I found a great quote and analogy from an essay published in Current Biology by Peter Lawrence titled The mismeasurement of science. This essay takes a look at how science is measured and examines the use of impact factors and other metrics that measure scientific progress for individual scientists, academic departments and institutions. The quote [...]
Elements of this post are taken from my article “PLoS ONE Publishes First Taxonomic Paper” on The Other 95% on May 28, 2008. I’ve reposted it here as I am collecting my thoughts about open access publishing. ———————————————————- Why should one support open access publishing of taxonomic papers? Visibility is important to the field of [...]
This article was originally published February 20, 2008 at The Other 95%, where a good comment thread is also archived. I am reposting because I plan on discussing open access and electronic publishing in taxonomy more and feel this article sets the mood for my future thoughts. I recently posted an update on state of [...]
I’m known for being stingy with my authorship lists. I don’t believe collecting samples, doing a couple PCRs, or otherwise being present, or even bouncing ideas off of, justifies you name as a author on scientific paper. I am skeptical of long author lists in top-tiered journals. I do like to promote my hard-working undergraduate [...]

In May of 2008 I enthusiastically lauded PLoS ONE for publishing their first open access paper that described some new species of ants. It has been a year and half since then, have there been other taxonomists taking to this new concept of a completely online, open access forum for publishing new species? Currently, only [...]