US Research Open Access In Peril

luceth writes "Several years ago, the U.S. National Institutes of Health instituted a policy whereby publications whose research was supported by federal funds were to be made freely accessible a year after publication. The rationale was that the public paid for the research in the first place. This policy is now threatened by legislation introduced by, you guessed it, a Congresswoman who is the largest recipient of campaign contributions from the scientific publishing industry. The full text of the bill, H.R. 3699, is available online."

Comments

dufus decisions

[k6mfw]

Any of you get the feeling that anything coming out of Washington DC these days causes problems? While many bitch that Obama is a socialist/marxist (even though nobody in this country can describe what these are) it seems these people are hell bent on creating a Soviet Russia of sorts. I say this because I heard it difficulties USSR scientists had because of restrictions on reading publications and getting published. This has gots to rank as my Bitch Of The Month.

Re:dufus decisions

[gatkinso]

Greed is what inspired the US to be great.

Moderating that greed is what actually makes us great.

We need greed, as sad as that is.

Re:dufus decisions

[causality]

While many bitch that Obama is a socialist/marxist (even though nobody in this country can describe what these are) it seems these people are hell bent on creating a Soviet Russia of sorts.

Rather than trying to comprehensively define subjective and inherently nebulous terms, I prefer to keep it simple. Obama is a statist.

Unlike myself or the Founding Fathers, he does not view government as a necessary evil that's only a little better than having no government, nor does he view it as a deserving object of mistrust. He doesn't want legitimate matters of governance to be handled by the smallest and most local level of government that is able to manage them. He likes centralization for its own sake and accepts the regimentation that comes with it. He subscribes to the belief that people should be commanded and controlled rather than reasoned with, that they should not only tolerate this but also welcome it.

He may claim to be a Christian, a few may believe he is actually a Muslim, but his true religion is Statism. A lust for power is part of this religion, but only part. It's not quite that simple. It also involves a genuinely-held belief that people are unable to manage their own affairs, that they need and should desire for their "betters" to decide what is good for them and what should be important to them, that only the collective matters, that individual life and individual thought and individual liberty are meaningless. It's a form of dehumanization in favor of institutionalization.

If you understand what this really is, then you see why baser things like greed or desire for power are naive oversimplifications. Believe it or not, these people are not stupid. They know their policies cause more problems than they solve. They are not merely ignorant or misguided. People like Obama and most of Congress believe they are working towards some kind of greater good, that the damage they knowingly do to society will somehow be worth it when their utopia (really a dystopia) is finalized. The label "Marxist" is a feeble attempt to describe this quality.

Other than a few rare exceptions, this does not merely describe Obama. It also describes nearly anyone capable of acquiring the funding and the political backing it takes to win a federal election. It's sort of like an elite club and anyone who would seriously change things or otherwise rock the boat isn't invited. During the history of this nation, what we have changed from the statesman to the politician to the career politician to the ruling class with an extremely high incumbency rate. Average Joes don't stand a chance of winning a federal election. Candidates don't emerge; they are groomed.

Like they said on Monty Python's Life of Brian, "blessed are those with a vested interest in the status quo."

Re:dufus decisions

[Grygus]

I might agree with that. The problem would then be that we've dropped the moderation.

Re:dufus decisions

[Guy Harris]

Unlike myself or the Founding Fathers, he does not view government as a necessary evil that's only a little better than having no government,

And, of course, unlike that most-definitely-not-a-Founding-Father-no-way Alexander Hamilton, who made that most-definitely-not-Founding-Fatherish statement that

In countries where there is great private wealth, much may be effected by the voluntary contributions of patriotic individuals; but in a community situated like that of the United States, the public purse must supply the deficiency of private resource. In what can it be so useful, as in prompting and improving the efforts of industry?

Re:dufus decisions

[Sponge Bath]

You've asserted an interesting collection of terrible motives to the president with no supporting evidence. But, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and now we know yours.

Re:dufus decisions

[f97tosc]

Other than a few rare exceptions, this does not merely describe Obama. It also describes nearly anyone capable of acquiring the funding and the political backing it takes to win a federal election.

What I find so strange is that so many people make this very argument, yet they still go out and vote for the same standard statist candidate. For example probably most tea partiers will vote for the republican nominee and most in the occupy movement will vote for Obama (even though he is the biggest recepient of Wall Street money and all his economic people are closely tied to Wall Street). If one really believes that the mainstream candidates are the same, then one realizes that it is much better to "waste" one's vote on an independent/smaller candidate. And if enough people do this then there will be real change.

Congresspeople doing favors for donors

[trunicated]

Color me shocked.

This will never change until lobbying and donations on a corporate scale are either severely limited or outright made illegal and enforced with harsh punishment. However, since it would be Congress that would need to change those laws, it's never going to happen.

Who watches the watchers, fox guard the henhouse, etc.

Re:Congresspeople doing favors for donors

[Black Parrot]

This will never change until lobbying and donations on a corporate scale are either severely limited or outright made illegal and enforced with harsh punishment.

Thank all the gods that the Supreme Court figured out that campaign contributions don't "necessarily" buy politicians. Otherwise we might be tempted to jump to an uncharitable conclusion, in cases like this.

Re:Congresspeople doing favors for donors

[Caerdwyn]

If we outlaw corporate contributions to candidates, we must also outlaw:

• union contributions (direct or indirect)
• PAC contributions (ALL of them, including YOUR special interests)
• national party committee spending (direct or indirect)
• governmental agency lobbying
• any financing originating outside the country

The only source of campaign contributions should be registered voters, and capped. Corporations are not registered voters. Neither are unions, PACs, non-citizen immigrants (legal or otherwise), minors, felons (sorry, Wall Street, sorry, Earth First), or anything else. If you can't vote, why should you be allowed any other influence? That is a privilege reserved for citizens... it is what citizenship is all about. Yeah, sure, that means a whole lot less money floating around for propaganda, but is that bad? Why would replacing glitzy attack TV ads (expensive) with written position statements (cheap) be undesirable? And if someone isn't sufficiently motivated to open their wallets to support their candidates, fuck 'em. The lazy and apathetic will do what the motivated damned well tell them to (I'm looking at YOU, moderates, you lazy couch-dwelling motherfuckers. The national party committees, ALL of them, are owned by Constitution-hating would-be dictators because extremists are the only ones who give a damn enough to do anything other than whine, and the national committees are not about philosophy... they're about money.).

Re:Congresspeople doing favors for donors

[SETIGuy]

No thanks, registered voters only. Having a pile of unnecessary kids should not get you extra political points.

Obligatory but apt:

[forkfail]

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

The feds can't mandate openness, but...

[ironjaw33]

With this bill, the feds paying out the grants (NIH, NSF, DARPA, etc.) can't mandate the openness, but the research institutions and the researchers can do it themselves. There have already been a few discussions on here about some of the better known US schools mandating that all research be published in open conferences/journals. At the last conference I attended, there was a business meeting where it was discussed that we can (and should) attach copyright waivers to the standard ACM copyright form so that we retain copyright of our work and are free to distribute it.

Re:The feds can't mandate openness, but...

[CrimsonAvenger]

With this bill, the feds paying out the grants (NIH, NSF, DARPA, etc.) can't mandate the openness, but the research institutions and the researchers can do it themselves.

Umm, no.

No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that--

(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work;

Note that the publisher has a veto on it as well, if it's published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Re:The feds can't mandate openness, but...

[ironjaw33]

You don't seem to understand the wording of the bill. Federal agencies are barred from mandating open access policies -- in the context of TFA they are talking about funding bodies like the NIH which award grant money to other institutions who perform the research. This leaves the institutions receiving the grant money, usually universities which aren't attached to the federal government, free to do as they please. Lastly, publishers accept copyright waivers all the time, and some schools, like Princeton, mandate that you submit one if the publisher wants to claim copyright. Some Commonwealth countries, like Australia, claim copyright on all publications their universities produce and submit these waivers with each publication.

Name and party affiliation

[bhlowe]

Don't make us click on the stupid article to find out the name, location, and party affiliation of a politician.
Use: Rep Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) instead of "a congresswoman"

Re:Name and party affiliation

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You listed the Democratic cosponsor, but not the Republican sponsor. So much for exposing affiliations.

Re:Name and party affiliation

[Nethemas the Great]

Make sure you include "all" sponsors. Oh wait, you only wanted to malign the democrats... Oh well, too bad, this was a bi-partisan sponsored bill so I'll FTFY.

H.R. 3699 was introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Committee member Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)

Re:Name and party affiliation

[braeldiil]

Why am I not suprised that you managed not to mention the actual sponsor, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). Rep Maloney is the other sponsor, but the bill was introduced by Rep. Issa. For reference, this is Rep. Issa's third bite at this particular apple - he was a cosponser on a similar bill in 2008 and 2009. Rep Maloney was also a cosponser in 2009.

Re:Name and party affiliation

[Nerdfest]

Man, your elected representatives really seem to hate your country.

The academic publishing scam

[Grieviant]

There was an interesting article on the academic publishing industry recently. When you get all the material refereed for free (actually, on the dime of the colleges and research institutes who pay the reviewer's salary), there's just no reason why the charges should be soaring up past $20 per article like they have in the last 10 years.

The greed doesn't stop there either. Not long ago I was a volunteer at a fairly prominent IEEE conference. The cost of attendance per person is in the $600-$1000 range. Despite contributing 12+ hours of work, one of the co-chairs had to fight with the organizers just to get them to foot the bill for our lunches.

Re:The academic publishing scam

[Anonymous Coward]

The publisher got all the material for free?! No! Even worse! Scientists MUST pay when their article gets accepted. Reviewers work on a volunteer basis, NO payment whatsoever. The publisher often does NOTHING to article other than checking formatting issue. Often times, scientists themselves have to fix formatting issues. The review process is usually organized by a volunteer chief editor. The chief editor then decides what to publish. Publishers did ZERO on the science part and almost zero on the formatting part. After then, the publisher CHARGES libraries or individual readers for the electronic copies for which it does ALMOST NOTHING!

I like the definitions section on this one...

[CrimsonAvenger]

(3) PRIVATE-SECTOR RESEARCH WORK- The term `private-sector research work' means an article intended to be published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of such an article, that is not a work of the United States Government (as defined in section 101 of title 17, United States Code), describing or interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a Federal agency and to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review or editing. Such term does not include progress reports or raw data outputs routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding agency in the course of research.

With this definition, they've basically declared all work not done by Federal Employees "Private sector", even if paid for entirely by the Federal Government, so long as the work is published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Why are bribes even legal?

[headkase]

I'm serious, why is it even legal for politicians to accept any kinds of money outside of their salary?! If that one thing was done - illegal to accept any outside money - then I'd optimistically predict that politics wouldn't be the sh*t-hole it is today.

Re:Why are bribes even legal?

[Local ID10T]

Why are bribes even legal?

Because the people accepting the bribes are the people deciding what is and is not legal.

Oh, this should be good....

[Zocalo]

Check out the co-sponsor; it's none other than one Darrell Issa (R-CA). Yup, the same one that is opposed to SOPA and has proposed the alternative OPEN. Not so opposed to abuses of the copyright system, it appears... I now can't help but wonder whether OPEN was merely put forward as a Plan B just in case SOPA flounders in the light of all the negative publicity. Time to check the small print, me thinks.

Tell your congress critter - POPVOX

[Nethemas the Great]

Make sure you let your representing congress critters know your displeasure for such legislation. Don't let corporate money be the only voice.

Liberate Science!

[presidenteloco]

Some would say liberty made the US great.

In natural justice (tm) or basic apolitical logic of the situation, liberating published science is not a crime. Hoarding it and charging a toll like a bridge troll ought to be.

It's a good thing natural justice trumps US "law".