Dutch Academics Declare Research Free-For-All

houghi writes "The register reports how the Dutch open up their research to the rest of the world. It goes on to tell that commercial scientific publishers such as Elsevier Science are not happy with it. Will other countries and universities follow, or will they stick to the idea that knowledge is a commodity?"

Comments

knowledge is power

[UlfGabe]

like i said, giving up all of these smarts is the best thing for the world. screw those journals.

Re:knowledge is power

[Anonymous Coward]

Established scientific journals are actually of great value, because what is published in these is supposed to be rigorously reviewed by other experts in the field. The legitimacy this provides is precisely the reason why scientists often pay a journal large amounts to have something published (clearly, scientists recognize their value, even though the Slashdot crowd does not).

The fact that many journals are struggling economically these days is not a good thing. And the fact that the information is not "free" does not mean that the information is closed off to the public. It just means that you (or your university, company etc.) need to contribute a small amount to part of the scientific process in order to access it.

Anyone who has ever written a scientific article knows that citing something you've pulled of some internet site does not carry much weigth. I'm not saying this Dutch solution is just "some internet site" (the article does no give much detail); I'm just making a general statement about the important role played by scientific journals.

Make the world a better place

[CVD1979]

I personally belief that freeing knowledge will be a first step to a much better world. "Beware for he who wishes to keep knowledge from you, because in his heart, he wants to control you." - Brother Lal, Peacekeepers (from the game Alpha Centauri, not the most credible quotes but there you are)

When knowledge is a commodity, you'll see a vast upsurge in new knowledge. Well, at least when Google starts to index all the available knowledge, of course.

Salute the Dutch

[tacocat]

Enough of the fucking Doctor Evil posts...

The Dutch should be singled out as a great example of the scientific and engineering devolopment entity that made the Renaissance possible. Without the open participation and sharing of knowledge social and cultural progress would be at a standstill.

If you don't believe me, think where we would be without the Guttenburg printing press or how much information was flowing on the internet when it first came out and was an open community of academians and researchers.

When commercial jet airlines first developed, the BOAC had a plane called the Comet. It was the first plane to experience problems with metal fatigue and stress cracks. The industry at that time was very involved in finding solutions to problems and making better planes. As the direct result of this, the companies involved would share any and all information available in terms of problems and solutions in order to develop the entire industry rather than attempt to promote their own agendas.

This is a significant, albeit old, example of the synergy that can exist when information is shared freely rather than traded as a commodity. Unfortunately US industry, judicial, and legislation seem to have forgotten some of these lessons.

These Dutch aren't so "Freaky Deaky" but truely a credit and an example. Knowing the US, we'll probably bomb them because of some bullshit Patriot Act IP terrorist clause. The contrast makes me ill.

Re:headline incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not all research papers, but only research papers already available for free to everyone. [..] Let's not forget that most scientific papers are not available for free.

I am working at one of the involved universities, and since a few years ago we do have an official policy of never signing over any copyrights to publishers in preparation of this move.

In reality things don't work that way: since the university still judges our productivity by tracking publications, we do sign any form we have to to get our stuff into the important journals. Both the university and the big publishers have been ignoring this inconsistency for some years. As you may have noted, I am posting AC because I am terrified of publisher's copyright lawyers.

This way of measuring productivity is simply wrong: I never directly use the library anymore. I depend completely on Google Scholar. On my computer Google Scholar includes the university subscriptions to publishers, of course, but publications of the last 5 years are usually also available for free.

Most of my publications are freely available online, and they are representative of the things I have been doing over the last decade. They are also the things that get referenced most often. One usually writes two or three versions of essentially the same story in a period of 2-4 years, and the best one ends up in an article (and will never be read, and rarely referenced).

Reviewers work for free

[Dr. Spork]

I don't know how much you know about academic publishing, but the reviewers for even the expensive journals work for free. Basically, it's professors doing all the research AND all the reviewing, they get no money for either, and the journal sells back all this content to those very same academics for incredibly huge sums. (In some cases thousands of $ for a quarterly journal.) Really, it's absurd.

The barrier to a better system is that many of the established "high prestige" journals are the culprits who are skimming money from universities in this way, and getting in the way of open communication among researchers. What's needed is for the top reviewers and submitters to emigrate en masse to more responsible academic publishers. Yeah, unlikely - unless something major like this goes down and kick-starts the process.