... The NIH is the single largest funder of biomedical research in the country. Its $28 billion budget, mostly doled out in the form of grants to medical schools and universities, accounts for nearly one-third of all federal money spent on research every year. ...
Given the amount of tax dollars invested in NIH research, one might assume that the results of NIH-funded studies would already be public information, with or without the new law. Yet that is not generally the case. ...
The situation has provoked some universities, faculty members, libraries, and consumer groups to speak out and demand less restricted access to research that exists for the common good. ...
At the heart of the matter are difficult questions about the economics of research and scholarly publishing:
Who should control the channels of communication that connect the teaching and research community?
What are the costs and benefits of making the system more “open”?
And how are changes in the way people do research already affecting publishers, research institutions, and—of course—libraries? ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 7/28/2008 05:59:00 PM.
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.
