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“You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

wired.com

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Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#31

Post by x1798DE »

thaw13579 wrote: post #15

I think the most important point was brushed over in the article--that journals offer prestige. Scientists are entirely aware of the problems, yet they still volunteer to submit their work to them, because they significantly improve the chances of promotion and tenure. These things are already tremendously competitive, so most would rather not volunteer for a handicap by publishing in other venues.

One thing that can be done here without saying, "all government research must be free" would be to explicitly put funding priority on labs that have a history of publishing in open access journals, or prioritize grants where the author commits ahead of time that they will publish in open access journals.

A big part of success in modern scientific research is ability to secure funding, so if you put your thumbs on the scales enough, it could catalyze a move to open access journals as the "prestigious journals."

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#32

Post by ikeboy »

jbmorgado wrote: post #16
bruceb wrote: post #2

The counter argument to this is you pay to use national parks even though you already pay for it. A lot of people don't even go to the parks now. Making them free will mean more tax money from people who don't go to them. How many people read this research? 1% of America? If it is free then tax payers will have to pay more to make sure it is available. 99% percent will pay to provide things they will never read. To b…

The counter argument to this is you pay to use national parks even though you already pay for it. This analogy is completely wrong. The money you pay in admission to the parks go towards the parks in order to maintain and improve the parks, even though you already do that with your taxes. The money you pay to scientific publications goes to the publisher alone, it does not , in any case, end up financing science.

If nobody paid, publishers wouldn't have revenue from access, and so would need to charge authors directly, which would make science costs go up.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#33

Post by ikeboy »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #8
bruceb wrote: post #2

The counter argument to this is you pay to use national parks even though you already pay for it. A lot of people don't even go to the parks now. Making them free will mean more tax money from people who don't go to them. How many people read this research? 1% of America? If it is free then tax payers will have to pay more to make sure it is available. 99% percent will pay to provide things they will never read. To b…

>How many people read this research? 1% of America? If anything, it's 1% of the world. The problem is not limited to the US. And it's a very significant 1% which is one of the biggest - if not literally the biggest - drivers of the world economy. >The counter argument to this is you pay to use national parks even though you already pay for it. Parks have huge continuing expenses. They're also owned in trust for the p…

>Journal publishing has almost no expenses at all.

If their expenses of 60-80% of revenue is "almost nothing", surely their revenue is also "almost nothing", and therefore we shouldn't care about it.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#34

Post by ikeboy »

frobozz wrote: post #9
bruceb wrote: post #2

The counter argument to this is you pay to use national parks even though you already pay for it. A lot of people don't even go to the parks now. Making them free will mean more tax money from people who don't go to them. How many people read this research? 1% of America? If it is free then tax payers will have to pay more to make sure it is available. 99% percent will pay to provide things they will never read. To b…

I certainly don't have a problem with the users of a service paying something to use that service, in order to save the rest of us a bit of money. That is how the postal system and a lot of public transport works (and, as you say, National Parks). What's actually ludicrous is that you pay private, profit making companies to allow you to read taxpayer-funded research. Moreover, taxpayer-funded bodies have to pay these…

You haven't given any distinction. Do you not consider publishing a service?

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#35

Post by ikeboy »

SeanDav wrote: post #17
bruceb wrote: post #2

The counter argument to this is you pay to use national parks even though you already pay for it. A lot of people don't even go to the parks now. Making them free will mean more tax money from people who don't go to them. How many people read this research? 1% of America? If it is free then tax payers will have to pay more to make sure it is available. 99% percent will pay to provide things they will never read. To b…

> "The counter argument to this is you pay to use national parks even though you already pay for it." You would have a case if the publishers did not make huge profits from the research and contribute nothing back to the research. When you pay for access to a park, you know that money is going towards the running and improvement of the park.

Revenue goes towards publishing expenses. Why don't you consider their subsidization of publishing a contribution to the research?

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#36

Post by loceng »

jcizzle wrote: post #18

By this notion, I should get free tickets to all college football games. And my driver's license registration should also be free, don't my taxes already go to paying for the DMV? Wait, should anything that is even remotely funded by taxpayer dollars now be free for everyone that pays taxes?

If say 100% of college costs were covered by a general tax base then perhaps everyone should actually get the right to a ticket/seat. If then say you're not into football then you could sell that ticket to someone who loves football. There are more nuances to figure than this, though the concept does make sense and perhaps allows for more fairness. Imagine it takes 3 years of football games to give every person in the country a seat at a game. Not all games are going to be equally in demand, and not all seats are equal, and not everyone will want to go to a football game - while others would love to go to all of them. Those are enough conditions for good supply demand market economics. The road system is a little more complex.

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#37

Post by ikeboy »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #13

I think the article is oversimplifying the issue. This isn't about access, who reads it, or who pays for the research, it's about greed. Plain and simple. Corporations are making money off of the restricting of access to scientific research, and they are fighting to preserve that business model.

> oversimplifying the issue

>Plain and simple

Huh?

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#38

Post by grondilu »

But if scientific papers were free, how could nations avoid a free-rider issue regarding other nations?

For instance, a major part of scientific research is done in US, isn't it? Does that mean that the US tax payer should be the major contributor to an hypothetical worldwide scientific activity?

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#39

Post by DarkLinkXXXX »

grondilu wrote: post #38

But if scientific papers were free, how could nations avoid a free-rider issue regarding other nations? For instance, a major part of scientific research is done in US, isn't it? Does that mean that the US tax payer should be the major contributor to an hypothetical worldwide scientific activity?

Wouldn't that benefit everyone?

Re: “You pay to read research you fund. That’s ludicrous”

#40

Post by dahart »

themartorana wrote: post #25
dahart wrote: post #22

I agree that publicly funded research should be publicly available, and that for-profit publishers have an entrenched commercial interest that feeds on free access to research. But it's worth keeping in mind that the value of public funding for research is primarily for the participants, not for the output to the public. Public research funding is an education model that occasionally has the nice byproduct of useful…

It's not about who would read your work, but who can . I don't read much the FBI/NSA/rest of government produces but I'm pretty frustrated every time the suggestion of exempting troves of content from the FOIA comes up. I also know that my access guarantees other researches access to the same content, meaning the research that they do, that may one day benefit me down the road, has had free access to all of the knowl…

I agree with you, and I have the very same concerns, but you're talking about two different kinds of can. Government info that is FOIA exempt is not available for purchase.

You can purchase most research, that is a kind of access. And if you're at a university doing research, chances are you already have access without paying personally.

The knowledge we're talking about in this thread isn't being locked away, it's being charged for. I'm with you, and I don't like it, but we can't claim there's no access.

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