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European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

sciencemag.org

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Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#31

Post by xaedes »

roadnottaken wrote: post #30
bubblethink wrote: post #27

This probably comes up all the time in these discussions, but any change in this area has to be top down. i.e., People with influence and job security like tenured faculty need to signal a change and move to open access. A grad student or an assistant professor isn't going to put his/her career on the line for ideals. I'm not too familiar with the journal culture, but at least in CS with conferences, all the critical…

Correct. These stories always make it sound like it's the big bad private journals that are trying to steal all the taxpayer-funded research which should belong to the people. But the scientists are the ones that are (still) sending their results to private journals for publications. They could instead chose to send it to OA journals, and some do.

"A grad student or an assistant professor isn't going to put his/her career on the line for ideals."

It is not like the choice is for free..

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#32

Post by hannob »

roadnottaken wrote: post #29

I don't understand how governments have the authority to make private companies (journal publishers) give-away their product for free. The fact that much of the research is funded by taxpayers is not relevant -- scientists have voluntarily submitted their work to private publishers for publication. Going forward, perhaps they should stop doing that. But for work that was previously published? It's rightly owned by th…

> I don't understand how governments have the authority to make private companies (journal publishers) give-away their product for free. The fact that much of the research is funded by taxpayers is not relevant -- scientists have voluntarily submitted their work to private publishers for publication.

Of course they have the authority. Publishers own these works on the basis of copyright law. Laws can be changed by governments.

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#33

Post by baby »

roadnottaken wrote: post #29

I don't understand how governments have the authority to make private companies (journal publishers) give-away their product for free. The fact that much of the research is funded by taxpayers is not relevant -- scientists have voluntarily submitted their work to private publishers for publication. Going forward, perhaps they should stop doing that. But for work that was previously published? It's rightly owned by th…

> the fact remains that scientists have been voluntarily publishing their work in private for-profit journals for 100+ years

yeah, slightly not "voluntarily".

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#34

Post by bubblethink »

roadnottaken wrote: post #29

I don't understand how governments have the authority to make private companies (journal publishers) give-away their product for free. The fact that much of the research is funded by taxpayers is not relevant -- scientists have voluntarily submitted their work to private publishers for publication. Going forward, perhaps they should stop doing that. But for work that was previously published? It's rightly owned by th…

>most of them don't care (source: I'm a scientist).

This is sort of the gist of the problem. For one, the researches themselves are shielded from the lack of open access because all major universities have institutional access. Secondly, no one wants to take up the auxiliary work that would be required to publish a journal, even if it's only publishing on the web. And finally, it's hard to replace history and prestige of existing journals. Younger researchers will continue submitting to these journals since they care more about their careers than ideals. Any change in public perception would have to be driven top down by people already established in their fields.

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#35

Post by roadnottaken »

baby wrote: post #33
roadnottaken wrote: post #29

I don't understand how governments have the authority to make private companies (journal publishers) give-away their product for free. The fact that much of the research is funded by taxpayers is not relevant -- scientists have voluntarily submitted their work to private publishers for publication. Going forward, perhaps they should stop doing that. But for work that was previously published? It's rightly owned by th…

> the fact remains that scientists have been voluntarily publishing their work in private for-profit journals for 100+ years yeah, slightly not "voluntarily".

Maybe it wasn't voluntary 25 years ago, but there are plenty of options today and most scientists still send most papers to for-profit publishers. You can argue about the culture and career pressures that influence those decisions, but the fact remains that there are alternatives that are still not commonly used. Other fields have managed to get around this (eg ArXivX in Physics) so it's on biologist/chemists to figure this out, too.

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#36

Post by Bakary »

roadnottaken wrote: post #29

I don't understand how governments have the authority to make private companies (journal publishers) give-away their product for free. The fact that much of the research is funded by taxpayers is not relevant -- scientists have voluntarily submitted their work to private publishers for publication. Going forward, perhaps they should stop doing that. But for work that was previously published? It's rightly owned by th…

Isn't the whole issue rendered moot by SciHub?

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#37

Post by grenoire »

leemailll wrote: post #21
azag0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The yearly budget of arXiv is ~$1M. I don't see a reason why science couldn't flourish on a non-anonymous message board such as reddit or twitter in place of peer review. This is all matter of momentum. And of fear of open criticism.

I dare you when you use your real name to criticize a recent paper of top guru in field is total garbage and never has a moment worrying about subsequent funding application which the guru usually serves the reviewing board.

A professor of mine (of philosophy of economics and scientific methodology) was effectively banned from several major journals in his field for roughly ten years because he made an argument about labourers' stock ownership in a Marxist economist conference—and one of the audience members was an influential chairman in those journals.

People seem to think that there is no politics in academia and science, and that everybody is automaton-rational people with no ulterior motives. Very, very wrong...

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#38

Post by nbanks »

Keverw wrote: post #20

Awesome. I do think all publicly funded research papers should be available. Research done by private companies using their own funds however shouldn't be. Maybe if America had open access, things would of turned out a lot better for Aaron Swartz :(

The increase in GDP should make it profitable for government to fund all journals. The cost is relatively small as compared to the benefit to all citizens, allowing them to understand new technologies, business and social structures. Like education, this seems like a way to spend public funds with a high return on investment. Obviously this isn't the only reason governments should spend money--veterans and health care for retirees shouldn't be ignored--but it's nice when spending grows the economy.

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#39

Post by beevai142 »

roadnottaken wrote: post #35
baby wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fact remains that scientists have been voluntarily publishing their work in private for-profit journals for 100+ years yeah, slightly not "voluntarily".

Maybe it wasn't voluntary 25 years ago, but there are plenty of options today and most scientists still send most papers to for-profit publishers. You can argue about the culture and career pressures that influence those decisions, but the fact remains that there are alternatives that are still not commonly used. Other fields have managed to get around this (eg ArXivX in Physics) so it's on biologist/chemists to figu…

The journal choice is still not fully voluntary. Each field has certain flagship journals, and you are going to publish in them because they have large impact on the prospects for future career. The journals are flagships for historical reasons --- it takes time for a journal accumulate credibility and attract high-quality papers. If the flagships in your field happen to be owned by Elsevier, the you are going to be squeezed. Granted, the existence of arXiv and others alleviates the open access issue, but not the issue of crazy profit margins of the publishers.

Re: European leaders call for open access to all scientific papers by 2020 (2016)

#40

Post by beevai142 »

bubblethink wrote: post #34
roadnottaken wrote: post #29

I don't understand how governments have the authority to make private companies (journal publishers) give-away their product for free. The fact that much of the research is funded by taxpayers is not relevant -- scientists have voluntarily submitted their work to private publishers for publication. Going forward, perhaps they should stop doing that. But for work that was previously published? It's rightly owned by th…

>most of them don't care (source: I'm a scientist). This is sort of the gist of the problem. For one, the researches themselves are shielded from the lack of open access because all major universities have institutional access. Secondly, no one wants to take up the auxiliary work that would be required to publish a journal, even if it's only publishing on the web. And finally, it's hard to replace history and prestig…

Let's say that you suddely start caring once your library drops subscriptions to journals that you need.
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