iBiosphere depends heavily on openness - open access, open source, and open science - so we feel obliged to weigh in on current events that have the potential to seriously affect open science. New legislation being considered in the US has been the subject of much discussion in the blogosphere and in social media, especially the Research Works Act (RWA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). You only have to google these to find lots of discussion about them, but I would particularly refer readers to Cameron Neylon's blog on RWA. RWA would essentially end the NIH's Public Access Policy. For instance, data mining could be prevented by publishers by requiring onerous fees, and this could deal a devastating blow to efforts like iBiosphere that seek to facilitate exchange of public data and conclusions. By placing publications between a paywall, publishers could effectively control interactions among scientists and citizens who seek to assess, mine, and enhance the value of published, publicly funded research.
Politicians will do what politicians will do, including sometimes bending to the influence of money and vested interests. It seems to us that, irrespective of what happens in the political sphere, scientists have an obligation to make their research data, results and conclusions that have been funded by the public available to the public. This means taking responsibility for where our research is published. In light of political actions by publishers to constrain access to previously published research, it becomes our responsibility to publish only in journals that will NOT put our research behind paywalls - we need to publish ONLY in truly open access journals. This of course means that the author pays for publication costs. But to choose to avoid paying for publication costs when it means restriction of access to publicly funded research is beginning to appear unethical, to state it generously.
Yes, ethics in science now requires each of us to publish in a way that makes our publicly funded research truly accessible to all - it means paying for Open Access options, and using only those OA option journals that guarantee permanent accessibility to research results, data and interpretations. Furthermore, it means agreeing to review and edit only for such journals, and to be members of only those professional societies whose policies and practices permit and facilitate true OA options. To find such options, one only has to look to Biomed Central, Public Library of Science, Frontiers and similar OA publishing options, as well as to professional society journals and even commercially published journals that offer author-pays OA options. We should choose and be willing to pay for OA and we should make certain that the OA we are paying for is truly OA, without any paywalls that would limit public access, including data and text mining, now and forever.
Politicians will do what politicians will do, including sometimes bending to the influence of money and vested interests. It seems to us that, irrespective of what happens in the political sphere, scientists have an obligation to make their research data, results and conclusions that have been funded by the public available to the public. This means taking responsibility for where our research is published. In light of political actions by publishers to constrain access to previously published research, it becomes our responsibility to publish only in journals that will NOT put our research behind paywalls - we need to publish ONLY in truly open access journals. This of course means that the author pays for publication costs. But to choose to avoid paying for publication costs when it means restriction of access to publicly funded research is beginning to appear unethical, to state it generously.
Yes, ethics in science now requires each of us to publish in a way that makes our publicly funded research truly accessible to all - it means paying for Open Access options, and using only those OA option journals that guarantee permanent accessibility to research results, data and interpretations. Furthermore, it means agreeing to review and edit only for such journals, and to be members of only those professional societies whose policies and practices permit and facilitate true OA options. To find such options, one only has to look to Biomed Central, Public Library of Science, Frontiers and similar OA publishing options, as well as to professional society journals and even commercially published journals that offer author-pays OA options. We should choose and be willing to pay for OA and we should make certain that the OA we are paying for is truly OA, without any paywalls that would limit public access, including data and text mining, now and forever.
I’ve found saying “no” to reviewing for non-OA journals to be a very effective step in this revolution. Michael Ashburner, University of Cambridge emeritus geneticist (http://bit.ly/zSTxCB), has provided a template for saying “no” to non-OA review requests, which hopefully can be of use to others: http://bit.ly/xdPfra
ReplyDeleteHi Casey,
ReplyDeleteIn addition, it seems to me we have to deny them content by not submitting manuscripts. There are now many OA options available. I think we now need to ask ourselves if it's ethical to publish our publicly funded research behind pay walls. And we need to take control of our professional societies that publish - like ESA. ASPB, which publishes The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology, may be a model. ASPB makes all content freely available after one year, and offers an author-pays, OA option that many authors choose to purchase.
It seems to me it's essential that authors be willing to pay the costs necessary to ensure free open access, and that requires more commitment than just saying no to reviewing. Publishing results is a necessary cost of doing research that we all have to accept - if we don't publish, we have effectively not done the work. Is it really any different if we publish in a restricted environment? In reality publication costs are a small proportion of the total costs of carrying out research.
disclosure - I was Editor in Chief of The Plant Cell 2003-7. I am currently Chief Editor of Frontiers in Plant Genetics and Genomics, an OA, author-pays (though subsidized) journal.
See:
ReplyDelete"Research Works Act H.R.3699:
The Private Publishing Tail Trying To Wag The Public Research Dog, Yet Again"
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html
EXCERPT:
The US Research Works Act (H.R.3699): "No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that -- (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work."
Translation and Comments:
"If public tax money is used to fund research, that research becomes "private research" once a publisher "adds value" to it by managing the peer review."
[Comment: Researchers do the peer review for the publisher for free, just as researchers give their papers to the publisher for free, together with the exclusive right to sell subscriptions to it, on-paper and online, seeking and receiving no fee or royalty in return].
"Since that public research has thereby been transformed into "private research," and the publisher's property, the government that funded it with public tax money should not be allowed to require the funded author to make it accessible for free online for those users who cannot afford subscription access."
[Comment: The author's sole purpose in doing and publishing the research, without seeking any fee or royalties, is so that all potential users can access, use and build upon it, in further research and applications, to the benefit of the public that funded it; this is also the sole purpose for which public tax money is used to fund research.]"
H.R. 3699 misunderstands the secondary, service role that peer-reviewed research journal publishing plays in US research and development and its (public) funding.
It is a huge miscalculation to weigh the potential gains or losses from providing or not providing open access to publicly funded research in terms of gains or losses to the publishing industry: Lost or delayed research progress mean losses to the growth and productivity of both basic research and the vast R&D industry in all fields, and hence losses to the US economy as a whole.
What needs to be done about public access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications resulting from federally funded research?
The minimum policy is for all US federal funders to mandate (require), as a condition for receiving public funding for research, that: (i) the fundee’s revised, accepted refereed final draft of (ii) all refereed journal articles resulting from the funded research must be (iii) deposited immediately upon acceptance for publication (iv) in the fundee'’s institutional repository, with (v) access to the deposit made free for all (OA) immediately (no OA embargo) wherever possible (over 60% of journals already endorse immediate gratis OA self-archiving), and at the latest after a 6-month embargo on OA.
It is the above policy that H.R.3699 is attempting to make illegal...
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html
Understood. None of that relieves us of the responbility for choosing journals that do not prevent reasonable access. If we make bad choices, we have only ourselves to blame.
ReplyDeleteI will agree that scientists should publish in OA-journals more often considering to make science available to all interested people (such as undergrad students) instead of trying to get a status, publishing in prestigious journals. I'm not saying not to be competitive, but a good paper could have a great impact even if published in OA-journal, maybe a greater impact since many people would access the information of the research.
ReplyDeleteAlso we are the ones that make science and research, not those big publishing companies that make more money from the public funding and from the efforts of many people that carry out the hard part of being scientist and make science.