I think prevention of semantic extraction to diagrams would better pitched as "another unforeseen negative consequence of agreeing to Elsevier's terms", rather than as a significant part of the problem. If this story became a major part of the larger narrative, Elsevier could respond to this particular concern in a limited way (special access for researchers that apply for it), rather than dealing with the more central concerns.
people don't realize how quickly text mining is coming along these days.
the chemistry papers talked about in this article are an easy domain, but similar shredding of more general documents will be possible by 2018.
developing all this takes people's time and other resources, for which money is a proxy. the best way to beat Elsevier is to build something better -- but that something better is going to take substantial funding.
Scientific papers can be published online at a cost well under $35. Add bureaucracy to that, however, and the cost can increase to 100 times. Conventional funding agencies have a limited interest in long-term programs (as opposed to projects) so that organizations find it difficult to afford to maintain digital libraries after they are built. To bring the evil empire down, somebody needs to figure out how to get that $35.
Comments
I think prevention of semantic extraction to diagrams would better pitched as "another unforeseen negative consequence of agreeing to Elsevier's terms", rather than as a significant part of the problem. If this story became a major part of the larger narrative, Elsevier could respond to this particular concern in a limited way (special access for researchers that apply for it), rather than dealing with the more central concerns.
people don't realize how quickly text mining is coming along these days.
the chemistry papers talked about in this article are an easy domain, but similar shredding of more general documents will be possible by 2018.
developing all this takes people's time and other resources, for which money is a proxy. the best way to beat Elsevier is to build something better -- but that something better is going to take substantial funding.
Scientific papers can be published online at a cost well under $35. Add bureaucracy to that, however, and the cost can increase to 100 times. Conventional funding agencies have a limited interest in long-term programs (as opposed to projects) so that organizations find it difficult to afford to maintain digital libraries after they are built. To bring the evil empire down, somebody needs to figure out how to get that $35.