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Creative Commons For Science
chrisspurgeon writes "The folks at Creative Commons are rolling out a new project aimed at improving the dissemination of scientific publications and data. The National Institutes of Health is already proposing mandated Open Access to all NIH-funded research, and many scientists welcome the free redistribution of their papers, they just don't know the legal details of how to do it. The Science Commons project will take on the copyright problems unique to scientists (things like pre and post prints, and electronic vs. paper journal distribution)."
All reputable scientific journals have a peer review system wherin the research to be published must first be scrutinized by other experts in the field. I don't see why free access to research publications would change this.
Yes, we will. Truthfully some of our work is government funded but it's already well partitioned to begin with. I don't see how any of this can be a bad thing for either big pharma or the creative commons, science edition.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
"It should be pointed out that when an article is declared a "work of the U.S. Government" it is not simply that the copyright cannot be transferred to the AMS, but rather, that the work is declared public domain and no copyright protection exists for it at all. Despite numerous articles published each year in AMS journals that have been declared U.S. Government works by the authors, the AMS attempts to carry on its role of steward of the authors' intellectual property for these articles by trying to ensure that the scientific integrety of the work is preserved in any reuse and that proper attribution is given the original authors."
I think you meant "author pays" (although commonly publication costs are paid from the grant that funds the research, or from the authors' institution(s)).
For years, journals have imposed "page charges" to defray part of the publication costs; PLOS and others recover essentially all of the costs from their authors (but since most or all of their distribution is electronic, their costs are lower than for traditional print journals). Their authors' fees are higher than typical "page charges" since they have no income from subscribers.
I don't know enough about the expenses here to say whether that's a real problem.
Roughly speaking, there are no expenses.
The editor is usually a volunteer, and the reviewers are always volunteers. The editor sends your manuscript to two or three referees, who mark it up and write him a report. He then takes their names off the reports, and forwards them to you, with his decision (usually either ``forget it'' or ``revise and resubmit''). All this is done electronically, so costs are nil.
Reviewing is the price you pay for submitting to a journal: if you submit, you'll start getting articles to review. Doing a good job on these can only help your standing with the editor, and get you better referees and a better chance of helpful criticism on your next submission.
Aside from a secretary for the editor (not all publications have this), the only paid employees are the guys who run the printing press and the fat cats who take your checks to the bank. The authors and would-be authors do the writing, the peer review and the typesetting, and in return, the publisher takes the copyright and the profit.
See what I've been reading.
So many of you seem to be saying "Grants don't allow companies sell the technology" or "A business should not profit from public money".
But let me share something with you..
There is a program called SBIR (Small Business Inovation Research). In which small businesses ( under 500 employees) can submit for grants for very (typically) very specific "problems" the various federal agencies want to have solved. With an end result being commercialization of your product/technology.
It goes like this..
1. Feds put out a list of solicitations
2. You submit a paper describing your idea and how commercially viable it is
3. You may or may not get "Phase I" funding for research.
4. Now, if you did well in Phase I you can submit for "Phase II" funding. Which gives you more money. This step is primarily to help get your product into the market. So you better have a good set of sales numbers ready.
Sometimes the "product" is something that the Feds will want to buy from you (e.g. NASA, US Army, etc..) and other times it will have civilian application. So if you want it to have civilian application, you can work on that too with the grant money.
And in regards to IP, you retain exclusive rights to ALL work you have done. And the US Govt. also has right to the technology, but not to sell it, just to use/improve/rework it.
This is not free money, you do need other sources of capital in order to progress in the funding. They aren't giving out free money without you doing some work and showing you can generate outside interest.
The point of the program is to grow the US economy and also to provide the US Govt. with R&D for technology it finds it has a need for.
There are many details that I have just glossed over. But you can find out more here.
There is a national conference twice a year to learn more about the program. You can find out about that by going here.
It has a sister-program called STTR which allows you to work with a university and use their labs and staff. You can learn about both at the conference, I find them quite informative.
Here are some links for those who want more background and detail on the open access movement:
h ive.htm
Open Access Overview
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
(my introduction to OA for those who are new to the concept)
Open Access News blog
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
(my blog, updated daily)
SPARC Open Access Newsletter
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/arc
(my newsletter, published monthly)
FAQ on the NIH public-access policy
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/nihfaq.htm
Timeline of the open access movement
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
What you can do to help the cause of open access
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#do
Peter Suber
http://xxx.lanl.gov/
sorry, its not porn. don't know why they chose xxx
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.