I'm actually curious what is new within this. As it stands, NASA research pre-prints are available on the tech reports server (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/), typically right after the export control review process.
edit: maybe it's related to certain journals where there wasn't access on the STI server? Seems odd to me. For the 8 years that I've been at NASA, it's always been expected that my group's work had to be accessible.
edit2: not all rules are universal across the agency, so my experience may be too specific to Glenn Research Center/my division. In any case, the more open, the better.
Perhaps my perspective is ignorant, but in my sub-field of computer science, most people put their papers/pre-prints openly accessible on arXiv, ResearchGate, or personal web pages (if the publisher is not open access). I've never used Sci-Hub because I never had to, and when at home or traveling, I rarely have to use my university's VPN, because I cannot read a paper "for free". This is probably a good cultural indicator of my domain.
Starting in 2013, all US-funded work needs to end up publicly accessible within a year of publication. There are slightly different ways, depending on the funder, but it's the rule.
Canada's Tri-Council Agencies have had a similar policy from 2016 onward, ditto EU....
Older papers are tricky though. I'm not sure the government can compel you to make something available.
Work funded by the NIH needs to end up in PubMed Central within a year of publication. The NSF and DoE have similar policies. Unclassified DoD-funded work also needs to end up in the Defense Technical Information Center. All of this flows from a 2013 memo by John Holdren/OST entitled "Increasing Access to Results of Federally Funded Science", and, as far as I know, it hasn't been overturned. While this doesn't formally cover everything, it comes pretty close and many journals now handle this automatically.
So that more researchers have access. Afaik access is shared and researchers have to make a proposal and get it approved before use, which to me suggests some kind of queue
Published through the Government Printing Office (GPO), too, I believe. So it's basically, publicly funded research is now entirely publicly available.
That may apply where you work, but it is not universal. I work at NASA and almost all the papers we generate are (regrettably) published behind paywalls. And the consequences are far worse than having to fork over a few (thousands of) dollars to read them--our scientists are contractually bound NOT to discuss their research during the blackout period prior to publication. It's stifling to research and the community.
I'd love to see a pre-print database shared between all the major federal funding agencies which required any publications that go behind pay walls to share a corresponding pre-print that's publicly accessible for any paywalled publications. Let state and other private entities opt into joining the share repository.
I get it. Editing and reviewing costs money for journals. That's fine, let them monetize their improved versions but let the tax payers decide if they care to pay for those services or not as opposed to digging around for a researchers public preprint if they maintain one or being forced to dig through Sci-Hub and the like.
arXiv sort of fills this role and is growing in popularity but it's not mandated, centralized for all domains,, or promoted by the federal government which would push such an effort to the critical mass needed for larger adoption.
From 2013 onwards, all (non-classified) work funded by the US government must end up in an open-access repository, either immediately or after a 6 or 12 month embargo period. Here's the policy memo: https://www.science.gov/docs/ostp_public_access_memo_2013.pd...
Does this carry over to federal agencies as well? I know the state of access to journals and papers published by universities is a shitshow but don't know how it is at the government level.
Well the title was true. There is full access to the journals. People seem to think that means open access though. The new link is about all new monographs being open access, which isn't the same as read access to mit journals.
Because the article title is misleading. Purely publicly-funded research is freely available (e.g. NASA reports). What's at issue are e.g. papers written pursuant to research that is the subject of public funds, but by research teams who are otherwise employed by a university or research lab. In that case, the resulting paper isn't purely a product of public funding, so it's not obvious it should automatically be freely accessible.
Also, these papers are generally the result of editing/publication processes by journals. The government isn't paying for those papers to be edited and published.
Open access is a recurring problem, addressed to some degree with presidential orders. You might be interested in FASTR (Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act): https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PeterSuber/posts/G2uebVhVtBv
They tend to require they not be sent elsewhere for publication. That usually doesn't include archiving them on the lab's website, sending via email, etc. They're just not interested in double-publishing.
Umm...not sure what to tell you about that, other than you’re potentially out of compliance with the terms you and your institution agreed to.
I think there is a 6-12 month “exclusivity” period still, and some journals handle that automatically if you acknowledge federal funding. For example, Current Biology moved our stuff out from behind the paywall automatically on its publication anniversary.
I’m not sure if anyone has been sanctioned for not following these, but NIH progress reports/renewals require a PMCID for any papers you want to claim. You want to claim a lot on these to demonstrate productivity, so....there’s a good incentive to do this.
There are many examples of articles where the publisher does not own the copyright; any article written by US government scientists is not subject to copyright.
Preprints are an excellent option, and every field should make distributing preprints at the standard servers (Arxiv, Biorxiv, etc.) the norm. The broad visibility from open preprint servers seems to be evolving into a different kind of peer review, to the extent that if, in my field, I see a published article with no arXiv preprint I wonder if the authors are trying to hide something.
edit: maybe it's related to certain journals where there wasn't access on the STI server? Seems odd to me. For the 8 years that I've been at NASA, it's always been expected that my group's work had to be accessible.
edit2: not all rules are universal across the agency, so my experience may be too specific to Glenn Research Center/my division. In any case, the more open, the better.
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