NIH Proposes to Open Tax-Funded Research 366
Johnny Mnemonic writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the NIH "has proposed a major policy change that would require all scientists who receive funding from the agency to make the results of their research available to the public for free." Scientific magazines are screaming, fearing that their subscriptions would diminish--but the common sense nature of the proposal is hard to refute. Why should Americans who funded the research with their tax dollars have to pay again to read the research? Particularly since the web makes pubishing said information inexpensive."
For people not in the know... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:For people not in the know... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:For people not in the know... (Score:5, Funny)
It's about time (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably Not (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably Not (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Probably Not (Score:3, Informative)
Noone I know has ever been paid even one penny for doing a peer review.
Re:It's about time (Score:2)
How is that going to help? The way to filter out bogus research is peer review by competing experts in the field. This is what happens now.
Re:It's about time (Score:3, Insightful)
many authors of research papers,
especially in medicine, have to transfer
copyrights to journals in order to publish
(and get tenure or senior positions in
their institutions).
Copyrighted material is then owned by journals
that are NOT necessary nowdays. Peer review
can be done in better way over the Net,
since peer reviewers rarely get any money
for their effort. Some money gets into
editors pockets, but even that is often
minor. So, why should researchers give
copyright to journal
Re:It's about time (Score:3, Interesting)
for their effort
The amount of money that reviewers are paid (I was never paid anything) is irrelevant. Someone has to organise the reviewing, and act as referee in conflicts between reviewers and authors. This is conventionally the editor of the journal. These editors have a lot of work to do. There will need to be a whole new structure set up to organise reviewing, and to categorise publications and to ensure
Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, why should only America share their findings? Shouldn't all nations, no matter how small their medical research budget, share whatever they can?
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:2)
This is a very insightful comment. National participation on medical, health and other scientific findings should be publicly available since they are funded (generally) by tax dollars. This is something I can stand behind.
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, considering that taxes aren't paid (directly) to the UN, and that US taxpayers pay for far more research through the NIH than the WHO, I think a national policy is the right way forwards. Besides, once the US starts doing this, the rest of the world won't be far behind.
If most US research is made available in
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:3)
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:3, Insightful)
And the US considers the UN a relevant body since when?
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:3, Interesting)
This question is genuine. A lot (a majority?) of the American people are sceptical of the UN, including myself. Here's an opportunity to show how the UN can help with something.
(It might also help to show what the benefit is to the United States. It's easy to show that one side benefits in a completely one-sided arrangement.)
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:3, Insightful)
The papers in question are already available to those "other nations and foreign organizations" -- they simply buy subscriptions to the journals in question. Subscriptions costing hundreds or thousands of dollars a year are trivial to, say, the government of China. They're far less trivial to schools, libraries, and Joe Average who's i
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:2, Insightful)
what utter nonsense! This is just the nature of doing
scientific research. Proper research is, and always
has been, an open source type thing. No good science
without proper peer review and openness. And it's not
like it's so easy to simply copy research. You can
copy papers, but copying the infrastructure, the labs,
the myriad unwritten rules and experimental expertise
needed is a whole different beast altogether. In fact,
increasingly, top
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:2)
Maybe the incentive to get filthy rich is what's needed in order to get the byproducts that benefit the world as a whole... eventually?
Don't know, just pondering.
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Incentive to get filthy rich leads to death of science as we know it. It is a place where noone but the extremely wealthy can afford doing any reading since all information is "private property".
Again like many people before you, you made a mistake of confusing the cause with the effect. It is the effect of open research that flourished for the past few centuries that these people are now able to profit from its effects. They take what was built up by countless others before the
Re:Just to play devil's advocate here... (Score:2)
The thing is that they can only lock things down by publishing (releasing to the public) and they are only able to lock down for a limited period. The alternative is that corporate funded research wouldn't be published hoping that nobody else discovers what they have done. That is the only way that the company could hope to get some return on their investment without protections.
By publishing research, import
Go science (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Go science (Score:5, Insightful)
Netscape: "But that would put us out of business!"
----
Apple: "Your O/S license is hereby yanked."
Clones: "But that would put us out of business!"
----
Repeat with AT&T, IBM, Standard Oil, Newspapers, employment offshoring, or anything else that puts people out of business.
Am I the only one who thinks its utterly bizarre that we have so many people on Slashdot who mindlessly think that putting someone out of business is always a good thing? Do these people not have jobs?
Re:Go science (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Go science (Score:5, Insightful)
> Am I the only one who thinks its utterly bizarre that we have so many people on Slashdot who mindlessly think that putting someone out of business is always a good thing? Do these people not have jobs?
Possibly. The whole point is that scientists, being
dependent on publications to keep the grant money
flowing are practically forced to publish in the
mostly highly regarded journals. Ergo: such publications
become valuable, simple because they are scarce.
(There is only so much room in Nature, Science, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.,
Cell, Phys. Rev. Lett, and all the rest). Ergo:
publishers raise their prices to extortionate levels.
This is all the more scandalous since the whole
peer review process costs absolutely nothing.
Anyways, what the NIH now seem to be doing (and very
rightly so) is to force the scientists to use different
journals to publish in. In other words, they are
trying to do away with a completely artificial
monopoly.
Economic theory says that monopolies are always
deleterious. It has nothing to do with putting people
out of work; quite the contrary. Money not spent
lining the pockets of Elsevier and others will
be spent for other, hopefully better purposes.
Re:Go science (Score:3, Informative)
The scientific magazines provide a service by organizing the review, choosing the material, organising it, then printing and delivering it. They don't do the review, that's done by other scientists. Now either that service is worth the money they're demanding or it isn't. If there's a cheaper way by spending the money on a few websites instead of all those magazines then they should either adapt their prices or go out of business.
At the moment the situation is unbearable
Re:Go science (Score:2)
businesses suckling from the taxpayer's teat (Score:2)
Or, what about the no-bid contracts for Cheney's corporation, Halliburton?
These "businesses" are many orders of magnitude greater wastes of money than are any science publishers. The AAAS and Nature routinely publish government-financed research and they are the top of the heap. Hell, I think it would be nearly impossible to find any published research that didn't have taxpayer
Re:businesses suckling from the taxpayer's teat (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, printing non-reviewed data or preliminary data results in "cold fusion" BS.
In another field, the lack of prestige that a peer-reviewed journal carries would have permitted the nay-sayers to swamp Peter Mitchell's chemi-osmotic membrane transport theory (that lead to the discovery of active ion channel pumps). The establishment roun
Re:Go science (Score:3, Interesting)
Under the old model, when one would like to have their result
This might not be so wonderful. (Score:2)
That depends entirely on the business and what's done to get rid of it. I don't like this without assurances that it won't be abused but I can imagine things getting worse rather than better. Measures that reduce freedom are always bad, even if the public is thrown some free beer in the process.
Once again, government is increasing it's power to fix a mess that excessive government power created to begin wi
Re:Go science (Score:2)
The phrase "But that would put us out of business!" should be read as "But we're too set in our current business models to adapt!"
Imagine the money Microsoft could make if they'd play nicely with OSS, instead of being stuck on it's old ways.
The NIH isn't the first to do this.. (Score:5, Informative)
Hurray (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if anything neat will come of this, now that everyone can use data collected from others research.
What about patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
I'm outraged.
I'm glad you caught them so that this kind of thing won't happen again.
Re:What about patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perheaps you could use some of their products to make your braincells function again...
Yes it is a ripoff because a particular company was gifted the money to make its monopoly and thus exorbitant pricing work. On something the public paid for. The proper way would be to have all generic drug makers make it.
You have fallen pray to the classic scam run by drug companies who make big eyes and in cute tearful voice say: "but, but ... we cure people, we need public resarch, governmeny grants, patent laws for protection .." (and as soon as they get it, cue change to an evil monster and snickering voice) "And give us all your fucking money or die, suckers! And you cant make anyone else make this drug cheaper, we own it, yes we own your asses!"
Re:What about patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
The type of advocacy you're engaged in -- if it were turned into action -- would result in fewer cures.
That's what drug companies do: cure people for a profit. You might want to make that harder for them. I don't.
Re:What about patents? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
The people who didn't die of cancer reaped most of the rewards.
Re:What about patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
And the people whose tax dollars funded the research, then couldn't afford the drugs to save their lives? What reward did they get out of it?
It seems to me that if public money funds development of something, whether it's a drug or a widget or a standrad, then it should be available to the people who paid for it -- namely the citizens of the country in question -- for the cost of production and distribution. They already paid for its devel
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
It could (will almost certainly) lead to fewer cures.
Re:What about patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
That they do. Emphasis on profit. Deemphassis on cure.
The type of advocacy you're engaged in -- if it were turned into action -- would result in fewer cures.
No. There would be less frivolous drugs (viagra?) which consume bulk of the private research funds. Instead there would be publically founded research (which apparently is already done) coupled with a large array of generic drug makers, competing on manufacuring quality and price.
It is simply a choice of two approaches: 1 where everything is done for the drug companies to enable them monopoly status and vast profits at the expense of dying people and 2. where research is done for the benefit of all and the drug companies are competing aggressively on delivery of that research.
What we have now instead is the worst combination of all: an incestous relationship between people in government, handing out public funds and research to their cronies in chosen corporations to make a killing, and at the same time to try to appear as "saviours" of sick people.
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
I think the people who didn't die of cancer would argue with your emphasis.
If you have a less-expensive model that has a long term track-record of producing more and better drugs, let's see the link.
I'll take the cures, even if someone makes some money on it.
Re:What about patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Particularly the ones who died by not being to afford the $400 a day.
If you have a less-expensive model that has a long term track-record of producing more and better drugs, let's see the link.
Ah the age old cry of a thieving tyrant. You know, that is probably exactly the same tone in which some two-bit lordling in the middle ages would say to a rebellious peasant: "And if there is a place the likes of you have a voice in any of the kingdoms about, show me! No? Off with your head.".
Times on the other hand showed there was a better way after all.
On a serious note, yes, there are places like Canada, where at least partially an effort is being made. In Canada in return for the priviledge of 20 year patents, the drug prices are controlled. Perheaps you heard of that slight spat that the Northrn states are having with the FDA over importing those drugs to save their dying seniors?
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
All this "thieving tyrant" talk isn't really curing anyone of cancer, is it?
Re:What about patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
A signifiant number per capita (the only measure that counts). I am personally familiar with some of those operations due to my line of business.
All this "thieving tyrant" talk isn't really curing anyone of cancer, is it?
No but it might help bring thieves to account and discourage further thievery. And if lucky, it might also result in a lot of lives being saved by making both research efficient and drug pricing lo
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
A signifiant number per capita
What number? More than in the other systems you dislike so much?
All this "thieving tyrant" talk isn't really curing anyone of cancer, is it?
No but it might help bring thieves to account and discourage further thievery.
I think people with the cancer would rather have the cure.
Re:What about patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is nonsense. A drug such as Viagra doesn't "consume" private research funds. Viagra makes money for Pfizer, who can then invest the profits in other research projects. And it is worth noting that the basic science behind Viagra
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
No, the company in this case is acting as a middleman: the research on the drug was already done, the only thing needed was mass-production, which can be quite cheap if the volumes are high.
So the company was bringing almost no added value, still it made a huge profit because it was the middleman. Remove the middleman and suddenly the drug would become much cheaper, and still save lives.
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
Before being made into a servant of corporations, academia was by far the leading source of all research for the last few centuries. It was effective, efficient, self-controlling (peer review) and very prollific source of knowledge. That is where the research money should go.
Industry (drug manufacturers) are just that. Their part in this deal is to manufacture drugs as efficiently as possible and compete on free markets in their delivery.
Remember, capitalism, cont
Re:What about patents? (Score:2, Interesting)
That's great. But you forgot about the other $700 million taken from the taxpayers, most of whom weren't dying from cancer. The company now has that money, too.
Perhaps the first $700M of any patent-related profits on this drug should go to reimbursing the taxpayers for the risk-free capital provided to the company.
Re:What about patents? (Score:2)
Re:What about patents? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, c'mon. Give those Bristol-Meyers guys some credit. After all, they generously named the drug after us taxpayers.
One draw back... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One draw back... (Score:2)
If there smart, they will offer a peer review as a service to the federal government.
Like many companies, the internet will cause changes here to. Provide what the consumer wants, or perish.
Very true... (Score:2)
Re:One draw back... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:One draw back... (Score:2, Informative)
No, you don't pay for peer review, it's done for free by other scientists. What you pay is just the brand name. All the work, including page formatting, spelling check etc. is done for free by the scientists, who also pay to have their articles published. So I have finally found what's in step 2:
1. Start a scientific publishing company
2. Get volunteers who do the work and pay you for the privilege
3. PROFIT!!!
access to article (Score:2)
The Assayer (Score:2)
no big deal for subscription magazines (Score:2)
it's an audited process, so there is a stacking big paper trail [in CPL] with a stacking big database where nothing can get thrown away for something like well over six years.
This is already happening sometimes! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is already happening sometimes! (Score:2, Informative)
As far as the NIH funded research is concerned, anyone can look up a topic on PubMed [nih.gov] read the text of an abstract, obtain an author's e-mail and receive a reprint or pdf of any publication. Most researchers are eager to send along copies of their published work ...
Re:This is already happening sometimes! (Score:2)
Re:This is already happening sometimes! (Score:2)
Therefore it would really make sense if the NIH as one of the most influencial funders of science not only in the US but internationally would push the life science comunity
It's a bit like saying... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's more to these health journals than just the reports themselves, which provide commentary and editorial content above and beyond reports.
Re:It's a bit like saying... (Score:2)
Then they shouldn't have a problem with this. They offer value-added content - people that want it will pay for it. They have no just cause to start screaming.
peer review... (Score:3, Interesting)
ok I agree
what I dont agree with is that the reviewers in most case for publications get paid pitance or are completely out of their depth
what the NIH needs to do is set up a publishing system that ANYONE can use and submit their work
you get mod points and a team of very fancy reviewers who NIH appoints and have unlimted mod points
those publications e.g. NATURE who charge me to view somone elses work are dead
NIH should be looking out for the people who pay tax's
(I dont pay tax in the US anymore I pay uk tax's and frankly complain about it...)
regards
John Jones
Re:peer review... (Score:4, Informative)
The former is quite true. Actually, most reviewers aren't paid, period. It's seen as a way to contribute back to the research community. It works reasonably well that way--by the time someone is likely to be asked to review papers, they have quite a few publications under their belt, and they should have some familiarity with the review process.
I disagree strongly with the latter statement. It's been my experience that reviewers are generally highly competent to review the papers that they see. Part of this is down to the journal editorial board--they have to find appropriate reviewers, and perhaps there are some third-string journals that don't have the resources or contacts to find top-rate reviewers.
what the NIH needs to do is set up a publishing system that ANYONE can use and submit their work
Why? Instead of just being able to submit to a hypothetical future NIH journal, anyone is free to submit papers to any journal now. Granted, some journals do charge to publish--generally most will waive those page charges if you can demonstrate genuinely dire financial straits. You're also welcome to self-publish on the web, but then of course you don't get any of the credibility associated with formal peer review.
you get mod points and a team of very fancy reviewers who NIH appoints and have unlimted mod points
Eek. I'm not sure that 'mod points' would be a sufficiently precise tool for this type of review. In conventional peer review, reviewers do indeed offer a recommendation about the fate of a submitted paper. Usually there are three or so categories, roughly "acceptable for publication", "acceptable with significant revision", "not acceptable for publication". However, they don't stop there. Depending on the paper and the perceived flaws or areas for improvement, they will also return anywhere from a few sentences to several pages of comments. If a paper is rejected for publication, it's very useful for a scientist to know precisely why. Were there important controls missing? Is the manuscript inappropriate for the particular journal? Did the reviewer misunderstand the results? Properly reviewing a paper takes a significant amount of time--a few hours minimum, multiplied by the number of reviewers (two or three are typical; I know of very few exceptions.)
Also, where would this pool of highly-competent reviewers come from? Generally, the most up-to-date individuals in any field are very busy doing their own research. They don't have time to do detailed review and "moderation" of thousands of unfiltered web submissions. If you filter submissions past a paid part- or full-time editor, you're essentially right back to the old school peer review process.
those publications e.g. NATURE who charge me to view somone elses work are dead
You can have open publications without abandoning traditional peer review--you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. See for example PLoS Biology [plosbiology.org]. It's an open publication--all articles are available for free, online. I think it's a very promising experiment, and I look forward to the launch of further PLoS (Public Library of Science) titles. Will they kill Nature or Science? Who knows? I'm willing to see how the journal ecology evolves.
Gasp! But isn't that "socialism"??!! (Score:3, Interesting)
And isn't socialism evil?
Now, this does run strictly to our wonderful new lasseiz-faire/globalized/neoliberal economy, which has as one of its main principles, "if there is a way through which any corporation may make money, then that is a Good Thing."
Of course, what we have here is just another example of "public financing, private profit."
Uh, NO, what has been happening is Laissez Faire (Score:2)
LETTING the corporations do that is called Laissez faire.
I think Laissez faire is a bad thing, as it is public funding to obtain private profits.
Get it now?
"growing, vibrant economy"==empty propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>>>>>>>>
"Socialism is a good idea, but not if you want a growing, vibrant economy."
>>>>>>>>.
yeah! And when the slavers were running slaves to the South and the plantation owners were making a fortune growing cotton, THAT was a "growing, vibrant economy," too. Problem was the slave lifestyle, well, it kinda sucked, dude. You might wanna go meditate on the idea that a "growing, vibrant economy" aint what we want. We want a high quality of lif
It's not the publishing (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an alternative - author pays (see PLOS). There are downsides to this too. If you don't have grant money you don't publish. It is less of a problem in biology, but mathematics and theoretical physics will suffer.
Publishing on the web is not a good alternative. With paper journals and a university library you can find articles from 100 years ago or more. Strangely enough these old articles are useful sometimes :)
The problem came about because Springer decided make scientific journal publishing a more profitable business at the same time that libraries decided to cut costs by limiting paper journal subscriptions. IMHO, let's not make radical changes while we are in a state of flux.
Re:It's not the publishing (Score:2)
Some journals request authors to produce properly formatted docs with camera-ready images, with the right font size and labels, etc., warning otherwise that errors "may delay" publication. It's mentioned that too many errors will result in extra surcharges. It seems to me that the authors are doing more of the publishers' work.
Or, is the publish-or-perish phenomenon forcing publishers to streamline too much?
Re:It's not the publishing (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, it's not really the publishing that's expensive. But neither are the high costs of journals due to the proofreading/editing/peer review stages. Almost every respectable peer reviewed journal (whether for-profit or non-profit) uses volunteer peer reviewers. The editors are also usually volunteers (certainly with any non-profit or association journal). And publishing costs are no higher than for printing any other type of work.
The high costs are due to the increasing consolidation of academic journals under a few journal corporations. Academics of all fields need access to journals, so their schools have to pay. So costs have soared several hundred percent in the last few years. Additionally, for-profit publishers often require schools to buy bundles of lower-quality journals if they want to gain any access to the higher-quality journals. And researchers have to publish, because failure to publish reduces chances for jobs, as well as destroys the open exchange and criticism of ideas that characterizes science.
However, for the journal to remain peer-reviewed, it depends on volunteer, unpaid articles and peer-reviewers.
One could also ask... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One could also ask... (Score:2)
Um, US tax payers subsidize scientific research for others to use... NOW. That's the whole idea of publication - you publish your results, so EVERYBODY can look at, reproduce, and weigh in. If this proposal disenfranchises the journals (expensive as they are), then the only people who lose are the journa
Re:One could also ask... (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me spell it out to you: science is i-n-t-e-r-n-a-t-i-o-n-a-l. You have friendly (some
Benefit of the commonwealth! (Score:2, Insightful)
That doesn't mean they haven't said things just as sensible in the past, of course, just that I've never noticed, if so. The stinky things people / organizations do tend to stick out more.
If something is or should be funded with tax dollars (a category I think is best kept small or smaller, but *if*!), then it had better be available to the people who pay those dollars in.
Moreover, any government spending at all should be made with a specific p
Do you really want this? (Score:2)
Sure. Let's start handing out nuclear and chemical weapons to any taxpayer who wants them. Their taxes did pay for them after all. When our taxes pay for a coup of a foreign government, are we all entitled to a piece of that country? And we should all be entitled to all sorts of services from Haliburton as well.
Good but devil is in the details (Score:4, Informative)
I will also note that Journals, whether owned by commercial companies or produced by scientific societies perform many services that cost money and legitimately should be renumerated. Scientific research does not stop at data collection but the results must be vetted by your peers (i.e., peer review). An editor for a journal must select some number of reviewers, distribute the papers to the reviewers, read the returned reviews, make a publish/reject but resubmit/reject decision, then, if accepted, hand it off to the copy editors, etc. Many of us act as reviewers for free but editors, editorial assistants, copy editors, graphic designers, etc all work for pay and the scientific process benefits from their efforts. Moreover, archiving and preserving electronic access essentially forever will cost someone some money. The devil in the details is that we need to make sure that there is room for some revenue to support these things.
My two cents.
Re:Good but devil is in the details (Score:2)
And that's valuable work
but editors, editorial assistants, copy editors, graphic designers, etc all work for pay
This, however, doesn't add so much value. You could almost automate the selection function of editors - let the reviewers give articles a score, a bit like Slashdot. Copy editors for academic journals do nothing - authors do the proofreading.
Moreover, archiving and preserving electronic access essentially forever will cost someone some money.
I think the m
Editors do add value (Score:3, Insightful)
Editors do a lot more than just hands on editing of papers. They spend a lot of time soliciting articles for their journal, requesting review articles, news articles and book reviews, determine the direction of the journal (and keep it moving that way), solicit and edit art, answer author queries, get and grant reprint permission for figure re-use and just generally deal with the day to day crap necessary to keep a journal running. Most journals have severa
Re:Good but devil is in the details (Score:2)
I don't mind the idea of journals gathering a bunch of articles they like, getting permission from the authors, and selling the collections. For example, if I read an article in Nature, I can be reasonably sure that the article describes high-impact research. That is the value that prestigious journals add.
But what I don't like is th
Great News! (Score:2, Insightful)
Open what? (Score:2)
I guess the geek in me got the better of me. When I read the story title, I thought it meant that NIH was going to mandate that scientists receiving funding from them use open source software. And of course, it would make sense as it would mean more money spent on actual research. Now if only ...
How would it actually work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, what a load of male bovine excreta. Peer reviewers aren't paid. In my field (physics), journals typically require the author of the paper to submit it in LaTeX format, using a set of LaTeX macros that are defined by the journal. The journal does absolutely zero work in cleaning up the paper and getting it ready to go in the journal.
What seems a little ambiguous here is what would actually happen to the papers. AFAICT from the article, they're just talking about forcing recipients of NIH money to give their papers to NIH for free-as-in-beer distribution. But then what happens to the papers? In physics, we have arxiv.org [arxiv.org], which is a free electronic depository for preprints and reprints, many of which have not yet been peer reviewed or published in a peer-reviewed journal. Is NIH planning to set up the equivalent of arxiv.org themselves? It seems like they're completely ignoring the recent efforts to start up free, electronic scientific journals.
I would like to see something like this:
Re:How would it actually work? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the way it is my my field too (math). The print journals are yesterday's way of paying organizers to setup peer review systems. Now they exist to tax research institutions with subscription costs. No one wants to photocopy articles out of a journal. They get the preprint online. There are other electronic preprint archives, such as the Stanford one.
The essential problem is to pay an administrator to parcel out reviewing assignments to researchers. These people could be effectively funded by a coalition of universities, because god knows they'll get that money from government grants anyway.
Re:How would it actually work? (Score:5, Informative)
Um, NIH already has a well developed infrastructure for this: PubMed Central [pubmedcentral.gov]. The problem is that not many journals are contributing full text to it right now. NIH does provide the abstracts only for just about every medical journal article in existence, as well as lots of other stuff through Entrez [nih.gov].
Cosmo for scientists? (Score:3, Interesting)
The current, scientifically educated, audience of the NIH funded publications have enough trouble understanding the research. What makes them think the general non-science public will.
Re:Cosmo for scientists? (Score:3, Insightful)
It has to do with providing access to tax-funded research without additional costs incurred by interested researchers, which is for the greater scientific good.
I'm in complete support of this proposal.
I thought they already did =) (Score:3, Informative)
If your intrested, the pdf of the power I presented (warning, almost 3 megs) can be found here. [boisestate.edu]
Set up a replicated network for papers online (Score:3, Interesting)
Free peer review (well, it is done for pittance anyway) and they don't have to buy journals so really they are saving money anyway, and papers get rated which solves one of the arguments against this system.
If they are too lazy to peer review, then make them pay $20 to submit their paper to aid in the running of the system, although it should be run as JustAnotherServer at universities anyway.
Particle Physics ahead of the game (Score:5, Informative)
This is fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, the possible spectre is if research journals can't make money by charging $200 to view a research paper, we might lose the existing mechanism supporting peer review. However, I'd much rather build a new one (The cost is in distribution and trust management, ne? We *love* designing new systems to manage these on the Internet! P2P + PGP + some idiot-proof front ends, and we're talking.)
This also means that cutting-edge knowlede spreads more quickly, and is available to people "outside the field" -- i.e. those that don't buy in to the expensive journals that mark you as being "in the field".
I am overjoyed. I'm not sure who initiated this policy shift, but they deserve major kudos.
Here's the deal (Score:3, Insightful)
What happens to peer review? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Should've been done a long time ago (Score:3, Insightful)