4 ms·

House Bill Will Ban Open Access to Scientific Publications

35 points by troystribling 18y ago

wmf 18y ago
These articles are interpreting the bill slightly wrong, although the end result is mostly the same. The bill bans government-mandated open access, but scientists are still allowed to voluntarily submit their papers to open access journals such as PLoS.
- Rod 18y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. Just a thought experiment: forbidding scientists to submit papers to open access journals would be a bit too draconian, wouldn't it?
  - wmf 18y ago
    That sounds like it would be a first amendment problem.
    - jrp 18y ago
      It would certainly be evil, but not be unconstitutional, for the government to require government-funded researchers to publish their government-owned ideas wherever the government prefers. If I develop cold fusion 'using university resources', then it's theirs, according to my contract.
- Radix 18y ago
  That's interesting, thanks for pointing it out. I'm just as annoyed as before though. I don't follow why government funded programs cost money if they don't have to. If the government pays then the citizens should have access to the information as soon as possible.
Rod 18y ago
"John Conyers (D-MI) apparently has a problem with this. He is pushing a bill through Congress that will literally ban the open access of these papers, forcing scientists to only publish in journals. This may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive." Who would have foreseen that academic journals had such lobbying power? I am disgusted. Many universities are following MIT OCW's great example and making their lectures and course materials available online for free. Only a spineless, corrupt politician would try to go the other direction.
- falsestprophet 18y ago
  If I remember the numbers correctly, he is getting about 4x the contributions from the academic publishing industry that non-supporters do. Anyway, all of these sums are pretty trivial. My roomate's uncle threw around something like $40,000 in the Capitol and got a several million dollar award to do some preposterously high margin "aid work." I expect our government to be for sale. I am pretty upset it is so cheap.
  - pchristensen 18y ago
    One idea I like is to pay members of congress a ton (like $3M/yr) and then execute them if they do anything wrong. Or something like that. That's like $2B/yr in salaries but would probably save $500B-$1T/yr in graft.
lliiffee 18y ago
There is a real possibility that lobbying by scientists is at least behind this. I can easily imagine someone so angry that their grant forbids them from sending their paper to Nature (which has prestige above any open journal) that they write to their representatives.
- falsestprophet 18y ago
  That is a good point. But they can still submit to the Proceedings of the National Academy, which is an equally prestigious journal.
cabalamat 18y ago
I wish Americans wouldn't call a bill an act until such time as it is enacted. When I read about the Blah Blah Blah Act, it is often not clear whether it's a law or merely a proposal for a law. The British practice of always calling it the Blah Blah Blah Bill until such time as it receives royal assent is better, IMO.

35 points by troystribling 18y ago

wmf 18y ago

These articles are interpreting the bill slightly wrong, although the end result is mostly the same. The bill bans government-mandated open access, but scientists are still allowed to voluntarily submit their papers to open access journals such as PLoS.

Rod 18y ago
Thanks for the clarification. Just a thought experiment: forbidding scientists to submit papers to open access journals would be a bit too draconian, wouldn't it?
- wmf 18y ago
  That sounds like it would be a first amendment problem.
  - jrp 18y ago
    It would certainly be evil, but not be unconstitutional, for the government to require government-funded researchers to publish their government-owned ideas wherever the government prefers. If I develop cold fusion 'using university resources', then it's theirs, according to my contract.
Radix 18y ago
That's interesting, thanks for pointing it out. I'm just as annoyed as before though. I don't follow why government funded programs cost money if they don't have to. If the government pays then the citizens should have access to the information as soon as possible.

Rod 18y ago

"John Conyers (D-MI) apparently has a problem with this. He is pushing a bill through Congress that will literally ban the open access of these papers, forcing scientists to only publish in journals. This may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive." Who would have foreseen that academic journals had such lobbying power? I am disgusted. Many universities are following MIT OCW's great example and making their lectures and course materials available online for free. Only a spineless, corrupt politician would try to go the other direction.

falsestprophet 18y ago
If I remember the numbers correctly, he is getting about 4x the contributions from the academic publishing industry that non-supporters do. Anyway, all of these sums are pretty trivial. My roomate's uncle threw around something like $40,000 in the Capitol and got a several million dollar award to do some preposterously high margin "aid work." I expect our government to be for sale. I am pretty upset it is so cheap.
- pchristensen 18y ago
  One idea I like is to pay members of congress a ton (like $3M/yr) and then execute them if they do anything wrong. Or something like that. That's like $2B/yr in salaries but would probably save $500B-$1T/yr in graft.

lliiffee 18y ago

There is a real possibility that lobbying by scientists is at least behind this. I can easily imagine someone so angry that their grant forbids them from sending their paper to Nature (which has prestige above any open journal) that they write to their representatives.

falsestprophet 18y ago
That is a good point. But they can still submit to the Proceedings of the National Academy, which is an equally prestigious journal.

cabalamat 18y ago

I wish Americans wouldn't call a bill an act until such time as it is enacted. When I read about the Blah Blah Blah Act, it is often not clear whether it's a law or merely a proposal for a law. The British practice of always calling it the Blah Blah Blah Bill until such time as it receives royal assent is better, IMO.