HEY! Are you a University Student? Do you have access to databases of published papers?
SAVE THEM! WHEN YOU GRADUATE YOU WON'T HAVE ACCESS ANYMORE! SAVE EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER LOOKED AT - SAVE MORE IF YOU CAN!
if you're an academic who doesnt make their papers widely accessible for free you can not complain about your fellow citizens "not following the science"
@exiliaex one of the people I follow on here mentioned something about wanting to make her most recent paper accessible and finding out that it cost significantly more to publish her paper that way.. so as usual, this is the fault of the journals, not the individuals
@julieofthespirits @exiliaex right, and I don’t think the answer is just “all scientists publishing research should bend the knee to journals and pay the fees”
@julieofthespirits @2d as someone whose only experience with academia was working IT/software-dev at a uni for 5 years - it's nice to have some others with more experience helping me adjust my understanding
@julieofthespirits @exiliaex @2d
Emailing a copy of your paper to anyone who asks is a time-honored tradition too.
Making things accessible has little to do with publication.
Use a preprint server and/or web page to post preprints, including the final submitted draft (but not anything reformatted by a publisher).
Publishing does not make research available, and making research available is not in itself considered publishing, these days, at least in the current sense of "academic publishing".
At a minimum all publicly funded research should be available to the public without charge.
@exiliaex I have at times felt tempted to denounce all paywalls as non-science.
I can't verify claims made about studies locked in the dark, so from my point of view, it's gossip, not stats.
If this seems harsh, I have an unassailable epistemological argument, with perfect evidence, showing I'm right, but it'll cost you...
@exiliaex What's missing in the comments here is that Arxiv exists. You can upload the "preprint" there, which is completely legal and makes it available for anyone.
(Or at least in the fields where Arxiv is used, such as my field.)
@exiliaex if one accepts public funding for one’s research, it should be made freely available to the public. and not after some stand-down period. right away. i’m blessed to be in the precise field that invented https://arxiv.org/ where all my papers have been available for $0 since the day they were born as preprints
@exiliaex Younger academics, be like your auntie Roz: I have a running directory of almost all of the research papers and monographs I've read since 2013. Sure, I still have university credentials, but you never know when you won't just be able to look up a paper on the web, and it's worth holding onto them in any case. it takes up a fifth of my laptop's hard drive lol
@gardencourt aaaaand external hard drives exist! perfect for large databases of texts that you dont regularly need to grab from but still want permanent access to when you do need to grab one!
come to think of it, my work laptop is practically a portable SSD with built-in pdf reader, text editor, and TeX engine 
(this post reminds me that my external backup needs updating)
@exiliaex jokes on you, the university i was in doesn’t subscribe to the publishers that matter so i went to the places that shall not be named anyway
@exiliaex Noted! o7
@exiliaex I have to say my university gives me lifetime access as an alumni. It is a few more hoops to jump through than being a student, but many unis do have this benefit.
You could edit Wikipedia. If you do it regularly, you get access to the "wikipedia library", a ressource that is very similar to the access members of universities have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library
@exiliaex and idk if this is good advice or not... But anything that is locked behind a paywall, maybe accidentally submit it to sci-hub. Obviously that's a huge accident and you really shouldnt do it, but accidents do happen from time to time....
@exiliaex fwiw if you get a STEM job after finishing school, you can probably afford to join https://aaas.org and thereby keep your journal access... while also promoting science in public life. Plus it's tax deductible. And their swag is *chef's kiss*
dee starlight :trans_verify:
@exiliaex@masto.anarch.cc im currently a uni student, are there guides or any specific files needed to be backed up that I can.... uh... use my student level permissions to "examine"?
@exiliaex @neuronenstern same goes for any DRM free academic ebooks you get access to through your library systems
@exiliaex Continuing this - never trust a computer that you do not own. Download everything. Hard drives are cheap.
Hey! Are you publishing an academic text?
MAKE IT AVAILABLE FOR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!