4 ms·

Why is Science Behind a Paywall?

14 points by tsenkov 13y ago

PaulHoule 13y ago
There's a pretty simple explanation. It's called tenure. As a result of tenure, the official policy of the university is "Aproi moi le deluge" One symptom of this is continuous handwringing about problems that never go away. If you look at CACM, for instance, they've been running pretty much the same article about "Why don't women major in computer science?" every two months for every twenty years. Physics Today, on the other hand, runs an article about every six months about the terrible academic job prospects for physics PhD's. (The last 10 Einsteins we created all went to work for Goldman Sacks) Because a professor doesn't personally have skin in any game (he can't find himself on the street) he's really got no reason to address problems that affect his field or academia as a whole. I know some people who talked with Don Knuth about libraries and open access and Knuth displayed his ignorance: "there's no problem, we don't need libraries, I just read all the journals for free on my computer." He was ignorant of the facts that: (1) the library at his school cuts a huge check to Elsevier every year, and (2) people outside the ivory walls don't share his privilege. It's that kind of thinking that keeps science behind a paywall.
- bnegreve 13y ago
  Après moi le déluge
mpyne 13y ago
Very informative article, even if it explains things that most of us here already realize, it's very useful to point others to with less background on "open science".
mathattack 13y ago
"One game changer would be governments mandating that publicly financed research be made publicly available. Every year the United States government provides over $60 billion in public grants for scientific research. In 2008, Congress mandated (over furious opposition from private publishers) that all research funded through the National Institute of Health, which accounts for 50% of government funding of science, be made publicly available within a year. Extending this requirement to all other research financed by the government would go a long way for OA publishing. This is true of similar efforts by the British and Canadian governments, which are in the midst of such steps." This is the solution. As taxpayers we say the research must be open. If you research based on our grant money, it must be open. If you are a public school, it must be open. If you are on public land, it must be open. If you want non-profit status, it must be open. If you want to it be closed, then you must be a self-funded for-profit institution. (Sometimes we call these things businesses)

14 points by tsenkov 13y ago

There's a pretty simple explanation. It's called tenure. As a result of tenure, the official policy of the university is "Aproi moi le deluge" One symptom of this is continuous handwringing about problems that never go away. If you look at CACM, for instance, they've been running pretty much the same article about "Why don't women major in computer science?" every two months for every twenty years. Physics Today, on the other hand, runs an article about every six months about the terrible academic job prospects for physics PhD's. (The last 10 Einsteins we created all went to work for Goldman Sacks) Because a professor doesn't personally have skin in any game (he can't find himself on the street) he's really got no reason to address problems that affect his field or academia as a whole. I know some people who talked with Don Knuth about libraries and open access and Knuth displayed his ignorance: "there's no problem, we don't need libraries, I just read all the journals for free on my computer." He was ignorant of the facts that: (1) the library at his school cuts a huge check to Elsevier every year, and (2) people outside the ivory walls don't share his privilege. It's that kind of thinking that keeps science behind a paywall.

bnegreve 13y ago
Après moi le déluge

mpyne 13y ago

Very informative article, even if it explains things that most of us here already realize, it's very useful to point others to with less background on "open science".

mathattack 13y ago

"One game changer would be governments mandating that publicly financed research be made publicly available. Every year the United States government provides over $60 billion in public grants for scientific research. In 2008, Congress mandated (over furious opposition from private publishers) that all research funded through the National Institute of Health, which accounts for 50% of government funding of science, be made publicly available within a year. Extending this requirement to all other research financed by the government would go a long way for OA publishing. This is true of similar efforts by the British and Canadian governments, which are in the midst of such steps." This is the solution. As taxpayers we say the research must be open. If you research based on our grant money, it must be open. If you are a public school, it must be open. If you are on public land, it must be open. If you want non-profit status, it must be open. If you want to it be closed, then you must be a self-funded for-profit institution. (Sometimes we call these things businesses)