White House directs open access for government research

[carlfense]

Makes sense to me. We pay for it so we shouldn't have to pay to see the results.

The White House has moved to make the results of federally funded research available to the public for free within a year, bowing to public pressure for unfettered access to scholarly articles and other materials produced at taxpayers' expense.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/24/us-usa-whitehouse-information-idUSBRE91N01C20130224

[Junior]

Makes sense to me. We pay for it so we shouldn't have to pay to see the results.

The White House has moved to make the results of federally funded research available to the public for free within a year, bowing to public pressure for unfettered access to scholarly articles and other materials produced at taxpayers' expense.

http://www.reuters.c...E91N01C20130224

 

As someone who does federally funded research, I support the idea in theory. However, if the journals can't charge subscribers, then they'll charge the researchers more to publish in their journal. So, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

[JJ Husker]

Here's an easy solution; how about the publishers of these scientific joirnals fund the research? Then they can exclusively publish what and when they want. If our government (aka you, me, and everyone) is footing the tab, then screw the journals and the 12 month waiting period. It's pretty simple and straightforward, I guess that is why it has taken a petition and thousands of signatures to convince anybody in Washington that it makes sense.

[sd'sker]

Makes sense to me. We pay for it so we shouldn't have to pay to see the results.

The White House has moved to make the results of federally funded research available to the public for free within a year, bowing to public pressure for unfettered access to scholarly articles and other materials produced at taxpayers' expense.

http://www.reuters.c...E91N01C20130224

 

As someone who does federally funded research, I support the idea in theory. However, if the journals can't charge subscribers, then they'll charge the researchers more to publish in their journal. So, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

can they not just publish online?

[Junior]

Makes sense to me. We pay for it so we shouldn't have to pay to see the results.

The White House has moved to make the results of federally funded research available to the public for free within a year, bowing to public pressure for unfettered access to scholarly articles and other materials produced at taxpayers' expense.

http://www.reuters.c...E91N01C20130224

 

As someone who does federally funded research, I support the idea in theory. However, if the journals can't charge subscribers, then they'll charge the researchers more to publish in their journal. So, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

can they not just publish online?

 

Sure, you can disseminate the data and your findings however you would like, I believe. However, in order to be easily searched for and found in the NIH publication database, it needs to be published. Additionally, publication in journals go through a peer-review process, which means people in the field read the paper, look at the data and make sure they are making valid conclusions. Which makes it far easier for someone outside of the field, who may not understand the experiments, to trust the results.

 

My biggest concern is that getting your work published in good journals is going to come down to what lab can afford to pay the publication fee, not what lab is actually doing good work.