ECS celebrates 115 years of academic publishing

ECS is celebrating its 115th anniversary this year by giving the world a preview of what complete open access to peer-reviewed scientific research will look like. ECS will launch the first Free the Science Week, April 3-9, and take down the paywall to the entire ECS Digital Library, making over 132,000 scientific articles and abstracts free and accessible to everyone.

In April of 1902, a group of innovative young scientists sought a new forum to discuss, publish, and disseminate developments in the growing field of electrochemistry. They formed the American Electrochemical Society in Philadelphia, the home of independence and the first free public library in the United States; a history befitting an organization that aims to Free the Science around the globe.

More than 100 years later and operating now as ECS, scientists and engineers worldwide are still engaged in our thriving community. Now, as electrochemistry and sold state science & technology become ever more relevant to the future of our planet, holding the keys to innovation in renewable energy, biomedical, water, sanitation, communications, transportation, and infrastructure sectors, ECS is continuing to find ways to lead and influence our scientific field.

Free the Science Week is part of ECS’s long-term Free the Science initiative, which will provide free access to the peer-reviewed research in the entire ECS Digital Library, not just this week, but permanently.

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All ECS content will be accessible to over 8,200 institutions

ECS is partnering with Research4Life to provide accessibility to over 132,000 articles and abstracts published in the ECS Digital Library. All papers published by ECS will be free to access for more than 8,200 institutions in an effort to reduce the scientific knowledge gap between high-income and low- and middle-income countries by providing free or affordable access to critical scientific research.

The ECS Digital Library is home to the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, the flagship journal of ECS, published continuously since 1902, and to the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, ECS Electrochemistry Letters, ECS Solid State Letters, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, ECS Transactions, ECS Meeting Abstracts, ECS Proceedings Volumes and the ECS quarterly membership magazine, Interface.

The research published in ECS journals directly addresses the sustainability of our planet, with topics ranging from renewable energy storage and conversation to clean water and sanitation.

“Open access, especially in electrochemistry and solid state science, is an important goal for scientific and technological development and, quite simply, creating a better world.” says Roque Calvo, executive director of ECS. “ECS’s partnership with Research4Life is a step toward ensuring that everyone working on these issues, wherever they are in the world, has access to the latest research.”

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We are fast approaching the exact date of our 115th anniversary. On April 2, 1902, the American Electrochemical Society (as ECS was called in the beginning) held its first meeting in Philadelphia. In the transactions of the first meeting, President Joseph Richard’s wrote:

Such is the force, the necessary condition, which has brought into existence The American Electrochemical Society… being, therefore, a necessity, a pressing need, its formation was inevitable… The results having justified the insight of the projectors of the society, the first meeting has been an enthusiastic success, the organization now exists, its future assured of usefulness. With confidence we stand out to sea.

Today, we feel the same “necessary condition” and “pressing need” for inevitable change. This time, however, our goal is to change our publishing business model to completely open the ECS Digital Library while maintaining our high standards of peer review and adapting new technologies and principles related to open science.

We believe that we have an imperative to implement Free the Science, both from a research standpoint—our sciences have broad implications for human and environmental sustainability—and from a scholarly communication perspective—we believe everyone should have the same access to share and acquire knowledge. With open access and open research receiving such a crescendo of support from governments, funders, advocates, and scientists, we believe that ECS can provide leadership in the impending publishing revolution.

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By: Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories.

On March 14, or 3/14, mathematicians and other obscure-holiday aficionados celebrate Pi Day, honoring π, the Greek symbol representing an irrational number that begins with 3.14. Pi, as schoolteachers everywhere repeat, represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

What is Pi Day, and what, really, do we know about π anyway? Here are three-and-bit-more articles to round out your Pi Day festivities.

A silly holiday

First off, a reflection on this “holiday” construct. Pi itself is very important, writes mathematics professor Daniel Ullman of George Washington University, but celebrating it is absurd:

The Gregorian calendar, the decimal system, the Greek alphabet, and pies are relatively modern, human-made inventions, chosen arbitrarily among many equivalent choices. Of course a mood-boosting piece of lemon meringue could be just what many math lovers need in the middle of March at the end of a long winter. But there’s an element of absurdity to celebrating π by noting its connections with these ephemera, which have themselves no connection to π at all, just as absurd as it would be to celebrate Earth Day by eating foods that start with the letter “E.”

And yet, here we are, looking at the calendar and getting goofily giddy about the sequence of numbers it shows us.

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I hope most of you have heard of ECS’s initiative to Free the Science. Our goal is to make our high quality, peer-reviewed research in the ECS Digital Library freely available to everyone. That means authors can publish for free and anyone, anywhere, can read papers, abstracts, or proceedings without a subscription. We think it will revolutionize the progress made in our niche of science and we hope it will set an example for other publishers, especially those that are nonprofit societies, to pursue a more robust open access business model.

As we celebrate our 115th anniversary this year, Free the Science couldn’t be more important. The research that YOU do has the ability to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues from energy independence and clean water, to safety and medical technology. We don’t think it’s too bold to say that our science can save lives and ensure our planet’s sustainability. And that’s why, more than ever, we must work together to Free the Science.

But our initiative to Free the Science is hardly free. While we want to open access to science there is a cost to producing peer-reviewed research. It takes time, money, and know-how to disseminate quality scientific research. After 115 years in the field of scholarly communications, ECS has the knowledge and bandwidth to implement such an initiative, but we need the support of our membership to make it happen.

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EJ Taylor is the chief technical officer and intellectual property director at Faraday Technology, which focuses on research and development services related to aerospace, energy, environmental, manufacturing, and medical markets.

He is the current ECS treasurer as well as the chair of the ECS Free the Science advisory board.

Taylor’s work includes corrosion sensing technologies, electrochemical cells for printed circuit boards, and electrochemical water treatment technologies.

Listen to the podcast and download this episode and others for free through the iTunes Store, SoundCloud, or our RSS Feed. You can also find us on Stitcher.

By: Tom Solomon, Bucknell University

“The evidence is incontrovertible. Global warming is occurring.” “Climate change is real, is serious and has been influenced by anthropogenic activity.” “The scientific evidence is clear: Global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and is a growing threat to society.”

As these scientific societies’ position statements reflect, there is a clear scientific consensus on the reality of climate change. But although public acceptance of climate theory is improving, many of our elected leaders still express skepticism about the science. The theory of evolution also shows a mismatch: Whereas there is virtually universal agreement among scientists about the validity of the theory, only 33 percent of the public accepts it in full. For both climate change and evolution, skeptics sometimes sow doubt by saying that it is just a “theory.”

How does a scientific theory gain widespread acceptance in the scientific community? Why should the public and elected officials be expected to accept something that is “only a theory”? And how can we know if the science behind a particular theory is “settled,” anyway?

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By: Carolyn Conner Seepersad, University of Texas at Austin

As millions of students of all ages return to school this fall, they are making important choices that have a strong influence on their eventual career path – which college majors to pursue, which high school classes to take, even which elementary school extracurricular activities to join. Many of them – especially women, girls and members of minority groups – make choices that lead them away from professions in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Women are just 13 percent of mechanical engineering undergraduate students. And women earn only 14.2 percent of doctorate degrees in mechanical engineering. More broadly, women make up 49 percent of the college-educated workforce, but only 14 percent of practicing engineers nationwide.

When these disparities persist, everyone suffers. Women miss out on opportunities in growing and highly paid occupations that require science and engineering skills. Furthermore, diverse design teams are more innovative and often avoid key flaws when designing products and systems with which we interact on a daily basis. Early airbags designed by primarily male design teams worked for adult male bodies, but resulted in avoidable deaths of female and child passengers. Early voice recognition systems failed to recognize female voices because they were calibrated for standard male voices.

How can we get more women into engineering fields, and help them stay for their whole careers? We need their insight and creativity to help solve the problems facing our world.

Options for action

Experts tell us that there are a variety of things that will help. For example, we need to encourage young girls to develop their spatial skills, laying the foundation for further scientific exploration as they grow.

We also need to find ways to help women feel less alone as they help us build a more inclusive engineering community. This includes hosting female-focused engineering interest groups on campuses and in workplaces, and highlighting engineering role models who reflect the true diversity of our population.

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There’s a lot of noise in our world today about separating fact from fiction. We are constantly bombarded with volumes of information and data—and we are challenged with what and who to believe?

But when it comes to electrochemistry and solid state sciences, and related fields, be assured that the ECS journals are a source that you can trust. For 115 years, ECS has been publishing high quality, peer-reviewed journals that contain work from YOU—renowned scientists, engineers, inventors, and Nobel Laureates. YOU also provide the high quality and knowledgeable peer review of manuscripts submitted for ECS journal consideration. From our meetings proceedings, ECS Transactions, to our journals, the Journal of the Electrochemical Society and the Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, we maintain rigorous standards that land our publications in the top ranked, most cited in the world.

ECS is also one of the only remaining independent, nonprofit society publisher of electrochemistry and solid state science and technology. With over 3.2 million full-text article downloads in 2016, we are seeing an increase in use of the ECS Digital Library since we have transitioned to hybrid open access, with the future goal to completely Free the Science, ensuring complete access to our entire body of knowledge.

We’re proud of this legacy and we thank you for the contributions that you’ve made to ECS publications through the years.

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