According to Senator Cornyn, open, public access would accelerate scientific discoveries and progress in medicine, “leverage [the taxpayers’] investment in research, and ensure a greater return on that investment.” Supporters of the bill maintain that taxpayers should have access to the research they fund, and that dissemination of research findings is an inextricable part of the scientific process. The Harris Poll found that “more than 80% of Americans say they agree strongly or somewhat that research should be available for free via the Internet because the research is paid for with U.S. tax dollars.” Patient advocate groups argue that individuals should have access to the latest developments in biomedical research that enable them to make better informed decisions about their health. Researchers also have incentives to make their work accessible because the more widely available their work is, the more it is likely to be cited.
Some scientific societies and publishers fear that open, public access might jeopardize peer-review and editing processes necessary for quality control, and also lead to dramatic decreases in subscriptions and therefore revenues. However, research articles in many disciplines --including the biomedical, cell, and molecular biology fields-- are shown to draw the highest level of interest in the first six to eight weeks following publication. Because the Act would make the research publicly accessible six months after it is published in a peer-reviewed journal --well after that period-- supporters argue that concerns over the legislation’s provisions are overstated. Additionally, non-federally funded research, editorials, and news articles would not be placed in the publicly-accessible repositories.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/15/2006 09:14:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
