Like many of you, I get tired of paywalls, especially when there’s “science by press release” yet the paper remains hidden from the public while the paper gets wide MSM coverage.
So I’ve reposted from Lucia’s The Blackboard (be sure to bookmark the site) to get wide distribution. She writes:
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A reader who is sick and tired of having to pay for publicly funded research being hidden behind pay-walls passed this request along.
One month after it was created (on May 13) and a week before it will be closed to signatures (on June 19), the White House Open Access petition (which I pointed Language Log readers to on May 23) now has 26,768 signatures — 1,768 more than the 25,000 threshold! By my calculation, the average rate was over 1,190 signatures a day from the first to the 25,000th signature (by “David L” of Holmdel, NJ, who signed on June 3 — three weeks after the petition was created); after that, the rate dropped to just shy of 177 a day. No reason to slow down the pace now! If you agree with the petition, please sign it and/or pass it on to your agreeable friends — send a strong message to Washington that “[e]xpanding access would speed the research process and increase the return on our [public] investment in scientific research.”
It appears the petition has met the threshold to pass– but some must wish for us to show that we really, really, really want the Obama to issue a directive to require the results of publicly funded research to be freely available. (That is– not behind paywalls.) You can learn more at:
To sign the petition visit the petition page.
If required, create an account like I did; if you have an account, sign in. Find the grey (or green) “sign the petition” button. Adding your name will help show that many people really would like the president to sign this directive.
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Thanks to Lucia.
PLEASE REPOST THIS WHEREVER YOU CAN
My privilege to sign, and a strong vote for transparency, unlike that experienced by EPA researcher Carlin a few years back!
Hope you use Fast Drying ink!
There’s not a chance in heck they’d do that. The skeptics shred all of the papers that get out. This would just open the flood gates. But, I’ll see about signing. It would be a hoot to have open season!
If you/we are successful, think of all the real peer reviewing to begin. Happy days.
Can I sign it if I’m Scottish? No, I’m not asking whether I’m literate, or haven’t mistakenly cut off my thumbs attempting to kill the haggis after the hunt on the Moss.
REPLY: Probably not, this is a US taxpayer issue – Anthony
my signature was #26,900
I think it’s important for people to note, as from the petition itself, “The highly successful Public Access Policy of the National Institutes of Health proves that this can be done without disrupting the research process.” We can do this without “hurting” journals, as there are already open access journals out there. The fact is we already paid for this research, it only makes sense we get to share in the fruits. And better yet, this will help researchers country wide, and spur much better innovation and advances. So much research is buried and forgotten because in part by paywalls blocking access to them from interested individuals.
This is not a taxpayer issue as long as you don’t want governments to step in to fund scientific journals. You will need to find a business model for the journals that allows them to print or publish scientific papers online without compensation. Some journals are very costly to publish (e.g. the EGU journals), but in return they publish papers freely on their website. Others (e.g. Elsevier) are more gentle on the researcher in publication fee, but are paywalled.
A lot of this is due to the publishers such as Springer and Elsevier. They charge authors to publish and readers to read the papers. They will fight this all the way. Even ACS will charge for papers unless you are a member (American Chemical Society). And I am sure most technical societies have to do this to pay for the cost of publication and review (and all the overhead of the editorial staff). This will be a messy problem to address.
Bob
i fear that such a law would have unintended consequences. In particular, I’m not sure it is legally valid to say that *scientific* research must be made available for free, when there are other areas of research that also get taxpayer funding. And some of those areas would be seriously harmed by such a policy, especially those for which books rather than articles are most important. The National Endowment for the Humanities, to pick the most prominent example, gives some grants specifically for book projects — books that would not find a publisher if the content had to be given away. Perhaps if the law is specific to journal articles that would work, but then I’d expect a lot of long articles to start being turned into short books. Overall, I’m not sure how one legislates that scientific research — a category that is not clearly defined, though that can be solved by naming the agencies involved — must be made free, but not all types of research.
I’m not sure there’s a good solution, but there does seem to be a risk that even a narrowly focused bill aimed just at scientific journals will ultimately lead to significant harm for some types of taxpayer-funded research.
I would be interested to know what any lawyers — preferably, lawyers competent to talk about this area of federal law — think.
Balazs says:
June 14, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Others (e.g. Elsevier) are more gentle on the researcher in publication fee, but are paywalled.
It would be of interest to know how much the publisher actually collects from pay walled papers. As most people will not pay $30-50 to see a pay-walled paper, I suspect the revenue from such be so small that it does not make a significant impact on the business model. But, does anybody actually know?
Scottish Sceptic says:
June 14, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Can I sign it if I’m Scottish? No, I’m not asking whether I’m literate, or haven’t mistakenly cut off my thumbs attempting to kill the haggis after the hunt on the Moss.
REPLY: Probably not, this is a US taxpayer issue – Anthony
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SS, first, I’d like to state how unfair that was to clarify before we could respond. But, I’d like you to try anyway. I’d like to see if you can.
Balazs says:
June 14, 2012 at 1:00 pm
This is not a taxpayer issue as long as you don’t want governments to step in to fund scientific journals. You will need to find a business model for the journals that allows them to print or publish scientific papers online without compensation.>>>>>>>>>>>>
Tax funder paid research should be published by the tax payer funded institution. There is no need anymore for a “journal”. This is the information age, and hanging onto concepts like “journals” that require a “business model” to function is total nonsense.
I wonder who really sees these things? It looks like anyone with an “whitehouse.gov” account can create a petition and if it gets 25K signatures in a month, then I guess someone at the White House will look at it to see if the issue will help the President’s re-election campaign.
I suspect the chance of this having any effect on policy is about as likely as pole-vaulting with a rope.
Addendum to previous, lest anything think I’m just being cynical: I will sign this as soon as I get home and have access to the email account I used to set it up.
Alan watt
Is level 7 very high up in the hierarchy or are you merely a lowly foot soldier?
Tonyb
Scottish Sceptic says:
“Can I sign it if I’m Scottish? No, I’m not asking whether I’m literate, or haven’t mistakenly cut off my thumbs attempting to kill the haggis after the hunt on the Moss.”
“REPLY: Probably not, this is a US taxpayer issue – Anthony”
By the same token, the petition to recall Walker in Wisconsin was signed by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, and Adolph Hitler.
In many fields the journals charge submission fees that cover the costs of paying referees to do the peer review. The university typically reimburses the faculty researcher for the submission fee. Journals could just raise the submission fee, then university’s can raise tuition to cover the cost, and taxpayers/students are paying for their ‘free access’ to the paywalled journal articles. However, I still agree that the results and the data associated with any research project funded by the federal government should be freely available to the public.
More road kill on the information highway.
@Scottish Sceptic
I signed – my zip code is some business in some state. I’m the other side of Hadrian’s Wall from you, but in the same country.
Hamish (founder member of Friends of Hadrian – & friends of Uffa, for that matter)
If you want a copy of a research article, then send the lead author a reprint request card by email.
Back on the old days before the use of photocoperies, it was customary for the lead author to purchase reprints which he would send upon request. He would also maintain a mailing list and send to his collegues a reprint. He did this to make sure his papers would cited in a future articles by them and to make sure they don’t tread upon his turf.
The postcard usually stated:
Dear Sir,
I would be appreciative if you would send to me a reprint of your paper:
title would be stated here
published in: journal ref would be given here.
Please send the reprint to: the name and the address of the requester would be given here.
Back in the old days it only cost 5 cents to send a postcard. However, as postage rates soared, it became cheaper to photocopy the article from the journal at the univ library. Back in those days, the pace of research was slow, and the public had no interest in basic research. But times have changed.
I don’t know if authors of papers are allowed to send copies via email, They still can purchase and send reprints the old-fashioned way.
If you know a student at a college or university, ask him to get you a copy of the article via the internet.
However, he can only do this if library has a subscription to the journal. Give him a small gift card for food. for his efforts. Young students are always hungry.
I
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
June 14, 2012 at 1:27 pm
I wonder who really sees these things? It looks like anyone with an “whitehouse.gov” account can create a petition and if it gets 25K signatures in a month, then I guess someone at the White House will look at it to see if the issue will help the President’s re-election campaign.
I suspect the chance of this having any effect on policy is about as likely as pole-vaulting with a rope.
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Nonetheless.
# 26,959
🙂
I thought the issue was not so much the journals, which certainly exploit the stuff they are fed – but the research itself. If the research itself is government / taxpayer funded, seems logical to assume it ought to be made available through an organ of government (not one of the lower digestive ones either). Perhaps NIS could buy The Journal of Irreproducible Results and publish all government / university funded research therein? Having a single, fat journal dedicated to that end would have the same salubrious results as putting all the toxic mortgage backe securities in a “bad bank”. People could just stay away from it then.
Journals still have a place, pretty much the same one as now. Its real function (and that of the peer-review process they employ) is to prove a forum where you can (in theory) be guaranteed that you will only see good quality research papers. The journal provides a filtering service.
That doesn’t change if the papers are otherwise freely available. Its much easier to subscribe to a journal (especially if the highly inflated fees charged are paid by the taxpayer) than it is to scour a huge number of papers, mostly garbage, scattered over thousands of websites and libraries.
I signed.
I noticed at least one signature that appeared to be from Canada (Quebec) and at least one signature that appeared to be from Australia (Adelaide).
John
@davidmhoffer – a very good point re the information age. I would add that water tends to find it’s own level. The robust papers, published in freely available format for the benefit of science, and able to withstand the scrutiny of the wider public scientific community, with source data available, would be of much greater impact and credibility than a pal-reviewed shonky research paper hidden away behind a paywall, for only friends and family to see, with no transparency in the data used.