how the i10-index is much more sensitive to changes. In Torres-Salinas’ case, the
increase goes from 7 to 17, and in Delgado López-Cózar’s case it triples for the last five
years, going from 11 to 33.
Figure 3. Effects on the manipulation of the citations in one of the authors
BEFORE THE EXPERIMENT
AFTER THE EXPERIMENT
Also, it is interesting to analyse the effect this citation increase may have on the h-index
for journals indexed in GS Metrics. For this, we have considered the two journals in
which the members of the research group have published more papers and therefore, more
sensitive to be manipulated. These are El Profesional de la Información with 30 papers
published in this journal and Revista Española de Documentación Científica, with 33
papers. In table 1 we show the H-indexes for El Profesional de la Información and
Revista Española de Documentación Científica according to Google and the increase it
would have if the citations emitted by Pantani-Contador had been included. We must alert
the reader that this tool, contrarily to the rest of Google’s products, is not automatically
updated and that data displayed dates to the day of its launch, that is, 1 April, 2012
(Cabezas-Clavijo y Delgado López-Cózar, 2012). We observe that El Profesional de la
Información would be the one which would be more influenced, as seven papers would
surpass the 12 citations threshold increasing its H-index and ascending in the ranking for
journals in Spanish language from position 20 to position 5 if the index was updated
today. Revista Española de Documentación Científica would slightly modify its position,
as only one article surpasses the 9 citations threshold that influence its h-index. Even so Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 6
and due to the high number of journals with its same h-index, it would go up from
position 74 to 54.
Table 1. Effect of the manipulation of citations over journals
Journal H-Index (GS
Metrics)
Art > 12
citations
Manipulated HIndex
El Profesional de la Información 12 7 19
Revista Española de Documentación
Científica 9 1 10
After proving the vulnerability of Google’s products when including false documents and
showing its effect at the researcher-level and journal-level, on 17 May, 2012 we deleted
the false documents and webpage in order to see if Google Scholar would delete the
records and the citations received according to GS Citations. However, until this date (29
May) and 17 days after they were removed from the Internet, no modifications have been
made whatsoever. The records of the authored documents by our faked researcher are still
available when searching its production and, despite being broken links, there is a version
of the documents saved by Google.
3. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The results of our experiment show how easy and simple it is to modify the citation
profiles offered by Google. This exposes the dangers it may lead to in the hands of editors
and researchers tempted to do “citations engineering” and modify their H-index by
excessively self-citing their papers or, in a most refined way, sending citations only to the
hot zone of their publications, that is, those which can influence this indicator. In the case
of El Profesional de la Información, it is 16 documents with between 10 and 12 citations
for the time period analysed by GS Metrics (2007-2011) the ones that could modify this
journal’s position by having from 1 to 3 citations more.
Coming back to more technical issues, firstly, we must emphasize how easy it is to
manipulate, not just output, - previously stated by Labbé (2010), - but also citations. This
is raises serious concerns over the lack of Google Scholar to discriminate false documents
from those which are not. Although Google Scholar is only meant to index and retrieve
all kinds of academic material in its widest sense, the inclusion of GS Citations and GS
Metrics, which are evaluating tools, must include the introduction of monitoring tools and
the establishment more rigid criteria for indexing documents. Google Scholar offers
access to a wide range of document types, becoming a much more attractive database, not
just because of its “magic formula” for retrieving information, but because of the richness
of the data it handles. However, leaving such a controlled environment as journals leads
to many dangers in the research evaluation world.
On the other hand, it is interesting to observe the stability of the h-Index when affecting
experienced researchers, even if the number of citations is doubled. This may bring a
sense of relief, however, unfortunately there are many ways for manipulating this
indicator through self-citation (Bartneck and Kokkelmans, 2011). Also, regarding
journals and the most likely updating of GS Metrics, which was included on Google
Scholar`s homepage a few days ago, devious editors can easily modify their journals’ H-Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 7
index. Also, we observe how notable is the variation of the i10-Index, especially for
experienced researchers.
Regarding the effect these malpractices may have over the rankings presented by Google,
it would obviously be significant, especially for those journals with small figures, on
which the slightest variation can have a great impact on their performance.
The impossibility of editing citations in GS Citations pointing out the wrong ones and
indicating those which have not been detected, highlights this shortcoming, therefore we
alert as it has previously been done (Cabezas-Clavijo and Torres-Salinas, 2012) of the
dangers the use of these tools for bibliometric purposes entail. The last part of the
experiment will be to see if the records of the deleted documents will be erased form
Google Scholar, along the citations the emit. This has not still happened and, if it doesn’t
occur, it will emphasize an important the general search engine also has, its impossibility
to exercise our “right to be forgotten” (Gómez, 2011).
Figure 4. Results from Google Scholar
Now, it is important to emphasize the visibility these tools offer and the transparency the
allow, facilitating the detection of these practices by the community, as we have
witnessed over the elaboration of this experiment. Many of the co-authors affected by the
malpractices of devious Pantani-Contador detected his reproachable behaviour and
enquired over the issue.
On the other side, it is interesting to see how papers published over the same template are
indexed differently by Google. This shows once again, the lack of normalization it has.
Therefore we see naming variations over the six false documents uploaded (figure 4).
3. FINAL THOUGHTS AND CONCLUSIONS Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 8
Even if we have previously argued in favour of Google Scholar as a research evaluation
tool minimizing its biases and technical and methodological issues (Cabezas-Clavijo,
Delgado López-Cózar, 2012), in this paper we alert the research community over how
easy it is to manipulate data and bibliometric indicators. Switching form a controlled
environment where the production, dissemination and evaluation of scientific knowledge
is monitored (even accepting all the shortcomings of peer review) to a environment that
lacks of any kind of control rather than researchers’ consciousness is a radical novelty
that encounters many dangers. (Table 2).
Table 2. Control measures in the traditional model vs. Google Scholar’s products
Traditional model Google Scholar’s tools
Databases select journals to be indexed It indexes any document belonging to an
academic domain
Journals select papers to be published Any indexed document type emits and
receives citations
There is a control between citing and cited
documents
Fraudulent behaviours are persecuted
It is not possible to alert over fraudulent
behaviours or citation errors
Putting on researchers’ hand, which are humans, the tools that allow manipulating output
and citations may have unforeseen consequences or make these tools useless. The lack of
control that characterises these tools is their strength but also their weak point. It is so
easy to manipulate GS Citations that anyone can emulate Ike Antkare and become the
most productive and influential researcher in its specialty. Let alone editors, if GS Metrics
is finally incorporated, they can be tempted to use unethical techniques to increase the
impact of their journals.
These free and accessible products, do not only awaken the Narcissus within researchers
(Wouters; Costas, 2012), but can unleash malpractices aiming at manipulating the
orientation and meaning of numbers as a consequence of the ever growing pressure for
publishing fuelled by the research evaluation exercises of each country. There are many
cases of editors’ frauds where they manipulate through editorial policies researchers’
behaviours in order to increase the impact factor, as described by Falagas and Alexiou
(2008). Many journals are excluded every year from the Web of Science because of their
fraudulent behaviour (http://adminapps.webofknowledge.com/JCR/static_html/notices/notices.htm). There are many
examples, such as the one reported by Dimitrov et al. (2010) with the resounding case of
revista Acta Crystallographica A which surprised everyone when increasing its impact
factor from 2,38 to 49,93 in a year. It seemed that from the 5966 citations received in Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 9
2009 by the 72 papers published in 2008, 5624 belonged just to one article. This paper
was in fact responsible of such an anomalous behaviour. Another example can be found
in Opatrný (2008).
Currently there are no controlling or filtering systems for avoiding fraud rather than
researchers’ ethical values. In this sense, we must point out the role of institutions such as
the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/) and other similar
organizations devoted to pursuing fraud within the traditional research communication
model, that is, journals. We may be witnessing a new revolution of the scientific
communication model and it may be just a matter of time to see other similar organization
working in this new environment. For our part, we conclude our experiment and we await
patiently the retraction of our inexistent researcher by Google, following our example and
deleting the faked citations from our profiles. Google’s effort on the creation of new
evaluation tools forecasts many changes in the research evaluation world. Not just
because these tools are cost-free, but because of their great coverage, immediacy and ease
of use. We will just have to wait to see which path will Google follow in their attempt to
put a stop to those numbers that are devouring science (Monastersky 2005).
SUPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
More information is available http://www.ugr.es/~elrobin/pantani.html.
REFERENCES
Aguillo, I. (2012). Is Google Scholar useful for bibliometrics? A webometric analysis.
Scientometrics 91; 2: 343-351.
Bartneck, C.; Kokkelmans, S. (2011). Detecting h-index manipulation through selfcitation analysis. Scientometrics 87; 1: 85-98.
Baxt, W. G.; Waeckerle, J. F.; Berlin, J. A.; Callaham, M. L. (1998). Who reviews the
reviewers? Feasability of using a fictitious manuscript to evaluate peer review
performance. Annals of Emergency Medicine 32; 3: 310-317.
Butler, D. (2011). Computing giants launch free science metrics. Nature 476; 18:
doi:10.1038/476018a 2
Cabezas-Clavijo, Á; Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2012). El impacto de las revistas según
Google, ¿un divertimento o un producto científico aceptable? EC3 Working Papers 1.
accesible en http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/16836
Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2012). Los repositorios en Google Scholar Metrics o ¿qué hace
un tipo documental como tú en un lugar como ese? EC3 Working Papers 4: 3 de abril de
2012.
Dimitriv, J. D.; Kaberi, S. R.; Bayry, J. (2010). Metrics: journal's impact factor skewed by
a single paper. Nature 466: 179, Delgado López-Cózar, Robinson-García & Torres-Salinas. Manipulating Google Scholar … 10
Epstein, W. M. (1990). Confirmational response bias among social work journals. Science,
Technology & Human Values 15; 1: 9–38.
Falagas, M. E. y Alexiou, V. G. (2008). The top-ten in journal impact factor manipulation.
Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis 56; 4: 223-226
Gómez, R. G. (2011). Quiero que Internet se olvide de mí. El País 7 de enero, 2011.
Jacsó, P. (2008). The pros and cons of computing the h-index using Google Scholar.
Online Information Review 32; 3: 437-452.
Jacsó, P. (2011). Google Scholar duped and deduped – the aura of ”robometrics”. Online
Information Review 35; 1: 154-160.
Labbé, C. (2010). Ike Antkare, one of the greatest stars in the scientific firmament. ISSI
Newsletter 6; 1: 48-52.
Monastersky R. (2005)The Number That’s Devouring Science. The Chronicle of Higher
Education 52; 8: A12. Disponible en: http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i08/08a01201.htm
Opatrný, T. (2008). Playing the system to give low-impact journal more clout. Nature
455: 167.
Peters, D. P.; Ceci, S. J. (1990). Peer-review practices of psychological journals – the fate
of accepted, published articles, submitted again. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5; 2:
187-195.
Sokal, A. D.; Bricmont, J. (1997). Impostures Intellectuelles. Editions Odile Jacob.
Wouters, P.; Costas, R. (2012). Users, narcissism and control – tracking the impact of
scholarly publications in the 21st century. SURFfoundation. Accesible en:
http://www.surf.nl/nl/publicaties/Documents/Users%20narcissism%20and%20control.pdf
Critical article on the H-Index How to become a successful scientist. » Survival Blog for Scientists
Critical article on the H-Index How to become a successful scientist. » Survival Blog for Scientists:
Posted in Presentations quality, Technical (ms word, tex), Tips, useful software
Papers
Tags: arXiv, bibliography, Endnote, Google scholar, JSTOR, Mac, papers,PDF, PubMed, science, Scopus, web of science, Windows, WordPosted in Presentations quality, Technical (ms word, tex), Tips, useful software
When you are doing research, you tend to collect a lot of papers. I remember that at the end of m PhD, when I moved to another continent to do a postdoc, I dumped a huge box of photocopies in my parents’ basement. A few years ago, I had collected two cupboards full of photocopies. It was getting seriously out of hand. Then, of course, journals started putting everything online as PDFs and the same process started all over again but this time filling up hard disk folders instead. I used to have subject-based folders, which sort of worked until something fit within 2 or 3 or 4 of my subjects. Searching for some old paper you had read a few years back became more and more nightmarish. Then somebody showed me Papers.
Papers is a program that acts like your iTunes library for PDFs. It also connects to online search engines such as Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, PubMed, arXiv, JSTOR, Google scholar, and half a dozen other ones. That means that you can search from within Papers, retrieve, and store PDFs directly into your library but more importantly, Papers keeps a record of bibliometric data such as title, authors, abstract, doi, keywords, notes, etc. You can set up collections of papers by topic either by hand or by using smart folders that use automated searches of the bibliometric data. I like it that you can nest topic folders so you can either view PDFs from a sub-topic or go one level up to see all PDFs about that topic. My only complaint is the lack of Boolean and wildcard searches.
However, the best thing by far is the quick search function, which makes a real-time selection that narrows down as you type in more keywords. For example, you once read this paper, it was about X, one of the authors was Y, maybe it was published in Z. Once you type in X and Y, usually the selected list has narrowed down enough that you can see journal Z and a few seconds later the paper you were looking for. This is amazingly good! Last but not least, you can export all the data into an EndNote XML library (or BibTeX etc.) and use it to make reference lists.
There is one tiny little problem: it only works on a Mac (or your iPhone but that’s not really that useful). The reason for this is that OS 10.5 has a PDF API built in (a subroutine library that can be used by any software) whereas MS is trying to push its own version of PDF. Personally, I was so hacked off with Windows Vista last year and so enamoured with Papers that I switched to the Mac. It’s the best decision I have made in a long while: I haven’t sworn at my computer since!
Every scientist should have a Researcher ID How to become a successful scientist. » Survival Blog for Scientists
Every scientist should have a Researcher ID How to become a successful scientist. » Survival Blog for Scientists:
Posted in Tips, useful software, Web 2.0
Every scientist should have a Researcher ID
Tags: Impact factor, web of science, web2.0Posted in Tips, useful software, Web 2.0
Unique author identification is a longstanding issue in scientific publishing. Currently there are a number of systems under development that promise a variety of functionalities. I am not going to give here an extensive overview of this wide range of systems, an up to date article can be found here. While a universally recognized standard such as the ISO standard International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) system will undoubtedly be useful as a way to categorize any type of authors, artists and scientists, the practical use of an author identifier will be strongly related to the availability of linked information such as lists of publications.
Writing from my own experience I would like to discuss a particular unique author identification system which has developed into a fully functional tool: ResearcherID. The ResearcherID system has been developed by Thomson Reuters as a feature to their Web of Knowledge database. Although it can be argued that the commercial nature of this database limits its use as a standard, the system has a very clear advantage for scientific research and assessment as the resulting profile is made available in the public domain. Since summer 2011, ResearcherID has achieved arguably the most important functionality of an author identification system, namely full integration with a complete database of publications and citation metrics.
The information obtained from Web of Science can be assembled by a researcher who makes a ResearcherID profile. A limiting factor here is the requirement of access to the services of Thomson Reuters, although it is possible to upload a RIS-formatted file. Most importantly, it is possible to link your ID to all your papers including those with variations in last name and/or initials. Information assembled by the researcher can be accessed through a personal profile webpage which includes an up-to-date publication record synchronized weekly with Web of Science, and a graphical representation of citations per year and h-index. This information is now publicly available, i.e. does not require a subscription to Thomson Reuters services. Here is an example of my ownResearcherID page. Authors sharing the same name, such as James Smith, can be easily distinguished once they have registered their own unique details. These ResearcherID profiles are fed back into Web of Science where they are available as Distinct Author Sets.
So why are not all scientists yet on ResearcherID? Perhaps relatively few scientists are aware of this option, or maybe some are not inclined to cooperate with a commercial company or do not have access to the database. For people with a commonly occurring or otherwise ambiguous name, ResearcherID is probably the best way at the moment for disambiguation of their publication record in one of the major databases. As ResearcherID is now as complete as Web of Science, it can be used for job interviews or grant applications. In my opinion every scientist should get their ResearcherID as soon as possible.
More information about ResearcherID and how it links to other unique author systems can be found here. Other unique author identifier systems which are being developed are the Scopus Author Identifierand the public domain ORCID. I would be interested to hear about other experiences with these systems and what you believe will be the best option in the long run.
Elsevier is going the wrong way How to become a successful scientist. » Survival Blog for Scientists
Elsevier is going the wrong way How to become a successful scientist. » Survival Blog for Scientists:
Posted in Getting published, Web 2.0
Elsevier is going the wrong way
Tags: Elsevier, interview, open access, open standardPosted in Getting published, Web 2.0
Summary
Reed-Elsevier’s daughter Elsevier has introduced as an experiment a new way of publishing science. The “paper” is now basically a website, in which the idea of a linear text is abandoned. The web interface implements access to text fragments, graphs, supplementary material, interview with an author, through hyperlinked tabs and mundane hyperlinks. In my opinion this development is a step backward and scientist should avoid publishing their material this way.
Reed-Elsevier’s daughter Elsevier has introduced as an experiment a new way of publishing science. The “paper” is now basically a website, in which the idea of a linear text is abandoned. The web interface implements access to text fragments, graphs, supplementary material, interview with an author, through hyperlinked tabs and mundane hyperlinks. In my opinion this development is a step backward and scientist should avoid publishing their material this way.Elsevier’s solution to a non-existing problem
Scientist agree that way too many papers are being published. In addition commercial publishers keep on launching new journals in an already overcrowded market. The desktop-publishing innovation has radically improved the productivity of scientists. There are many factors that hamper the progress of science, but the alleged inadequacy of present-day science publishing is not one of them.
Scientist agree that way too many papers are being published. In addition commercial publishers keep on launching new journals in an already overcrowded market. The desktop-publishing innovation has radically improved the productivity of scientists. There are many factors that hamper the progress of science, but the alleged inadequacy of present-day science publishing is not one of them.Elsevier and the InternetFor about ten years, until 2002, I have been an editor of the Elsevier journal Physics Letters. I have good memories of that time. Capable journal publishers with full scientific training and a journal with a beautiful
typography. In those days Elsevier was lagging behind as far as using the Internet for its communication with authors, referees and editors was concerned. I remember vividly that I warned them regularly to take the world wide web seriously. I am sure many of my fellow Elsevier editors uttered the same anxiety. I couldn’t understand why Elsevier did not react. This lack of perception on my side shows my ignorance about how multinational companies cope with major technological advances: they do not reinvent the wheel, no they just buy it. I do not know how many web-developing companies Elsevier Reed acquired, but it must have been quite a number. All the back-issues of their journals were scanned and put online. As a result Elsevier has a reasonable web performance. My respect for the management of Reed Elsevier.
typography. In those days Elsevier was lagging behind as far as using the Internet for its communication with authors, referees and editors was concerned. I remember vividly that I warned them regularly to take the world wide web seriously. I am sure many of my fellow Elsevier editors uttered the same anxiety. I couldn’t understand why Elsevier did not react. This lack of perception on my side shows my ignorance about how multinational companies cope with major technological advances: they do not reinvent the wheel, no they just buy it. I do not know how many web-developing companies Elsevier Reed acquired, but it must have been quite a number. All the back-issues of their journals were scanned and put online. As a result Elsevier has a reasonable web performance. My respect for the management of Reed Elsevier.I say reasonable, because it is still not great. The interface of the Elsevier portal ScienceDirect is clumsy and ugly. And if you really want to see a distasteful page, it is here: the official Elsevier web page for the press.
Elsevier and Dutch reportersEvery Dutch journalist gets a bitter taste in his mouth when the discussion comes to Elsevier. One of Reed-Elsevier’s daughters,Dagbladunie, once owned a few high-quality Dutch newspapers with a return on investment of about 13%. This return on investment was considered to be too low by the management of Reed Elsevier in 1995. The publishing company was used to higher returns with science publishing, So the company sold the Dutch newspapers. From then on these Dutch newspapers did not fare well as far as their finances were concerned. Amongst other mishaps they suffered from a raid by private equity firm APAX.
Problem 1 for science publishers: open access
The open access movement is gaining ground. The general public is getting interested in
the issue. Why should public scientific libraries pay a fortune to get access to papers in which results are is reported of research financed by the tax payer? It is useful to make a distinction between journals, like Nature, which are published by pure commercial publishing houses and journals, like Science, that are published by learned societies or other not-for-profit publishers. I must add that some learned societies, for instance the Optical Society of America, are in their behavior not any longer discernable from pure commercial enterprises.
The open access movement is gaining ground. The general public is getting interested in
the issue. Why should public scientific libraries pay a fortune to get access to papers in which results are is reported of research financed by the tax payer? It is useful to make a distinction between journals, like Nature, which are published by pure commercial publishing houses and journals, like Science, that are published by learned societies or other not-for-profit publishers. I must add that some learned societies, for instance the Optical Society of America, are in their behavior not any longer discernable from pure commercial enterprises.The non-commercial companies have much fewer problems with open access as the commercial ones. However all publishers realize that full open access will become a fact of life.
Problem 2 for science publishers: open standards
Standardization is always a hot issue in a market economy. The market leader likes to impose his standards on the market. From the moment on
that the company has succeeded i
t will start to continuously change its standard, making it very cumbersome for their competitors to get a market share.These lagging companies will complain and ask governments to interfere and are continuously trying to to influence public opinion. But as soon as the situation is reversed, and one of the plaintiffs gets dominance over the market he would start to behave exactly in the same way in protecting his own standard.
Standardization is always a hot issue in a market economy. The market leader likes to impose his standards on the market. From the moment on
that the company has succeeded i
t will start to continuously change its standard, making it very cumbersome for their competitors to get a market share.These lagging companies will complain and ask governments to interfere and are continuously trying to to influence public opinion. But as soon as the situation is reversed, and one of the plaintiffs gets dominance over the market he would start to behave exactly in the same way in protecting his own standard.Adobe is an admirable company. It has been in computer graphics and typography right from the start. It has produced postscript, a computer language to drive laser printers. Postscript was a revolution in desktop publishing. As postscript was not open-source, companies making laser printers had to pay Adobe a license fee to be able to use postscript in the firmware of the laser printer. These licensing fees made the company Adobe big.
But Adobe also introduced – in 1993 – the portable document format(pdf). An absolute blessing for science. This format can easily deal with graphs, figures, mathematical formulas, chemical formula’s etc. Its linear and inter-page independency makes for very fast web viewing. Although Adobe still holds patents for the pdf standard it is now officially an open standard. A pdf file is by the way the only file format that can be reasonably protected with encryption and passwords. In this respect it is superior to all Microsoft Office products.
All scientific papers are these days available as pdf files. A “reprint” of a scientific paper is identical to a pdf file copy. A publishing company that starts a new journal will have to supply its articles in pdf format. Submitting authors regularly have to submit their paper, including figures, list of references, supplementary material as a pdf file. Referee reports are sent as pdf files. This free exchange of scientific information through pdf files is an ideal situation for scientists. But it is a nightmare for companies like Elsevier. Monopoly seekers would like to control the scientific market and they would like to impose their own standard and get rid of the pdf standard. In the present experiment Elsevier still supplies the pdf version of the paper. But for how long? This new effort of Elsevier, if successful – which god forbade - would mean you cannot send reprints around any longer. You will have to supply your colleague with a web address of a commercial company, with – in the future very likely – paid access to be able to access the “web-paper”.
Context of discovery
Scientists are human beings. Some get heir inspiration in church, and others while watching a ball game, or by going to a conference. One can write novels about the life of a scientist. Richard Feynman wrote amusing books about his life. By reading such literature one can learn a lot about
the psyche of a scientist and the sociology of the scientific community. These activities are part what is called the context of discovery. The proof of Fermat’s last theorem made John Wiles famous and a cult figure, featuring in many tv programs. All these accounts will never make it into a physics, chemistry or biology journal. And happily so. But Elsevier’s experiment is an attempt to compromise the hard core of science. Any scientist can give an interview. The next thing is a scientist talking about his religious feelings as an explanatory introduction to his paper.
Scientists are human beings. Some get heir inspiration in church, and others while watching a ball game, or by going to a conference. One can write novels about the life of a scientist. Richard Feynman wrote amusing books about his life. By reading such literature one can learn a lot about
the psyche of a scientist and the sociology of the scientific community. These activities are part what is called the context of discovery. The proof of Fermat’s last theorem made John Wiles famous and a cult figure, featuring in many tv programs. All these accounts will never make it into a physics, chemistry or biology journal. And happily so. But Elsevier’s experiment is an attempt to compromise the hard core of science. Any scientist can give an interview. The next thing is a scientist talking about his religious feelings as an explanatory introduction to his paper.Context of justification
The body of accepted knowledge, that is the content of scientific papers when reproduced, when survived many challenges, and when finally widely accepted as true, belongs to the context of justification. Progress in science concerns increase of this knowledge. Brilliant scientific discoveries are part of this context. An interview with a scientist is not.
The body of accepted knowledge, that is the content of scientific papers when reproduced, when survived many challenges, and when finally widely accepted as true, belongs to the context of justification. Progress in science concerns increase of this knowledge. Brilliant scientific discoveries are part of this context. An interview with a scientist is not.
Didactics
If a proof of a theory is known and accepted it often can be simplified.
Initial mathematical derivations can take tens of pages and after a couple of years simplified proofs can be produced that take only a page or two. This simplification can be part of the context of justification. But didactics, defined as expressing the same thing in a simpler form without adding any new science, is not part of the context of justification. If the content of a paper could indeed have been better presented and explained as being done in the paper itself the authors wrote the wrong paper. Explaining the content of a scientific paper for lay people is not part of the context of justification and should be kept separate.
If a proof of a theory is known and accepted it often can be simplified.
Initial mathematical derivations can take tens of pages and after a couple of years simplified proofs can be produced that take only a page or two. This simplification can be part of the context of justification. But didactics, defined as expressing the same thing in a simpler form without adding any new science, is not part of the context of justification. If the content of a paper could indeed have been better presented and explained as being done in the paper itself the authors wrote the wrong paper. Explaining the content of a scientific paper for lay people is not part of the context of justification and should be kept separate.Mathematics has no video
I recently bought a new wireless router. I like the brand Linksys, but this company has been acquired by Cisco, so now the brand is Linksys-Cisco. The contribution of Cisco is certainly that the “improved” and more “timely” manual has become of terrible quality. The manual is extremely modern, so it is not just a simple pdf file that I could read and use to install my router. No the manual has become modernized: it is a video. I had to run this video maybe twenty times. The reason was that something in the vido was unclear, at least to me. So I had to go through the whole video over and over again. Oh I would loved to have had a linear text. With a linear text I would just have gone to the specific location in the text and read it, may be several times. That would be done in seconds in stead of the rerunning the video costing me half an hour.
I recently bought a new wireless router. I like the brand Linksys, but this company has been acquired by Cisco, so now the brand is Linksys-Cisco. The contribution of Cisco is certainly that the “improved” and more “timely” manual has become of terrible quality. The manual is extremely modern, so it is not just a simple pdf file that I could read and use to install my router. No the manual has become modernized: it is a video. I had to run this video maybe twenty times. The reason was that something in the vido was unclear, at least to me. So I had to go through the whole video over and over again. Oh I would loved to have had a linear text. With a linear text I would just have gone to the specific location in the text and read it, may be several times. That would be done in seconds in stead of the rerunning the video costing me half an hour.
The ultimate dull linear text is a pure mathematical treatise. This is a sequence of lemma’s and proofs. No interview with the author. No video.
What is wrong with linear text?A virtue of a linear text is its extreme inflexibility. The first sentence is supposed to be the first sentence and the whole text is a serial line of arguments and presentations. Inflexibility can be a great virtue. On toll ways in France there are almost no exits. This inflexibility makes transport along these toll ways very effective. In my country, the Netherlands, every village requires its highway exit and gets supported by Parliament. As a result maximized flexibility but speed zero.
Technical problems
Present day (x)html rendering is still poor. This is easily seen in theexperimental text of Elsevier. I will give just one example. The web text of the Cell paper uses tens of times the chemical formula “Ca2+”, whereas the pdf version tells us that it should be “Ca2+”. As you can see in this post the superscript is possible in html but then ugly varying line spacings are introduced.
Present day (x)html rendering is still poor. This is easily seen in theexperimental text of Elsevier. I will give just one example. The web text of the Cell paper uses tens of times the chemical formula “Ca2+”, whereas the pdf version tells us that it should be “Ca2+”. As you can see in this post the superscript is possible in html but then ugly varying line spacings are introduced.
The text lines in the Elsevier’s web texts are much to long. This makes reading tiresome. Narrowing the window does not help as the Elsevier developers have prevented the text from wrapping. In addition the text is not fully justified but ragged right. It is well-known that fully justified text can be read quicker.
Elsevier is afraid of open discussionI am not at all saying that the context of discovery is not important for science. In this respect I like the forum discussions and comments in which scientists participate. Elsevier started its new experiment, “the article of the future” and says it welcomes feedback. Reactions can be given in two ways: through a web form or via email. But these are old-fashioned one-way communication channels. Why not open up a forum and allow people to discuss openly? The company that claims to have invented the article of the future communicates with the community in a previous-century way.
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