Scientists Demand Open Access to Research

An AC sent in: "15,817 scientists have threatened to boycott all journals that refuse to provide free public online access to their articles within 6 months of publication. After all, the scientists provide the articles free of charge. What's the excuse the journals use? They claim that public archives introduce errors into the articles, making them unreliable!" We've run stories about the journal debate before; see this one or this one or this one. But it sounds like scientists are getting a bit peeved now - good for them. The lesson that "No, you don't have to give up all your rights to your work in exchange for publication anymore" is one that musicians could stand to learn as well. I guess the scientists are faster learners.

Comments

Re:Scientists aren't faster learners...

[rgmoore]

For scientists, their livelihoods are sponsored by universities, not directly through the act of publishing. Publishing is used as a benchmark of academic reputation, and although academic researchers are expected to publish, universities are much more understanding about this sort of protest than the landlord of a starving young musician.

Spoken like a non-scientist. Publication is not just the measure by which scientists are judged, it is in a real sense the only truly valuable activity that academic scientists do. Research that is carried out an never published is wasted; it's the sharing of that knowledge with the rest of the world that makes the process worthwhile. And while the Universities that are the scientists' nominal employers are fairly tolerant, they aren't really the ones who pay the bills. The government granting agencies are the ones who pay the bills, and they are quite unlikely to give grants to anyone without a publication record to justify their trust. Promotions are also very heavily based on publication track record, so anyone without tenure who tries this is seriously risking his career; if you don't get tenure your first time around you're not likely to be given a second shot by anyone. An artist who doesn't sell any work for a few years is normal and won't suffer from it later in his career; an academic scientist who doesn't publish anything for a few years is pretty much through with his career. The situation is quite harsh.