Slashdot Mirror
White House Tells Agencies To Increase Access to Fed-Funded Research
Z80xxc! writes "The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a "policy memorandum" today requiring any federal agency with over $100 million in R&D expenditures each year to develop plans for making all research funded by that agency freely available to the public within one year of publication in any peer-reviewed scholarly journal. The full memorandum is available on the White House website. It appears that this policy would not only apply to federal agencies conducting research, but also to any university, private corporation, or other entity conducting research that arises from federal funding. For those in academia and the public at large, this is a huge step towards free open access to publicly funded research." Edward Tufte calls the move timid and unimaginative, linking to a Verge article that explains that it's not quite as sweeping as the summary above sounds.
Or will the DOJ indict President Obama, too?
Now we just need to cut the journal publishers out of the system entirely, since they provide no useful or necessary service. Academic publishers are parasites that exploit the volunteer labor of scientists; we no longer require their services to spread articles around the world. We have the Internet, let's just use it and stop clinging to obsolete ideas like copyright.
Palm trees and 8
What a joke. Any research receiving tax dollars should have any and all research associated with it available to the public. Don't want to make your research public, then don't take tax money.
The second article notes that agencies can withhold papers that for protection of economic or national security. While this limitation might be reasonable if the order covers all Government-sponsored research, it only covers that research which has been published. If by "published" the order means "published in a public-domain journal" and the aim is to simply bring Government-sponsored research out from behind journal paywalls, then the research had already been screened by the funding agency to make sure nothing that needed such protection was released. So, any "bad guys" would already have access to the information simply by having a subscription to the journals in question. Thus, this is, or should be, a non-issue. If "published" includes reports submitted to the Government as part of contract requirements (status and final reports), that could be more problematic as these are not all generally releaseable. However, I think what's being addressed here is the issue of bringing research out from behind paywalls, something that should not have any problems meeting "protection of security" issues and has been a long time coming.
Like, in 5 years, finish your plan which calls for a 20 year rollout of the information.
This doesn't DO anything.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
It's not perfect, but it's a big step forward. The first year of a paper's "life" is important, to be sure, but it doesn't mean the time after that is unimportant--I just submitted a paper with citations going back to 1970! So far the NIH open access policy has worked out pretty well. And the simple fact is that without some embargo period, the journal lobby would have gone insane ... and unfortunately, they've got enough of a voice in Congress to ensure that any requirement for instant open access would be shot down hard. This move, OTOH, will create some grumbling, but any attempt to reverse it by law will meet the same political fate that previous attempts to reverse the NIH policy have done, probably dying in committee without ever even making it to a floor vote. Which is, you know, a good thing. This may be a mediocre result for science, but Obama's a politician, not a scientist, and it's very good politics indeed. To quote another cliche, "half a loaf is better than none."
If there's anything I'm worried about, it's the usual list of "security" exemptions. There's some research which, for security reasons, never gets published in any journals, of course. (I've heard rumors that NSA has its own list of "journals" that are only ever seen by NSA mathematicians--they run exactly like journals in the outside world, just with a very limited audience. I have no idea if this is true, but it's believable given the sheer amount of brainpower NSA employs.) That's understandable, if annoying. But if an article is published in a journal that's available to the world as a whole, then claiming that keeping it paywalled contributes to "national, homeland, and economic security" in any way is absurd.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Why within a year and not immediately? (just don't dare give me the "national security" BS! If it would be of "classified nature", then it wouldn't be published in a journal that provides the paper for anyone willing to pay 30 bucks or so).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Exactly what the President promised us in his memorandum titled "Transparency and Open Government ".
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Will outside of the research community read the publications?
Even if it's hard for you to believe it, the answer is positive (and I'm not doing it for monetary profit either)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I care, because I often do deep literature searches. Unfortunately, this requires me to plow through 20 or 30 citations to understand the prior research. About 90% of those are behind paywalls. It typically costs $30 - $45 per paper to get access to the whole thing. And about 2/3rds the time it was worthless.
It is very easy to blow a couple hundred dollars to review tangential research that may have been relevant.
How many of these papers were written with government grants? Darned close to 100%. If you take public money for your research, then we should be able to access the paper without cost.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
National Security =/ Paywall. More dumb loopholes.
Nah, I'm sure it will work this time.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Don't be stupid. This research is funded by your tax dollars. The system before was that universities would do the research then "publish" the results by way of private publishing firms who then charge us to look at the papers. First, I'm pissed off that research *I* funded gets walled off from me. I don't know how many times I've searched for write-ups on code technology I thought might be useful to my efforts only to get cut off becuase the technology is question was behind a paywall. 2- YES, "outside the research community read the publications." 3- Seeing as how the federal government funds these efforts with mine (and presumably your) tax money it would be particularly galling to me to learn that they would simply transfer the profits of these papers from private firms to themselves. No, I prefer having full access to research that I payed for, thank you.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Will outside of the research community read the publications?
Yes. If you're genuinely interested in science, then relying on pop-sci reporting for your information will drastically mislead you. I don't know how many times I've seen a blurb about some science story on Slashdot, downloaded the original article (one of the advantages of being an academic at a large school that subscribes to most journals of interest) and seen that the summary was completely wrong.
And here's something you may not have thought of: those inside the research community don't always have access either. Like I said, I'm at a large school and have access to most journals I want to read. Occasionally even I run an abstract for something I think would be really useful, but can't get access to. Libraries at smaller schools often don't have nearly as large a subscription list, and of course independent researchers--yes, they do exist--are SOL unless they can pay for everything out of their own pockets. Given the number of articles you have to read in the preparation of a single paper these days, that gets very expensive very fast.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Researchers should post their data in sqlite files as well as flat text files. XML should be banned.
They'll just classify everything top secret and even less information will be released.
Who modded this up? Was it because it was denouncing copyright? Otherwise the comment seems to be a load of crap modded up by people who either don't actually deal with publishers or who only go through the motions of publishing papers without thinking about what they actually do. I do think there is a lot of problems with copyright and paywalls, and that journal publishers siphon too much money out of research projects, but saying they do so while not providing any service isn't going to help you find actual solutions to the problems.
The Constitution is out the door, the American taxpayer is under assault from the CONgressMEN, the budget will never balance except by raising taxes, there will be no accountability from our "elected" officials, corporate immunity with impunity dictating government policy to the detriment of the governed. All of it reigns supreme, but hey, how about them Ravens?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Even at my large research university I still can't get access to a huge number of journals. My advisor, for example, literally does not have online journal access to some papers he has wrote.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Good now there going to change an outrageous amount for a copy of said Data. I files a police report and they want to charge me 15 bucks for a copy i didn't know paper cost so much lol
Jack of all trades,master of none
spend your tax dollars developing it, and if its something useful its sold to suck the most profit out of your wallet by the now private company who developed it.
I like paying for stuff twice
And why then can't you just go to your local university library to get access? I mean really, it's not that hard. I'm not a big fan of the publishing industry, but I've never had trouble getting access to an article I needed. If the library doesn't have a subscription, interlibrary loan works pretty well.
The problem is somebody has to pay for the publishing. It's not free. It costs money to hire editors, typesetters, to print paper copies, to run servers, to solicit peer reviewers and make editorial decisions, to maintain archives, to maintain searchable databases, to electronically archive older papers, to do artwork (yes, I know, but it's still part of it), to solicit news/reviews/perspective articles. So where is that money going to come from? Right now a chunck comes from the researchers themselves. The rest comes from the subscription fees. You can argue that more tax money should go to support publication, so that there will be more open access. But either way, money is going to come from public pockets. The cost of publishing has to be borne somewhere. Do you want more of the NIH/NSF/DOE/DARPA/etc budget to pay for publishing instead of research? Or do you want to raise taxes to support a publishing fund of some type? What's the solution? Because I see a lot of griping, but no real solutions.
This needs to be looked at carefully for any security issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
All publishing has costs, but those costs are by no means fixed, and neither are the prices. In general, traditional publishers have much higher profit margins than OA publishers do (note the "in general"--you can always find a specific OA publisher that's more profitable than a specific publisher, but I'm talking about trends) and while I don't claim by any means that all academic publishing should be non-profit, I also don't believe that universities and funding agencies should pay any more than necessary to enrich those who want to sit back and collect money for other people's hard work. And electronic-only publishers, or publishers which primarily publish online and offer bound yearly volumes to those who want to pay for them, have signficantly lower costs than paper publishers. So anything that encourages authors to look toward OA and/or electronic publication is a good thing, IMO.
From the other side, for a given cost, there's the question of what you get for a particular amount of money. The OA-after-embargo policies of NIH, MRC, HHMI, and Wellcome Trust have added value to traditional journal publication. There's no journal I know of that says, "We'll publish your article for free, unless you're funded by an agency which requires OA after six months or a year, in which case you have to pay a publication fee." (I'm not saying there aren't any that do this, just that I haven't run into them.) Some of them offer instant OA for a fee comparable to those charged by OA publishers, which is reasonable enough, but you can choose not to pay that fee and your work will still be generally available after the embargo. This makes the research more useful without adding to the cost.
And really, I have no problem with funding agencies paying for publication as well as research, because "publication vs. resarch" is a false dichotomy--publication is part of research; if you don't publish your results you might as well never have done the research at all.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Dono if Vegas is the model you want to follow.
I talked with one programmer for slot machines who said it is the worst software imaginable, and even the programmers have no clue how it really works. As long as the end result of thousands of runs does not favor the house by more then X% its "good enough", and the inspectors simply rely on accumulated results.
Of course, if you ever beat these machines and win the super grand bonus payout of a gazillion dollars, the casino will simply claim a software error, and give you some token winnings and the bums rush out the door.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You do "deep literature searches" and you can't go to a university library for some reason?
It is a full day event to go to the library, so no, I won't be able to go spend 2 days a week at the local university.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
And why then can't you just go to your local university library to get access? I mean really, it's not that hard.
Compared with clicking on a pdf from the comfort of your own home or office, the convenience and speed factor is big. The real question is why you think publicly funded research should be locked up behind a paywall in the first place.
And why then can't you just go to your local university library to get access?
Even if it is free as in beer (and they aren't always free as in beer), it's not zero-cost. It can take days or longer to order an article via interlibrary loan. And you have to go to the library to pick it up. Spending the money then and there can get you the article in minutes, and answer promptly questions you might have rather than you having to say for several days: "Gee, boss, I don't know if this is relevant to our work or not. The article hasn't been faxed to the library yet." Speed isn't everything, but you can lose valuable time via the interlibrary approach.
of saying "no brainer".
Calling something the obvious thing to do and practically risk-free hardly counts as criticism in my book.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I voted for Obama twice and would probably do so again, but "timid and unimaginative" seems to be a defining feature of his presidency.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
While, as a researcher myself, I can understand some of the statements these free-every-result advocates make, even though some of them seem very extreme even to me, I don't think this issue is that easy as they might suggest. A lot of research gets some sort of federal funding, and while I'd agree that published papers during these research works should be made freely available, I wouldn't agree with making all research results freely accessible. A lot of spinoff companies would die, a lot of companies started based on university research would die, and a lot of opportunities could be lost. Of course, third parties might have their christmases extended when they could get every research result for free. I mean come on, most if not all of defence research is at least partially federally funded. Large parts of medical and bio-chemical research has federal funding. It's not that easy. That's why I generally say, that while I'd agree that published results (i.e. appeared in scientific journals and at conferences) of federally funded research should be made freely available, I would never say that all research results should be made freely accessible. Extremism never works out OK, not here, not ever.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The real question is why you think paying for something means it's locked up?
Because I have to pay to unlock it. Again, it was paid for with public research money, so the best value for the public is to have free access to it.
And that convince comes at a cost. It's idiotic. What if I don't own a computer or have internet access? That doesn't mean any research is locked up with no way to access it or that the government should issue me a computer or internet access.
Speaking of idiotic, you take the cake with this argument. The Internet is a sunk cost, and the vast majority of people have access to it. No, what is being done here are obstructions to accessing what are trivially copied bytes that could be hosted anywhere.
No it's not. The more time I waste as scientist catering to people like you the less science I can perform.
The less public money goes to idiots like you then the better. Pay for your own damn research if you want to restrict access to the public.
The White House is paid for with public money. Does that mean I should be able to crash on Obamas couch?
You truly are an idiot. You'd think by now you'd understand the difference between copying information and physical property. The government doesn't assert copyright on information they produce exactly because the public paid for it.
You clearly don't understand how research works.
Having done it for a number of years, I'd have to disagree. There's a huge difference between having simple questions answered in minutes and answered in days or longer.
This isn't business. There are no bosses.
I had a boss, called a "research adviser", when I was doing my research. And I can't imagine what you think research is. Because you're ignoring both business-related research as well as research-oriented government organizations like CERN and NASA, which do have bosses. And classrooms, for that matter (the boss being the teacher). Hierarchical structures happen all the time in research just like they do in any other sufficiently populous human endeavor.
Guess what? You have no say in where research dollars go.
As an individual, very little, but Congress reacts all the time to public perception when assigning research dollars.
All of my research is accessible by the public. There is nothing stopping you from going to a library or buying the articles.
Keep on not getting. It was already paid for, by the public, you asshole. Placing restrictions on how the public can access it is not to the benefit of the public, and it's about time steps are being taken to stop this bullshit.
Wow, that's your trump card? Some research is classified? Truly a dizzying intellect I'm dealing with here.
It's just a fact that just because something was paid for with public money doesn't make you entitled to it for free.
It's an exception to a principle for security reasons. Government is paid for by the public for the benefit of the public, so maximum benefit to the public is the overriding concern. That's why the government doesn't assert copyright on documents.
Your argument amounts to that you're a petulant little child that is too cheap to pay for an article and too lazy to goto a library.
Your argument amounts to a spoiled child sucking on the teat of taxpayer money who doesn't want to share freely.
I suggest you do what that other petulant little child did and kill yourself.
You first. I really thought Aaron Schwartz went too far in his zeal to release documents, but the more I talk to douchebags like you the more I see him as a hero.
University of California at Davis.