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Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

whitehouse.gov

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Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#101

Post by mlindner »

Test0129 wrote: post #39

Having done a short stint dealing with this stuff I am glad something is being done. NIST/NSF funded several studies that I was close to that were suddenly owned by a journal who did nothing but provide a place to put it. Public money should always mean public access. Not just for journals, but for anything. If one red cent of taxpayer money goes to it, the taxpayer should get it for free. Hopefully the trend continu…

> If one red cent of taxpayer money goes to it, the taxpayer should get it for free. Hopefully the trend continues.

I wouldn't go this far. Part of the current revolution in the private space industry is precisely allowing companies to own products that were partially funded by taxpayer dollars. As it encourages companies to fund their own money into it, rather than simply relying 100% on government funding.

Further if the government wants to encourage some industry, by using tax dollars to fund it they would instead destroy that industry. Many companies would end up simply refusing government grants because they know they could never profitably sell it if it would simply be copied. Or they would charge the government significantly more for the product.

Now yes, if the research is done at federal centers that simply exist for research rather than creating products, yes absolutely put it out for free immediately, so that it can get into products faster.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#102

Post by heavyset_go »

Test0129 wrote: post #39

Having done a short stint dealing with this stuff I am glad something is being done. NIST/NSF funded several studies that I was close to that were suddenly owned by a journal who did nothing but provide a place to put it. Public money should always mean public access. Not just for journals, but for anything. If one red cent of taxpayer money goes to it, the taxpayer should get it for free. Hopefully the trend continu…

I feel the same about NIH funded research and development in the medical space.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#103

Post by derbOac »

jhallenworld wrote: post #37

Great! How about we reduce the cost of college by eliminating the equally parasitical textbook industry?

My department seriously discussed making our own textbooks for at least one class. The idea never got off the ground, although I think it was a good idea. Part of the reason really is that there were no incentives for doing so, no real teaching or research credit, no grant dollars brought it, etc. The other end of it too was that there was a lot of pressure to turn it into a profit-making venture. Rather than it be open-source, for example, to keep the money in-house with the idea that it would lower costs for students and keep the money in the department instead of a publisher.

So, good idea but too much pressure on departments to be bringing in indirect grant funds, and not enough incentive to release it openly. I think some people in some places can get away with it, but not everywhere.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#104

Post by afarrell »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #50
afarrell wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if one of the people who would do that is currently on a boat in Lake Winnipesaukee. Not if {insert 20 other sources of complexity that exist in the real world}.

Give them an afternoon and then charge them a $2500 a day fine for any federally funded research not made available. They'll fix it that afternoon. I'm sure Jake can remote in from Lake Winnipesaukee. Apolegetics for bad, unethical, and world damaging polices, be it corporate or otherwise, are unacceptable.

It is more important to:

1. Have a sense of proportion.

2. Respect people's work-life boundaries.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#105

Post by chrisamiller »

krull10 wrote: post #91

This is a good thing overall, but it only half addresses the issue. Now journal fees to authors will simply go up to cover the difference, making it harder for researchers without lots of grant funding to publish (journals can now be over $6000 per article), and even more tax payer dollars will be going towards paying these fees for those researchers funded by gov grants (money that could be better spent funding stud…

It will force publishers to either add real value or be swept away by new models of publishing that aren't simply rent-seeking. It will take time to change, but this is another hole in the dike. It'll probably be messy for a couple of years, but I welcome the opportunity to shake things up.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#106

Post by chrisamiller »

asdff wrote: post #82
KyleLewis wrote: post #9

Really happy this is happening! There's no reason we shouldn't be able to freely read research funded by NIH, NSF, etc., and there's a ton of high impact work there.

NIH research at least already had a public access requirement

But that was after an embargo period of 12 months, during which a journal could paywall it. This forces immediate availability, which is a good thing.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#107

Post by d23 »

thfuran wrote: post #13
anm89 wrote: post #12

It's funny how the political class understands the things like this that need to be done, they just don't care at all until they are heading into an election cycle they are about to lose. Then suddenly the political will is suddenly found.

You think this is a big populist vote grab?

I'd love to live in a country where moves like this are considered populist pandering.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#108

Post by krull10 »

ModernMech wrote: post #53
expensive_news wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m missing something, but if Nature charges that much to publish why does anyone publish in Nature? Why don’t academics just create their own ‘ethically priced’ journal? It’s my understanding that most of Nature’s labor is voluntary and unpaid anyway.

You can create your own ethically priced journal any day of the week, but if no one reads it, no one will publish to it. And if no one publishes to it, no one will read it. Offering cheap or free publishing doesn’t solve this chicken-and-egg problem, unfortunately. Quite the opposite; it signals that the researchers who publish there are only doing so because they can’t afford the publishing fees of larger journals,…

Grants are only in the millions in certain fields. But more than that, $10K per paper, budgeted for 2-3 papers a year in a 3-5 year grant across all the NIH grants, is a lot of taxpayer money that could be better spent funding students, postdocs, and researchers.

Re: Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay

#110

Post by reidjs »

jhallenworld wrote: post #37

Great! How about we reduce the cost of college by eliminating the equally parasitical textbook industry?

There are ways for students to side-step the problem (textbook resale, piracy, libraries), unfortunately lazier professors are using the textbook company homework websites as part of their grading metric.
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