White House Pushes Journals To Drop Paywalls on Publicly Funded Research (nytimes.com) 39
Academic journals will have to provide immediate access to papers that are publicly funded, providing a big win for advocates of open research and ending a policy that had allowed publishers to keep publications behind a paywall for a year, according to a White House directive. The New York Times: In laying out the new policy, which is set to be fully in place by the start of 2026, the Office of Science and Technology Policy said that the guidance had the potential to save lives and benefit the public on several key priorities -- from cancer breakthroughs to clean-energy technology. "The American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually," Dr. Alondra Nelson, the head of the office, said in a statement. "There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research."
Advocates for open-research access, like Greg Tananbaum, the director of the Open Research Funders Group, called the guidance "transformational" for researchers and the broader public alike. He said it built off a 2013 memorandum that was also important in expanding the public's access to research but fell short in some areas. The 2013 guidance applied to federal agencies with research and development expenditures of $100 million or more, about 20 of the largest agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The guidance announced on Thursday covers nearly all federal bodies, a major expansion that includes about 400 or more entities, several experts said. The directive also requires that publications be made available in machine-readable formats to ensure use and reuse, a component that open-access advocates hailed as a game-changer for accessibility.
Advocates for open-research access, like Greg Tananbaum, the director of the Open Research Funders Group, called the guidance "transformational" for researchers and the broader public alike. He said it built off a 2013 memorandum that was also important in expanding the public's access to research but fell short in some areas. The 2013 guidance applied to federal agencies with research and development expenditures of $100 million or more, about 20 of the largest agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The guidance announced on Thursday covers nearly all federal bodies, a major expansion that includes about 400 or more entities, several experts said. The directive also requires that publications be made available in machine-readable formats to ensure use and reuse, a component that open-access advocates hailed as a game-changer for accessibility.
Already happening? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I write up the annual report for an NSF grant, I must take the final, published pdf of any articles that were published with that grant's support and upload them to NSF. Go look at the NSF "Public Access Repository" for the complete collection of everyone who wrote something funded by NSF. That's a condition of getting money from the NSF, and if the original article is paywalled, the public can get it from the NSF. Maybe other agencies aren't that far ahead of the curve?
And not even talking about arXiv.org, where all the physics and astro plus many math and CS articles go as e-prints at the same time as they're submitted to the journals in the first place.
Of course, TFA about open access is paywalled so I can't see what the details are :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Already happening? (Score:5, Informative)
All NIH funded research is already openly accessible at Pubmed Central at latest after a one year embargo. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Re:Already happening? (Score:5, Informative)
"at latest after a one year embargo"
RTFA, that's what this is removing. No "one year embargo."
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That's a condition of getting money from the NSF, and if the original article is paywalled, the public can get it from the NSF. Maybe other agencies aren't that far ahead of the curve?
Let's not be cute here and try and put a curvy figure on the ugliness of Greed. That paywall wasn't some coding mistake by the geeks in IT.
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I don't think that the papers that we upload in NSF-PAR are made available externally anywhere. And I do believe that the current agreement is that NSF would not redistribute papers until a year after publication.
NSF has the content once you do the annual report but I don't think it becomes accessible anywhere before a year. I put a random jeyword in and look at the first paper I got:
https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/103... [nsf.gov]
It says "Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
This content will become publicly available on De
Delay (Score:4, Insightful)
"There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research."
If that's the case, then why wait until 2026 to implement this?
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> So you're telling me that AOCs efforts towards defunding military spending on recruitment aren't destructive? Oh and get this, she's opposed to it because they recruit young people, because young people are impressionable. So what are they supposed to do, recruit older people that are passed their prime?
You're attacking AOC by misrepresenting what she says ?
"Ocasio-Cortez calls for end to federal funding for military recruitment in schools ... The armed forces, she told the Times, “can for some p
Re: Delay (Score:2)
First of all, read what she's actually saying. She's opposed to the idea of recruitment towards young people, but she has no leverage to stop that, so this is what she's aiming for instead.
Second, the idea that poorer students aren't being exposed to trade schools is totally false. Trade schools want graduating high school students just as much as the military does. I still remember when I was in high school being pressured by one to not enlist in the military and go to his program. In fact, there were many
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> First of all, read what she's actually saying. She's opposed to the idea of recruitment towards young people
Which is a legitimate position, and doesn't preclude young people enlisting but that wasn't my point.
> Second, the idea that poorer students aren't being exposed to trade schools is totally false.
Right. she didn't say that, she said "low-income Americans are not being given anywhere near the same information or access to trade schools, college or other post graduate opportunities.” I don
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Right. she didn't say that, she said "low-income Americans are not being given anywhere near the same information or access to trade schools, college or other post graduate opportunities.” I don't have any reference or personally know that's true, but it seems highly unlikely, on average or in one form or another, that it's false.
Why, exactly?
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So she didn't say poorer students aren't being exposed to trade schools as you said she did.
Now, you asked "why exactly", it seems to me they "are not being given anywhere near the same information or access to trade schools, college or other post graduate opportunities" is true.
Ok, I said that seemed to make sense 'on some average or in one form or another', which is being specifically inexact.
So I'll think about it and see if I can come up with a better answer.
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Turned out easier to be more exact than I thought (though the negative tone is annoying).
There's a very large bias between lower income neighbourhoods and higher income neighbourhoods. College recruiters are much more likely to not even show up in schools in lower income neighbourhoods. https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com]
The opposite bias shows up for military recruiters. Much more presence in lower income neighbourhoods. Not only showing up each year but doing it as often as on a weekly basis, or even daily
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"There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research."
If that's the case, then why wait until 2026 to implement this?
Well, you know..there were probably a few publicly funded (as in taxpayer) articles written on it, so some may need a few more years to really craft that novel story about a virus.
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It's possible that the US have current agreements with publishers that expire in 2026.
And in government only critical things move quickly. This is not a priority to implement and once it is done, it is done forever.
Now Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
If we're going to be on the hook for research grants that result in valuable applications, should we not either get the ability to implement that into domestic products royalty-free, or take a cut of the royalties to fund the government's many, many money-hungry programs?
Re: Now Patents (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)d rather see the feds tax all âoenon cost of attendanceâ revenue that universities take in any confiscatory rates, then give the universities $1 tax credits for each $1 they reduce tuition off 2018 levels. This means theyâ(TM)d have to use the tens of billions they take in due to sports, alumni donations, parents, and property donations to actually fulfill their educational mission instead of enriching admins
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Yeah, patents are more complicated. There is a significant effort between "I have a paper" and "I have a product". And that's the effort that patents are made to protect.
Now I agree with you that a product developed by a faculty member of a public university should see the patent owned by the state or a combination of state and university; or if it federally funded research, by a combination of university, the state, and the federal government.
But of course, it's messy. And universities are terrible at mana
Aaron Swartz has entered the chat (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel like this is a vindication for what Aaron was fighting for.
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Ironically PACER is down today due to the load.
Re:PACER (Score:2)
PACER is an ugly interface, could be dramatically simplified, and should be partnering with mirror/torrenting services much like Linux distros to distribute the load and simultaneously eliminate the ridiculous $0.10 per page/document fee.
Re: Aaron Swartz has entered the chat (Score:2)
Net neutrality, open access, funding education (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Irony - Article referencing paywalls is paywalled (Score:1)
How about software? (Score:1)
Perhaps on the the biggest scams has been the NEC [wikipedia.org]. This was paid for with tax payer funds, yet to this day is closed source and requires a license. Arguably you could say this is for national security (not likely), but if so, why is the license costs [llnl.gov] so different for different users?
This is nothing but a cash grab at this point.
in three fucking years? (Score:2)
is this a joke?
This could get canceled by the next prez
Library of Congress (Score:2)
It should be a hard requirement, right now, that any publicly-funded research results are stored in the Library of Congress, and that every citizen/resident alien (humans, not saucer people) is granted free, unlimited access. That would also include free use of any patents.
If we paid for it, we should be allowed to use it.
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Well, it is kind of like that. Anything published that is funded by NSF get uploaded to NSF public access repository. It makes the papers available online a year after their publication.
So while not ideal, it's already pretty decent and it is probably already going to kill publishers.
public funding = public ownership (Score:2)
The current reality is that when we taxpayers fund basic research that results in patents, we are funding individuals who can become billionaires while we get no return on our investment.
Some researchers at UCSD came up with a clever communication algorithm. The patent was issued to an individual who created Qualcomm and became a billionaire. He and various investors are still reaping billions from that humble start. What did the taxpayer get for their investment?
How about those patented medicines that cost
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Some researchers at UCSD came up with a clever communication algorithm. The patent was issued to an individual who created Qualcomm and became a billionaire. He and various investors are still reaping billions from that humble start. What did the taxpayer get for their investment?
While I agree with you, the taxpayer got a bunch of jobs. We got a bunch of new technology which made us more productive/happy/whatever. And all of the people involved did pay taxes that came back to the treasury. (Last year Qualcomm paid about $2B in income taxes according to a quick googling.)
Now, maybe we'll collectively decide that this balance is unfair to the taxpayer. But let's not claim that the taxpayer is a net loser in that transaction.
Private/public bastardization (Score:2)
Usually does not work out well. Look at Corrections Corporation of America (now GEO group). Plenty of fuck ups there.