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Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

petitions.whitehouse.gov

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Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#21

Post by amurmann »

short_circut wrote: post #14

This 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…

It's expensive because the journals are leaches sucking money and IP out of the system. The research was funded by the people, so why should the journals get the rights? The same institutions that are paying big bugs are also the ones contributing all the content. All the reviewing is even done by researchers who end up paying for the journal and contribut to it. It's sickening how the scientific community and the public at large get exploited by those leaches!

Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#22

Post by smsm42 »

short_circut wrote: post #14

This 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 != costs. If all the work of preparing research for publication (getting it in the proper format, adding proper metadata, etc.) is done by the researcher, I don't see how it would cost that much to host it. Server/electricity/admin costs, of course, but given that scientific papers aren't exactly most high-traffic website on the planet, and marketing/etc. is not needed I don't see it as unmanageable costs. US government and various departments run hundreds of websites by now, getting one more there wouldn't be that great marginal cost.

Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#23

Post by af3 »

jacoblyles wrote: post #15
short_circut wrote: post #14

This 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.

arxiv is not peer-reviewed.

Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#24

Post by Centigonal »

riprock wrote: post #20

This 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 publi…

Does this mean that you have to pay someone if want to make absolutely sure that you're not breaking the law for some given action in California?

Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#25

Post by pdonis »

femto wrote: post #16
pdonis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Ah, ok, then it certainly does make sense to repost.

Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#26

Post by kencausey »

thorum wrote: post #10

The White House hasn't had time to respond to this petition because they've been busy responding to more important ones - like "begin construction of a Death Star by 2016". https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-resp...

Have you ever heard of prioritization? One of the factors of prioritizing is the 'time of completion'.

Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#29

Post by pi18n »

Centigonal wrote: post #24
riprock wrote: post #20

This 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 publi…

Does this mean that you have to pay someone if want to make absolutely sure that you're not breaking the law for some given action in California?

You would have to hire a lawyer in any state due to the sheer number of laws; this seems to say in CA that lawyer also has to buy public domain papers from a private entity.

Re: Petition: require free access to publicly-funded research

#30

Post by mayneack »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #28

This is one of those things that for the life of me I don't understand why we have to petition our government. Why in the heck wouldn't you set it up this way to begin with?

Because before you set it up, you don't know there's a problem. Sure, you can say that everyone should get access to the research from the start, but when the framework for federal grants started, the cost of distributing journals was tied to shipping physical copies. No one had to think about whether or not you could legally share it because you had a much higher barrier in the logistics of sharing it. Now those things are still around through organizational inertia. The companies that existed to fill the (necessary) service of printing and shipping all these things don't want to become obsolete. It's not a good reason to keep it around, but it's why you need more than zero effort to change.
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