Why we need semantic chemical authoring

Since I have recently posted about Molbank (an Open Access journal of chemical structures and syntheses) I started to have a look at some articles. I should emphasize that I am generally in favour of what Molbank is doing (making information freely available I shall discuss exactly how in a week or so.) But the first article I encountered had a feature that even a non-chemist could spot. I have posted the first part of the article after my comments. Note that I can do this as Molbank allows non-commercial use, whereas some commercial publishers would already be reaching for the lawyers… And please do not take this as a criticism of Open Access – almost all chemical papers that we review using software show one or more detectable and avoidable errors. Take it in fact as a compliment to Openness in that Open papers are exposed, are open to criticism in a way that closed access are not.
My main argument is that if we had semantic authoring tools – this type of error could not occur (or would at least prompt the author):
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Molbank 2006, M478

http://www.mdpi.org/molbank/

Microwave assisted esterification using Fe2(SO4)3.4H2O/concentrated H2SO4 as efficient catalyst

Krunal G. Desai1,*, Kishor R. Desai1 and D. Padmanabhan2

1Department of Chemistry, Synthetic Organic Chemistry Research Laboratory, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat-395 007 (Gujarat), India.

Tel: (0261) 2258384, Fax: (0261) 2258384

2Board of Radiation and Isotope Technology, Vashi Complex, Navi Mumbai-400 705 (Maharastra), India.

e-mail: kgdapril@yahoo.co.in

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed

Received: 27 June 2005 / Accepted: 6 September 2005 / Published: 31 March 2006

Keywords: esterification, Fe2(SO4)3.4H2O/con.H2SO4 as catalyst, microwave effect

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One Response to Why we need semantic chemical authoring

  1. Update: the corrupted MOL files have been replaced end of 2008 at http://www.mdpi.org/molbank/. Molbank will migrate to the http://www.mdpi.com/ platform and join the other MDPI journals that have done this recently.

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