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EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

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Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#31

Post by Const-me »

rerx wrote: post #10

I wonder if this will mean that European scientist will only be allowed to publish in open access journals or if it will be sufficient if copies of the papers are made freely available. The APS, who publishes the Physical Review journals which are some of the most important in physics, for instance already allows authors and their employers to post their papers online free of charge [ http://journals.aps.org/rmp/copy…

IANAL, but to me, the wording “must be freely accessible to everyone” in the press release means free copies should be OK. As long as those are exact and complete copies.

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#32

Post by peter303 »

Shift cost to author and grant agencies then. A couple of studies I have read says it costs about $1500 to review edit and publish an article. In addition several thousand dolars of volunteer time is provided by editors and reviewers. If the subscribers wont be paying, then costs will shifted to the author. Some free online journals already only charge the author.

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#33

Post by amelius »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #17
a3_nm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone has to bear the cost of the review process Maybe you are aware of it, but this argument is bogus in any case, because reviewing is unpaid labor. You can make an argument that someone has to organize the review process, but publishers usually don't pay for that process (except paying token amounts to an editor for some journals).

The cost of the review process in this particular two sided marketplace (which publishing is - how do you decide which journal to send your paper to?) is not just the unpaid labor of the reviewers, but rather the establishment of the credentials and authority which the journals build up over time, which basically drove down the cost of reviewing to be much smaller than if it were simply a free for all. To see this in…

Isn't that exactly what search engines are for? I.e., ranking work based on a complex mix of both content value and authority?

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#34

Post by wahsd »

So who funds this free research that the papers are based on? The answer in Europe is clear, the common citizens, who's pay is taxed around 50% and who pay massive sales taxes while having zero say in who gets research funds and for what. But what about the parts of the world that don't believe in nepotistic systems or corruption and academic cronyism or are at least trying to fight it?

I work with many academics in many fields, I can tell you that outside of the "hardest" sciences, and then only from some select institutions, is even remotely valid, let alone accurate or precise. How many more investigations do we need to reveal that way more "research" than not (even though it should be the minority) does not abide by even the most basic scientific principles.

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#35

Post by [deleted] »

IanCal wrote: post #29
anonymousDan wrote: post #22

Why on earth do people think this is to the detriment of publishers? This will effectively just lock in their profits by forcing all eu grants to include the cost of payments to publishers to make research papers open access. It just means the taxpayer is now paying for open access instead of individuals having to pay up themselves. Note I'm not saying this is a bad thing, and it is possibly worth publicly subsidisin…

It does however provide a limit on how much money each publisher can extract from a paper, and makes things far more transparent. It also makes free or cheaper services more competitive.

[deleted]

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#36

Post by p4bl0 »

IanCal wrote: post #26
p4bl0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why this comment is downvoted. What a3_nm says is very important. There are multiple forms of open access, and the EU is being lobbied by publishers to push for their idea of open access, sometimes called "gold open access", in which the authors pay to publish. This is a really bad model as it makes money part of an equation which should only be governed by scientific concerns: should this paper be…

> Now, researchers is poor countries may be able to access existing research but they won't be able to publish their findings… Well they definitely can publish, but they will have to pay a decent amount to publish in a big journal. Grants will include money for this purpose. edit - I'm not sure why this was downvoted. There are free places you can publish work, and grants that require open access include money for pu…

>> researchers is poor countries

> they definitely can publish, but they will have to pay a decent amount to publish in a big journal

Yeah, okay.

This is exactly what I'm saying this system is wrong. The decision to publish a given paper in a big, notorious journal should only be based on the scientific qualities and contribution of the paper. Not on the money (grants or not) that their authors have.

And by the way, grants, and generally speaking project-based funding, are not a good way to distribute money for research. It is okay to fund big experiment requiring a lot of money on project-based grants, but it is totally poisonous to need grants for daily operations (paying people's salaries and publishing being typical daily operations). Research can't work long term if even the basic necessities for a lab to just exist depends on grant money attributed with respect to current trends and other random factors.

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#37

Post by dogma1138 »

IanCal wrote: post #24
dogma1138 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same things that happens when you have to apply other EU regulations like the "Right to be Forgotten". What most likely will happen is that there will be a geoblocked EU repository/ies which will provide free access to research material. Also it's important to note that only research which has been funded with public funds is applicable for this and depending on under which "Open Access" model they'll end up operatin…

> What most likely will happen is that there will be a geoblocked EU repository/ies which will provide free access to research material. I'd be absolutely amazed if this happens. The current common setups for funding bodies which already require open access are: 1. Can't go behind a paywall, so money is included in the grant for publishing costs. 2. Can go behind a paywall, but a copy must be made available somewhere…

Well it's the question on who this "regulation" is going to target, if it is going to target publishers then it makes sense for publishers that work within the EU to simply allow Open Access from within the EU only, pretty much every content delivery solution has geo-blocking built in, so publishers already have this capability.

If it's going to target institutions/grant recipients then the only thing they need to do is allocate funds to pay for Open Access which is a bit silly and it doesn't solve the issue, if anything it can make it even worse because publishers could then squeeze authors for even more money because now the public is the one who pays the ransom.

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#38

Post by thr0waway1239 »

anonymousDan wrote: post #22

Why on earth do people think this is to the detriment of publishers? This will effectively just lock in their profits by forcing all eu grants to include the cost of payments to publishers to make research papers open access. It just means the taxpayer is now paying for open access instead of individuals having to pay up themselves. Note I'm not saying this is a bad thing, and it is possibly worth publicly subsidisin…

One way or the other, to the extent that there will be a cost associated, it is going to be borne by taxpayers in open access (in fact, the taxpayers in the richest countries will probably subsidize the research of the poorer ones during collaboration).

But your point is very true - at some point we need the top publishers to be thrown out of business and for new ones to emerge AND the new publishers need to maintain costs which reflect true costs rather than the current 'what can we get away with?' prices they charge. Strangely, competition will be really good for this situation but it will not be so great for the researchers. (It would be like determining the quality of a webpage when no website has a PageRank higher than 3). Isn't that why there is so much hair pulling over this issue amongst researchers?

Isn't this ruling going to at least help a little in the sense that the researches now have a legal reason to push back on publishers who charge the exorbitant rates, plus as the sibling comment says, introduces a bit more transparency into the process?

I am interested in getting your thoughts on how to kickstart more competition amongst publishers.

Re: EU Announces That All Scientific Articles Should Be Freely Accessible by 2020

#39

Post by peter303 »

pjc50 wrote: post #13

Note that the current publishing arrangements for "open access" can often involve substantial fees paid by the authors to the publishers. Arxiv is definitely an exception.

Preprint services like arXiv are not taken seriously by academic hiring and promotion commitees. The work has not been peer reviewed. Preprints do count for scientific priority however.

The current issue of Science says about five disciplines are trying to imitate the physics arXiv. There is much resistance in some sectors.

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