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>Shouldn't it be a law that any research done with public dollars should be made available to the public for free? Any costs associated with the publishing shou
by igf 10y ago
>Shouldn't it be a law that any research done with public dollars should be made available to the public for free? Any costs associated with the publishing should be built into the funding.
If you like. How much do you think that would cost, though? Typically journals charge about $2000 to make a paper open-access.
Now, given that extra research funding won't just magically appear, what we're basically saying is that less research should be funded, just so that it can be hypothetically read by the small minority of people who wish to read it and yet aren't connected to a research institution and can't be bothered going to their local university library to arrange access.
"Ah", you say, "but at least the university libraries would save money because they'd no longer have to pay for all those journal subscriptions". Well, except they would, because of the rest of the world, and also because of all the locally-funded research which was published before this hypothetical new law came into effect.
It doesn't necessarily follow that just because research is publically funded that it should be publically available. Many things that are publically funded are not publically available, which is why I can't take a ride in an Air Force plane whenever I feel like it. Publically funded things are funded for specific purposes, which may or may not be served by making it publically available.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- iamleppert 10y agoDo you really think it costs $2000 to publish a PDF on the Internet these days? I'm talking about putting the documents on S3 with a simple paginated frontend that would allow searching the name/synopsis. You must work for the government?
- detaro 10y agoigf isn't saying that the technical cost of publishing the PDF is $2000. They are saying that it is what journals charge for the right to do so while also publishing in them. And yes, many academics will rather use any funds they can to pay that than not publish in those journals, so unless there is some widely-coordinated move to force the issue funds will go there for now. While grants can enforce open-access publications, forbidding publication in other venues seems a lot more contentious.
- iamleppert 10y agoI guess I just don't understand this kind of attitude. If it was done with public funds, it should be made available to the public. We have the means and capability to do so now. The point of research is to be useful, even if it doesn't immediately have an application in the present, it could form the basis of something new in the future. Not having easy access to this institutional knowledge decreases the value to the public, or putting it behind a paywall and restricting access could prevent a non-standard performer or individual contributor from obtaining access and thereby benefiting. I think the motivations in the academic world is very flawed. If I were an academic my goal would be to provide my work to the largest audience I possibly could, so there likelihood of someone benefiting from it would be the highest. This is especially true for research that has no present application. It should be highly accessible and available to anyone if the public has paid for the academic to live, eat, and generally do the work.