Comments on: White House promises open access to all federally funded research

By: R_Young

R_Young — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:59:00 +0000

In before the cynical hater trolls!

Oh shoot. Too late.
Everyone, go read Nadreck’s comment. Then try and consider a rational process of balancing the positive and negative developments of this decision.Oh, who am I kidding, this is the BoingBoing comment thread.

By: R_Young

R_Young — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:56:00 +0000

“…but critics want more”

That’s it, don’t let anything penetrate your protective shell of ill-considered cynicism! Positive developments, unless radical and completely in accordance with your whims are to be scorned and criticized.

That article has withering critiques, such as “My concerns are that it’s completely lame…,”

And apparently the decision will involve bureaucracy in some fashion that has not been yet determined by said bureaucracy. Oh the horror.Have you heard of this term called “government”?

By: R_Young

R_Young — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:37:00 +0000

Your numbers are way off: the current NIH budget is about 30ish billion, versus the NSF’s 7ish billion.

That 7+ billion of NSF is for EVERYTHING from comp sci to math to security to geology etc.From http://www.the-aps.org/mm/SciencePolicy/Funding/Proposed-FY-2013-Budget-for-Research.html”However, the Biological Sciences (BIO) Directorate’s increase is only 3% ($21.5 million) for a total budget of $733.8 million.”
So the NIH gets about 40 times the NSF’s bio funding… even if you assume only a fraction of that spending is direct bio (which I would argue is incorrect), the NIH has way more money.

By: James Agenbroad

James Agenbroad — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:46:00 +0000

Presumably this requires no funding other than the research grant. This is more like a mandate that a researcher’s agreement with the publisher conform to certain norms/contain language granting the material to the public domain after a year. It remains to be seen whether publisher will push back by refusing to publish articles with that condition. Which they didn’t do when NIH came up with a similar requirement, instead choosing to lobby congress to ban those sorts of conditions. Which almost worked.

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:18:00 +0000

Well…sort of. But they still kind of need to be tied to something medical. For example, NIH may fund a bioinformatics proposal to create some comparative genomics tool — but not just for the sake of basic science itself — you’d have to justify it by saying it would help people create vaccines or something. I’m a microbial genomicist/bioinformatican and sometimes (like in the service of the Human Microbiome Project) I can get NIH funding, but studying microbes from the polar regions and other things like that I work on are NSF funded and would be hard to justify in any other way.

By: Eric0142

Eric0142 — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:22:00 +0000

Bring the spending issue up with the Republican controlled House.

By: Namnezia

Namnezia — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:30:00 +0000

NIH funds tons of basic biology. A large portion of the research done in Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Genetics, Pharmacology, Physiology, Neurobiology, Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Immunology and Molecular Biology fields receives funding from NIH. This does exclude ecology, evolution, plant biology, etc.

By: Jonathan Badger

Jonathan Badger — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:36:00 +0000

The NIH funds most US medically-oriented life-science, yes, but that’s different from funding most life-science, as most life-scientists work on things that aren’t diseases. Somehow people like Stephen O’Brien get their cheetah research done at the NCI (part of the NIH), but most basic biologists in the US are funded by the NSF.

By: strugglngwriter

strugglngwriter — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:45:00 +0000

I was focused more on the “timid” part but I suppose you could say they’ve been imaginative way they’ve skirted the Constitution in the name of “fighting terrorism”

By: James Agenbroad

James Agenbroad — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:42:00 +0000

Getting works back from the publishers where the copyright assignment has already been assigned is not going to happen. Not at least until the statutory period for termination of assignments occurs, 35 or 56 years (depending on when the work was created) after publication.

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:58:00 +0000

“Still, whatever one thinks of the order, the White House clearly saw the need to address increased calls for public access to scientific research. Those calls have gained new attention in the wake of the suicide of open access advocate and programmer Aaron Swartz in January, just months before he was due to stand trail on federal charges of computer fraud for downloading 4.8 million articles from the paid JSTOR database without proper access.”
I thought that Aaron had ‘proper access’ to JSTOR, but he used the access in a novel way, which is what upset everybody in the first place?

By: Tynam

Tynam — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:26:00 +0000

They’ve imagined some fascinating new language for shooting missiles at people we’re not at war with.

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:16:00 +0000

Mockst thou?

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:13:00 +0000

Which are the imaginative bits in defense?

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:11:00 +0000

You’re also expected to buy a bunch to supply complimentary copies to send to the flood of other academics in your field who request them. One tends to be optimistic in the number of reprints one buys.

By: ImmutableMichael

ImmutableMichael — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 07:57:00 +0000

Because “Reimagining the nexus of power and magic in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” as a disruptive view of surfboard colonialism” wants to be free…

By: ImmutableMichael

ImmutableMichael — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 07:54:00 +0000

Psychedelic experimentation is like charity; it begins at home.

By: BrianOman

BrianOman — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 06:49:00 +0000

Note to all: The above comment is not hyperbole or extravagance, this is seriously what happens. All federal scientific interaction with the press/public must first funnel through the Prime Ministers Office. The PMO has been growing for decades, but under the Harper Government has come to resemble the total cliche of a totalitarian information bureau.

By: JonS

JonS — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:48:00 +0000

Is this *all* research, or just *scientific* research? Because, it’d be kinda sweet if public ally funded humanities journal articles, research, and the like we’re opened up too.

By: strugglngwriter

strugglngwriter — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:39:00 +0000

“timid, unimaginative” is the very definition of the Obama White House in every way except for “Defense”.

By: subhan

subhan — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:14:00 +0000

Watch for big pharma and other major medical research funding to move from public institutions (where the research might be ‘tainted’ by public money & therefore required to be publically disclosed) into privately-funded-only research institutions where it can be kept safely locked away.

By: That_Anonymous_Coward

That_Anonymous_Coward — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:10:00 +0000

Develop plans… isn’t that code for pretend your doing something until the new season of American Idol distracts them.

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:30:00 +0000

A directive without funding is…a directive.

By: Nadreck

Nadreck — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:05:00 +0000

However great or feeble this is we can only dream of something like this in Canada. Here no publicly funded scientist can speak to any media representative without a Political Officer being present and all press releases and other publications must first go through the Central Committee for re-writes to eliminate any deviations from the Official Reality.

By: spacedmonkey

spacedmonkey — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 03:27:00 +0000

Yup. That’s more like it. Mealy mouthed bullshit. Gives agencies the ability to wait more than a year if they want to, or keep it embargoed permanently for national or economic security. Which, since even the paywalled versions are available to researchers in other countries at institutions with subscriptions, is obviously code for “Oh yeah, we’ll give this some lip service, but the lobbyists still have more money than you, so we’re gonna keep on with corrupt business as usual.”

By: Philip Shade

Philip Shade — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:58:00 +0000

Unfortunately there are plenty of loopholes, including exceptions for national and economic security. Edward Tufte calls the measure “timid, unimaginative”

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/22/4019058/white-house-opens-federally-funded-research-critics-unimpressed

By: Ross Munro

Ross Munro — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:56:00 +0000

Isn’t this what Aaron Swartz died for?
Win.
What cost eh!

By: the damned fool

the damned fool — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:50:00 +0000

I’m still bitter and angry. The biggest revision (in 1974) to the Privacy Act, Title 5, U.S.C. 552a, (which is a Federal Law my colleagues) dealt with paperwork reduction! This needs more attention. Now! And for those who aren’t my colleagues: I hope we can be friends. Transparency is addressed in this (and other) Laws…

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:50:00 +0000

DIBS ON THE HYPERDRIVE! DIBS ON THE HYPERDRIVE!

By: bankclimber

bankclimber — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:49:00 +0000

I am a scientist and regularly publish. One would think that this would be a matter of course, but the publishers resist. People don’t realize that scientists find funding for their research (some through federal grants), then do most of the final formatting for journals, and then pay publication costs. It is routine for publishers to require that copyrights for articles be assigned to them. Publishers then charge the scientist an additional fee for the right to obtain a ‘personal copy’ of their article (stamped as an ‘author’s copy’) that allows them to post the article on the scientist’s or an institutional website. Many of us are moving to open access journals, but open journals being relatively new can lack the ‘prestige’ of traditional journals. A scientist must publish in the ‘best’ journals (read prestigious) possible for job security. It is a strange system. I hope it changes.