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Publisher Pulls Supports; 'Research Works Act' Killed
crabel writes "It appears the dreaded Research Works Act is dead. The bill would have prevented agencies of the federal government from requiring public access to federally subsidized research. After Elsevier pulled its support, it was decided that no legislative action will be taken on the bill."
A glimmer of hope as well: "Meanwhile, attention has shifted to another proposed bill: the reintroduced Federal Research Public Access Act, which would require public access." Elsevier has vowed to battle it, however.
Sign the petition(s) to the Congress
http://www.congressweb.com/cweb2/index.cfm/siteid/sparc
and to the white house
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/strengthen-public-access-publicly-funded-research-and-support-federal-research-public-access-act/jF4mxRc4
Unless you like being locked out behind a paywall from research paid with your tax dollars.
and it is good to hear it is dead, but on the other hand, the man pulling the strings will most likely be pushing for something else.
weill be a good idea to keep an eye on what this guy/group pushing this is up to
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
"Don't we want public access to things funded by public money?"
Yes. And the "Research Works Act" would have essentially forbidden open access of said research.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Because the bill prevented federal agencies from requiring public access. The people doing the research could have provided public access but they could not be required to provide that access.
Warning, cape does not enable user to fly
Done.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Blame it on poor wording. As worded, it reads that the bill would prevent agencies from requiring public access, which would indicate that, had it passed, agencies would not have been able to require public access.
Properly worded, it would have indicated that the bill would have prevented a requirement of public access by government agencies.
Not quite right either. It would have prevented a requirement of government agencies to provide public access.
When you publish a paper in most peer-reviewed journals, you don't own that paper. A condition to getting published above and beyond the peer-review process is to sign over the copyright to the journal. You pay the publisher to print the article and then have to sign over the copyright. This is allowed to continue in large part because of the "publish or perish" environment in academia. The publishers can then charge excessive fees to access articles.
Federally funded research should be in the public domain unless there's a very good reason it shouldn't be, such as legitimate national security interests. Elsevier is objecting to the FRPAA because mandating open access to federal research would prevent them from hiding it behind copyrights.
The current system is broken in many ways. FRPAA isn't the answer, but it's a step in the right direction.
This is very probably the result of a widespread boycott of Elsevier started by Cambridge mathematician Timothy Gowers and other researchers. Supporting RWA was one of the reasons they were fed up with Elsevier.
How it all started: http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/
If people want to keep up with this are aren't, following fakeelsevier on twitter is a humour way to so do. I for myself am not sure how all this is going to turn out. Publishing is not as expensive as it used to be, and much of the work to publish is essentially funded by grants and unpaid, so there is good arguments to made that publicly funded non profits consortiums can and probably should handle most of the heavy lifting. Libraries receiving a glossy magazine that researchers then have to manually copy is certainly out of date. Free, access my reciprocal agreements, or moderately priced online access certainly make more sense. Like book publishing, the fight against free access is a fight to keep to legacy and inefficient jobs and machinery in place. Economic growth not by freeing resources and talent to build new industry of the future, but by keeping resources locked away in fear that something different is something bad.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
As anyone who has ever done research before would know, the name of the bill is a total fabrication. Good riddance.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
It's whack.
I'll try to explain it simply:
The government finances scientific research, with tax money.
That research is conducted by scientists, then other sicentists review the research for flaws, and finally the research is published in scientific journals. Elsevier is the editor of several such journals.
Elsevier and other publishers do not pay scientists who do research and they do not pay the scientists who review the original research either. They don't pay anybody. They only pay the publication of journals (i.e. printing). And then they sell those journals for a very, very expensive sum of money. I don't have the prices, but it's so expensive that only universities buy these journals (even public libraries can't afford them).
So Elsevier and other publishers like them make a ton of money through the work of others.
Now get this:
The government wanted research that it finances to be available to the public. Your tax money pays for research, therefore you should have access to that research - makes sense, right?
Well Elsevier had a problem with that. Publishers such as them try to keep the research for themselves, in order to force universities and public services to buy their journals. So Elsevier pushed the Research Works Act.
As the summary says, this act would make it illegal for the government to say "we'll pay for this research, but on the condition that the results are made public". Yes, I know how crazy it sounds but no, there's no mistake.
It's like you paying an artist to make a painting, and then being forced to pay a publisher (on top of the artist) in order to receive the painting.
The Federal Research Public Access Act, on the other hand, is a law that makes public access mandatory for research that is financed by the government. It's a good thing. Currently, the government can choose to pay for research without the results being made public. Where do you find the results then? In the journals of Elsevier and co. Why should you pay to see the research your tax money financed? You shouldn't!
So that law is a good thing. It would put an end to research paid with tax money but locked away from the public. With that law, if your taxes pay for research, then you get access to it, no exceptions.
On top of giving you what you are owed (i.e. the research you paid for), this law will also help science in general.
The premise behind science is that every fact can be checked. You can either do the research yourself, or you can read the papers on the original research. This is important for scientists because if scientist A could not know what scientist B did, science would not advance.
However, it is also important that the public be able to access the research. Science is important in society. Take global warming: there's a lot of controversy about it. Maybe it's real, maybe it's a hoax. People should be able to see all the research on it (and I mean the full original research, not a summary), and make their own opinion. Of course understanding all that research requires knowledge and intelligence, but people who wish to look at it should be able to do that. Science is about evidence and proof - science is not "I'm a scientist so believe everything I say!". Having science locked up behind expensive journals forces the public to trust scientists entirely, instead of letting the public study the research and make its own opinion.
And why are expensive scientific journals an issue now? Because of the Internet and advances in computers. Before, these journals had to be printed. If you haven't seen these journals before, trust me, they're huge and there's usually a new one to print each month. Printing costs are high (although nowhere close to the sale price - trust me, the publishers make insane profits).
But as long as these journals were printed, people tolerated the high prices. But now, with the Internet, the publishers have very little costs. The articles are written by scientists. They are also reviewed by other scientists. The editors do
The statement "The bill, HR 3699, would have prevented agencies of the federal government from requiring public access to federally subsidized research. " sounds like the bill would have prevented the requirement that federally funded research be public? I must have my head up my ass again...
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
Done. But /.ers are lazy:
Sign the petition(s) to the Congress
http://www.congressweb.com/cweb2/index.cfm/siteid/sparc
and to the white house
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/strengthen-public-access-publicly-funded-research-and-support-federal-research-public-access-act/jF4mxRc4
well said. One point of interest to some: When you publish through almost all journals these days, they recognize that the version you submit is yours. The version that is peer reviewed is yours. The version that you give to them for typesetting is theirs once they do said editing, typsetting, printing.
The problem is that with the time and effort it takes to get to the ready to print stage, only a small percentage of papers get 'published' in the pre-typeset form. almost all the info is there as it will be printed. I think some journals may claim some restriction, especially on 'public databases', but the ones I'e read are fairly straightforward about this (they may request you put a note in the document to the effect of 'this is a preprint of an article published in Journal XYZ on DD/MM/YYYY. Arxiv.org has gotten rather popular, but only for a small set of technical categories. DOE agencies have a lot of their papers posted on their websites. DOD less so, but DTIC.mil has a bunch. Both are spidered by google scholar.
When I get more moderator posts I will come back and mod this up. Well written. Thank you.
http://www.busyweather.com/
So, there is yet one more reason to boycott the Dutch bandits at Elsevier? Bastards. Join the boycott at http://thecostofknowledge.com/
Looks like the Elsevier boycott by academics had an effect. Still, this looks like more of a tactical response than a real change in position for Elsevier.
There is a list of a lot of "open access" repositories at:
http://roarmap.eprints.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROARMAP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_access_archives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArXiv
In addition to funding agencies with open access requirements for research they fund, some fairly "big name" institutions in the US maintain documents produced by their faculty:
Harvard Arts and Science - http://roarmap.eprints.org/75/
University of California - http://roarmap.eprints.org/55/
MIT - http://roarmap.eprints.org/122/
Engineers and Computer Scientists have this sorted with LaTeX. Others can take advantage of graphical editors for LaTeX like LyX, and generate publication quality manuscripts. The typeset output from the LaTeX IEEE template is not identical to what the IEEE finally typeset, but it is a very close copy. Similarly the Microsoft Word template is pretty good too.
I know many journals only want 'plain text' and then do the typesetting. There is a lot of skill in this and it does cost money. Perhaps if the journals received LaTeX formatted text then the paper could be open access for free? Fat chance.
Open Access is required at my university, and we are required to publish the 'accepted version', but not the 'published version' (with some exceptions). OAKList provides a reference for publication policies.
... The government wanted research that it finances to be available to the public. Your tax money pays for research, therefore you should have access to that research - makes sense, right? ... if your taxes pay for research, then you get access to it, no exceptions ...
I like to think about possible unintended consequences, consider also applying these ideals to government sponsored source code ...
Doesn't the GPL violate the spirit of such open access? It denies some taxpayers the ability to use government funded source code, namely those who would use the taxpayer funded code in a non-GPL project. Shouldn't government funded source code be accessible to both the GPL and BSD communities? Why does a researcher being paid by taxpayers get to decide which taxpayer communities get access? Just to be clear, of course anyone developing their code at their own expense has every right to make the code GPL only. However if someone else is paying the bill that other person gets to make the call.
So if legislation can force government funded research to be made available without restriction then the same could be required of government funded source code.
"After Elsevier pulled its support, it was decided that no legislative action will be taken on the bill."
Is that all it takes to push a bill, the support of one company ?
GREAT. If you think patenting your research and locking it behind a pay wall is the way to make money then do it. Just don't ask me(the tax payer) to fund it for you. Go, start your own business. You have a PhD you can do this. Put on your big boy pants and stop asking us tax payers to fund your research.
If, on the other hand, you want our help with funding then quit griping and play by OUR rules. If you take our money then you are working for us. Whatever your work produces while you are working for us is ours. If you don't like it then get another job or start your own company.
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice" -- God
Done. Spread this around.
Because we are given jobs by big university HR departments. They count up "impact factors" and other BS metrics to measure your output. So publishing elsewhere can be a good way to not get your next job.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
if your taxes pay for research, then you get access to it, no exceptions.
What about classified research? e.g. weapons research? There need to be some exceptions, but they should be the exception, not the rule
I'll try to explain it simply:
The government finances scientific research, with tax money.
That research is conducted by scientists, then other sicentists review the research for flaws, and finally the research is published in scientific journals. Elsevier is the editor of several such journals.
Publisher, not editor.
Elsevier and other publishers do not pay scientists who do research and they do not pay the scientists who review the original research either. They don't pay anybody. They only pay the publication of journals (i.e. printing). And then they sell those journals for a very, very expensive sum of money. I don't have the prices, but it's so expensive that only universities buy these journals (even public libraries can't afford them).
So Elsevier and other publishers like them make a ton of money through the work of others.
On the other hand, it does cost quite a bit to print a journal. It's on high-quality paper, not the normal rubbish, and it's done with a very high quality print mechanism. A copy of a journal is supposed to be able to survive for at least a century with only minimal effort at maintenance. A journal paper is for life (and beyond), not just for Christmas.
Which isn't to say that the current situation is right either. Too many rights have been signed over in the past. Prices are not necessarily right either (though long-term preservation of data is also surprisingly expensive if you're actually serious).
Now get this:
The government wanted research that it finances to be available to the public. Your tax money pays for research, therefore you should have access to that research - makes sense, right?
Well Elsevier had a problem with that. Publishers such as them try to keep the research for themselves, in order to force universities and public services to buy their journals. So Elsevier pushed the Research Works Act.
As the summary says, this act would make it illegal for the government to say "we'll pay for this research, but on the condition that the results are made public". Yes, I know how crazy it sounds but no, there's no mistake.
It's like you paying an artist to make a painting, and then being forced to pay a publisher (on top of the artist) in order to receive the painting.
But getting access to the work isn't free. It might be very cheap, it might be paid by someone else, but it's not going to be free. For some works of art, it would be the costs involved in getting to see it that would dominate (there's lots of public art in NYC, but it's not very cheap to access from Colorado). For others, the reproduction costs might be covered through your internet access charges or through advertisements.
For science, access is somewhat different. In particular, there's three key parts: the data, the method and the results. There's a habit of making both method and results available through journals (which isn't a bad method, though it is slow) and conferences (quicker, far more ephemeral) that have been peer-reviewed (a good thing!) Now you also see people putting what they do online, but usually then without peer review (discounting the writing of nasty comments in Twitter) so there's very little filtering at all. The problem with a lack of filtering is that it means there's no inclination for people to actually prove their argument; research shouldn't be a bunch of advertorials!
The third part is the data. We're still learning how to effectively put that online. (Just piling it up in a big heap on a disk with no backups and piss-poor search is not a good way, and Google aren't good at indexing this sort of thing as it isn't link-heavy.)
[...]
And why are expensive scientific journals an issue now? Because of the Internet and advances in computers. Before, these journals had to be printed. If you haven't seen these journals before, trust me, they're huge and there's usually a new one to print each mont
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
nitpick: Which would be impossible, since you already posted in this discussion ;)
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
This is a German company, why are they allowed to lobby our government?
Anglo-Dutch actually. I worked for them as a contractor in their Oxford and Amsterdam offices.
Just FYI, I am trying to write my Masters Thesis from home and so I was trying to look up several research papers that I could use as part of my thesis work. Because I'm not at the school on one of the school's computers or VPN'd into their network, I don't have "free" access to these journals. So I decided to see how much an article would cost to get a copy, thinking they would be around $5-$10 each, but hoping for like a dollar or two(like the cost of a digital manga issue). Much to my surprise, EACH article was $30+. Not each issue of a journal, but each article in the journal would cost me $30. Now you include 20-30 of such articles in a journal, and you can see that the prices are approaching $600-$1,000 per issue.
Here is a better direction, How about the tax payers telling government where to spend the tax dollars they insist we pay them. The system is already there with government revenue collections that they can direct each tax payers funding according to what each tax payers wants their taxes to be spend on.
In other words, know any tax payers who'd not want access to what they pay for?
though long-term preservation of data is also surprisingly expensive if you're actually serious
Afaict jounal papers are usually well under 10 megabyte each. That means you can fit over three hundred thousand of them on a modern hard drive.
Lets say you can put four drives in a server and you use raid 5 (purely to speed up recovery, multiple servers provide the real redudancy), that is over 900000 papers on a server.
Now suppose said server costs a thousand pounds a year for hosting and periodic replacement and you want one on each continent for redundancy. You are talking £7000 per year.
That is less than a penny per paper per year.
Unless you want to protect against the end of civilisation or something I just don't see any reason digitally archiving papers should be all that expensive. Certainly it should be a tiny fraction of the cost of paper archives.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Yeah but, you are involved with a university, you should have no problem getting a membership and then cheaper fees or just go all out and get a full repository access.
But...why don't you VPN into the network, that's what I did when i wanted stuff from ACM.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
I had a friend whose employer had him sign up for classes (which he never attended) at our university, just so he could access journal articles. A few thousand dollars of tuition was far cheaper than the subscription for the engineering jounal they wanted articles from. I don't remember how much he told me that was (it's been a few years) but it was either $30,000 or $60,000.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
I laughed. I cried. Then I just laughed.
http://publishers.org/researchworksFAQ/