Alexandra Elbakyan

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Alexandra Elbakyan (2010) at Harvard University in the USA

Alexandra Asanowna Elbakyan ( Russian Алекса́ндра Аса́новна Элбакя́н ; born November 6, 1988 in Almaty , Kazakhstan ) is a programmer and founder of the shadow library Sci-Hub .

Life

Elbakyan studied at the Technical University in Almaty in Kazakhstan until 2009 , graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science with a focus on information security. She then worked on a brain-computer interface project at the University of Freiburg and began to be interested in transhumanism .

After an internship at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA, she returned to Kazakhstan, where she launched the Sci-Hub website in 2011 . Sci-Hub makes scientific articles available to the public free of charge according to the guerrilla open access principle , accepting the violation of copyright .

The reason for setting up Sci-Hub was Elbakyan's dissatisfaction with the high prices that publishers charge for scientific articles. This pricing policy makes the work of scientists much more difficult.

In 2015 Elbakyan was sued by the science publisher Elsevier in the USA. Since then she has been in a secret location in Russia. She willingly answers all questions about Sci-Hub except for her own stay.

In 2016, Elbakyan was enrolled in a small private university studying history of science. In her thesis she deals with scientific communication.

reception

Elbakyan has been compared to Edward Snowden by the New York Times for unlawful disclosure of information and is currently in Russia to escape US justice. Ars Technica drew parallels between her and Aaron Swartz .

The Nature Publishing Group named Elbakyan in their list of the ten most important people of 2016.

literature

  • John Bohannon: The frustrated science student behind Sci-Hub . In: Science . tape 352 , no. 6285 , April 29, 2016, ISSN  0036-8075 , p. 511 , doi : 10.1126 / science.352.6285.511 , PMID 27126021 ( sciencemag.org [accessed November 26, 2017]).
  • Ian Graber-Stiehl: Science's pirate queen. Alexandra Elbakyan is plundering the academic publishing establishment . In: The Verge . February 8, 2018 ( theverge.com [accessed February 15, 2018]).

Web links

Commons : Alexandra Elbakyan  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Элбакян Александра Асановна / RUNET ID .
  2. ^ A b c John Bohannon: The frustrated science student behind Sci-Hub. In: sciencemag.org. Science, April 28, 2016, accessed February 22, 2017.
  3. VK profile of Alexandra Elbakyan. vk.com, accessed February 22, 2017 .
  4. Quirin Schiermeier: Pirate research-paper sites play hide-and-seek with publishers. In: nature.com. Nature, December 4, 2015, accessed February 22, 2017.
  5. Global Consciousness . May 7, 2012.
  6. Neurolab> Potter Group .
  7. a b John Bohannon: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone . In: Science . tape 352 , no. 6285 , April 29, 2016, p. 508-512 ( sciencemag.org [accessed November 26, 2017]).
  8. Chris Woolston: Paper piracy sparks online debate . In: nature.com. Nature, May 2, 2016, accessed February 22, 2017.
  9. Kate Murphy: Should All Research Papers Be Free? In: nytimes.com New York Times, March 12, 2016, accessed February 22, 2017.
  10. ^ David Kravets: A spiritual successor to Aaron Swartz is angering publishers all over again . Condé Nast. April 3, 2016 .: "Just as Swartz did, this hacker is freeing tens of millions of research articles from paywalls, metaphorically hoisting a middle finger to the academic publishing industry, which, by the way, has again reacted with labels like" hacker "and" criminal. " Meet Alexandra Elbakyan, the developer of Sci-Hub, a Pirate Bay-like site for the science nerd. It's a portal that offers free and searchable access "to most publishers, especially well-known ones."
  11. Richard van Noorden: Nature's 10 - ten people who mattered most this year In: nature.com. Nature, December 19, 2016, accessed February 22, 2017.