Scitable pulls scientific research out from behind the paywall

I experienced quite a personal shock when I aged out of having access to my university's research portal. The vast catalog of peer-reviewed journals, empirical studies, and thorough analytical research I had at my disposal as a student was boarded up behind a distinct paywall not long after I finished school.

The fast-moving news, blogs, forums, and free tools I had been taught to eschew were suddenly all I had. My principal option (besides re-enrolling in school) was to become a member of a research service like LexisNexis or NewsLibrary; but those portals cost several hundred dollars a year each.
I suddenly recognized that the best information on the Web is not free.

But Nature Publishing group, the publishers responsible for the academic journal Nature, and the consumer publication Scientific American are changing that.

The group has spent the last year advancing a service called Scitable, which removes that academic paywall, and puts high-quality, vetted scientific learning materials online freely for anyone to use.

While this is itself useful, Open Access is only half of Scitable's mission; the other half is Open Discussion. To achieve this, Scitable has built-in collaboration tools that let teachers, researchers, and students hold online discussions about science topics 24 hours a day in the form of message boards, chats, private message threads, and "learning paths."

Currently, Scitable is limited to articles in the field of genetics, which are intended for college undergraduate faculty and students. But the site will eventually grow to include other topics.

This means students from different schools can share discussions on common subjects, or connect with researchers in a subject that they're studying; and teachers can utilize the information as a supplement to their textbooks and learning materials.

It is, in effect, a Collaborative Learning Network, a social construct that the Linux community has long embraced, except instead of basing it on communal knowledge, it is based upon information approved by an academic source.

Scitable is completely free, but receives funding from sponsors Intel, Roche Applied Science, Tata Consultancy Services, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, and New England Biolabs.