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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

#31

Post by icelancer »

mayneack wrote: post #30
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 thi…

I agree. It's not an unreasonable thing to have to bring to the government's attention considering how quickly technology allowed for these advancements to occur.

It is ridiculous that the response is taking forever and that they sought time to tell people why the death star isn't going to be built.

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

#32

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

Yeah, but all those reports are freely available online from the courts websites. The publishers just publish them in paperbound form.

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

#33

Post by VigUi7vv8G2 »

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…

What are you talking about? The requirement would be that the articles be published in open access journals, or else published elsewhere after being published initially in closed access journals.

The high prices you linked too aren't an impediment, they are THE REASON TO DO IT.

Also, when it comes to tax payer funded research, it's already, you know, funded.

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

#34

Post by riprock »

anigbrowl wrote: post #32
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…

Yeah, but all those reports are freely available online from the courts websites. The publishers just publish them in paperbound form.

Can you provide a link? I am not a lawyer, but I have seen http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions-slip.htm which provides a link to the LexisNexis website for opinions from 1850 - Present.

The LexisNexis website also states "There is no charge to search, retrieve or save documents from the California Official Reports Web site, and there is no copyright on opinion text. The site, however, is for personal, not commercial, use."

From this, I assumed commercial use would require purchasing or licensing something from LexisNexis.

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

#35

Post by streptomycin »

VigUi7vv8G2 wrote: post #33
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…

What are you talking about? The requirement would be that the articles be published in open access journals, or else published elsewhere after being published initially in closed access journals. The high prices you linked too aren't an impediment, they are THE REASON TO DO IT. Also, when it comes to tax payer funded research, it's already, you know, funded.

The high prices are the costs to publish articles in open access journals. Somebody has to pay the costs of publishing, and it's currently either subscribers (traditional journals) or authors (open access journals).

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

#38

Post by cheald »

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…

Purchase 3 fewer Tomahawk missiles this year. Boom, program funded.

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

#39

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

streptomycin wrote: post #35
VigUi7vv8G2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? The requirement would be that the articles be published in open access journals, or else published elsewhere after being published initially in closed access journals. The high prices you linked too aren't an impediment, they are THE REASON TO DO IT. Also, when it comes to tax payer funded research, it's already, you know, funded.

The high prices are the costs to publish articles in open access journals. Somebody has to pay the costs of publishing, and it's currently either subscribers (traditional journals) or authors (open access journals).

A mail server and website combination is cheap to build. Your only cost is bandwidth.

The only real cost is bandwidth. That's when you have the schools host these cheap servers. "instead of 15 million USD, we want to colo. Deal?"

And to completely trounce your idea, publishing is easy for journals. It's called "load page and press print". There's hardly any reason to print tomes that can easily loaded ip on a web page as needed. And if you need a bound book, go to lulu or other JIT publisher.

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

#40

Post by lessnonymous »

pmorici wrote: post #9
RichardPrice wrote: post #6

Academia.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...

It's a lot easier to say 'no' than 'yes'. We want a 'yes' on this one, so I'm happy for them to work out how they can rather than knee-jerk 'no'.
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