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Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
11–20 of 75 posts
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#12Academia.edu was very active in working with the White House to spread the word about this petition when it first came out, and getting signatures for the petition to hit the 25k threshold. The White House hasn't responded to it because initially they were busy with the election, and then with the fiscal cliff, and now with gun reform. Getting more signatures on the petition now will help them see that people care ab…
Then how do you explain them having time for this; https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-resp...
In practice that death star response probably only took an hour or two to write. However, figuring out federal policy on research is really tricky, and there are many stakeholders.
The fundamental problem is that the White House would like all research to be open, but every time they take any steps in that direction, they get whacked over the head in the media by the journal industry, and get called job-killers. The journal industry's argument is that any attempt to open up research will reduce their revenues, and kill jobs.
The view of most people in this debate is that the journal industry makes far too much money off research, and therefore the size of the industry should be reduced. But in this economic context being branded as a job killer is toxic.
The White House really wants to turn the debate around, and argue that open access for research is a stimulus for jobs: it will create more jobs, not fewer. To argue for that requires marshaling arguments and data from the private sector to establish that if people have access to federally-funded research, that will help them in their lives, and those benefits will outweigh the costs that the journal industry may experience.
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#13Academia.edu was very active in working with the White House to spread the word about this petition when it first came out, and getting signatures for the petition to hit the 25k threshold. The White House hasn't responded to it because initially they were busy with the election, and then with the fiscal cliff, and now with gun reform. Getting more signatures on the petition now will help them see that people care ab…
Then how do you explain them having time for this; https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-resp...
They do present a good case in that response: why build a death star when it has a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one man starship?
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#14This would be nice but how is this going to be payed for? Research budgets are already being squeezed pretty tight given how much the sponsoring organization takes(universities ...), research costs, and congressional attempts to cut funding I just don't see it happening anytime soon. It already costs quite a bit to publish.
edit: Just to give an idea of the costs> http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholarlycommunication/oa_fees.h...
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#15This would be nice but how is this going to be payed for? Research budgets are already being squeezed pretty tight given how much the sponsoring organization takes(universities ...), research costs, and congressional attempts to cut funding I just don't see it happening anytime soon. It already costs quite a bit to publish. edit: Just to give an idea of the costs> http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholarlycommunication/oa…
PLoS and arxiv seem to have figured it out. Require federally funded research to be posted on a similar platform.
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#16I'm confused - this link seems to be for a petition that's several months old, already past the deadline, and already reached the threshold number of signatures? And more confusingly, there's no response to it either. Am I missing something?
I signed this when it was open; IIRC I found out about back then via a link here on HN. Not sure of the reason for re-posting it now.
To quote [1]
"After a user creates a petition, he or she will receive a direct link to that petition that may be sent to friends, posted on social networks, or otherwise shared in order to gain signatures for the petition. If the petition meets a pre-set signature threshold within a designated time period, the petition will become visible to individuals browsing or searching the White House website. If enough users sign the petition to reach a second pre-set signature threshold within that time period, the White House commits to respond to the petition in a timely fashion. The White House may also elect to respond to any petition before it reaches the first or second threshold. Once the White House responds to a petition, it is closed to additional signatures."
That last sentence implies that a petition will continue accepting signatures, irrespective of any thresholds or deadlines, right up to the point where a response is posted. Surely that means that there is great value in continuing to promote and sign this original petition? A steady stream of signatures over time would attract attention in the system and demonstrate ongoing support. Eventually it might grow to the point where it is impossible to ignore.
[1] https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/moderation-policy
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Addition:
Indeed, the signature count is still ticking over (gone from 53136 to 53149 in the last 15 minutes). Listing "popular" petitions [2] shows that the petition is significant, currently ranking #8 in terms of number of signatures collected.
[2] https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions/popular/0/2/0
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#17This would be nice but how is this going to be payed for? Research budgets are already being squeezed pretty tight given how much the sponsoring organization takes(universities ...), research costs, and congressional attempts to cut funding I just don't see it happening anytime soon. It already costs quite a bit to publish. edit: Just to give an idea of the costs> http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholarlycommunication/oa…
PLoS and arxiv seem to have figured it out. Require federally funded research to be posted on a similar platform.
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Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#18This would be nice but how is this going to be payed for? Research budgets are already being squeezed pretty tight given how much the sponsoring organization takes(universities ...), research costs, and congressional attempts to cut funding I just don't see it happening anytime soon. It already costs quite a bit to publish. edit: Just to give an idea of the costs> http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholarlycommunication/oa…
All NIH-funded research must result in open access publications. How does it work? Basically.. the NIH set up a website and the journals submit NIH-funded papers there, where they are freely available.
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#19This would be nice but how is this going to be payed for? Research budgets are already being squeezed pretty tight given how much the sponsoring organization takes(universities ...), research costs, and congressional attempts to cut funding I just don't see it happening anytime soon. It already costs quite a bit to publish. edit: Just to give an idea of the costs> http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholarlycommunication/oa…
The basic idea is that the research papers should be open access 6 months after publication. 6 months is enough for publishers to recoup their costs of publication.
The reality is that publishers make all their money from site licenses. Harvard, e.g., will spend $15 million a year on subscriptions to various publishers like Elsevier, in return for access to all the new papers, and the back catalog.
Most papers that are downloaded, around 80%, are from the back catalog anyway, meaning that universities are incredibly price insensitive with respect to site license subscriptions. Journals could offer the new papers for free, and still universities would pay for the site license subscription.
This is what has happened with the arxiv: most new papers in theoretical physics are on there for free, and yet physics departments still subscribe to the theoretical physics journals. Why is that? It's because the departments need access to papers in the back catalog, which are not on the arxiv.
The upshot of this is that site license revenue wouldn't be affected by requiring open access on research 6 months after publication (or even 3 months, or 0 months, in my view). There is enough price insensitivity in the system for existing revenues to be unaffected by a change like this.
The reason the journal industry hates legislation like this, despite it not posing an economic danger to them, is that they are worried about the general trend of the government getting involved in changing the scientific publishing industry.
The journal industry would like to freeze their business model in the form that it was in during the pre-internet days. They believe that it's in their interest to fight every piece of pro-change legislation that the government suggests, in order to slow down the rate of change.
Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research
#20This needs to also happen for case law (free as in beer). How absurd is this:
"Pursuant to common law tradition, the courts of California have developed a large body of case law through the decisions of the Supreme Court of California and the California Courts of Appeal. The state supreme court's decisions are published in official reporters known as California Reports. The decisions of the Courts of Appeal are published in the California Appellate Reports.
The content of both reporters is compiled and edited by the California Reporter of Decisions. The Reporter maintains a contract with a private publisher (as allowed by Government Code Section 68903) who in turn is responsible for actually publishing and selling the official reporters. The current official publisher is LexisNexis." [0]