Re: Errors in author's versions

[Peter Banks <pbanks@bankspub.com>]

The problem with your hypotheses today is that they cannot be 
tested. In clinical medicine, it is rare to find post-prints or 
pre-preprints posted in repositories. That could change in the 
future, though I suspect not, because authors themselves probably 
won't want anything less than than their most proofed and 
polished work available.

Suppose, however, that clinical medical articles were widely 
available in pre- or post-print forms. It is likely that any 
dangerous mistake that found its way into usage and resulted in 
harm would be a rare event. The fact that there is a very small, 
though finite, potential for harm is not an argument for the 
failure to exercise due diligence by distributing only that 
information that is as carefully reviewed and refined as 
possible. In every field--whether engineering, aviation, or 
medicine--we check and cross check information to guard against 
the possibility of a highly improbable yet potentially 
catastrophic event.


Peter Banks
Banks Publishing
Publications Consulting and Services
Fairfax, VA 22030
pbanks@bankspub.com


On 7/10/06 4:21 PM, "David Goodman" <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU> wrote:

> I propose 2 working hypothesis:
>
> I. There are no published medical articles having an author's OA
> version differing from the publisher's version, where the
> author's OA version has a error critically affecting patient
> care, and the publisher's version does not have the error.
>
> II. There are no published medical articles having an author's OA
> version differing from the publisher's versions, where the
> publisher's version has a error critically affecting patient
> care, and the author's OA version does not have the error.
>
> I also propose the stronger hypotheses:
>
> III. There are no published scholarly scientific articles having
> an author's OA version differing from the publisher's version,
> where the author's OA version has a error invalidating the
> article as a whole, and the publisher's version does not have the
> error.
>
> IV. There are no published scholarly scientific articles having
> an author's OA versions differing from the publisher's version,
> where the publisher's version has a error invalidating the
> article as a whole, and the author's OA version does not have the
> error.
>
> I propose these as hypotheses; I know of no examples
> contradicting any of the four, and several knowledgable people
> have also no examples to offer.
>
> (There will presumably be some less drastic differences, whose
> frequency and importance is a matter for further investigation.)
>
> Examples will be of interest, online or off.
>
> I mention that I expected to easily identify a significant number
> of such examples, and have failed to find any; I have not the
> least idea or prejudice whether such articles do exist.
>
> Dr. David Goodman
> Associate Professor
> Palmer School of Library and Information Science
> Long Island University
> and formerly
> Princeton University Library
> dgoodman@princeton.edu