[jam277]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18860276
To be honest it's about time. I can see people complaining about it leading to more taxes, but 50-60 million a year on can be covered by taxpayers money pretty easily.

Also, I hate paywalls and it would benefit the common person who's interested in research but doesn't want to subscribe 200 odd quid a year for research studies. I personally think it's a great idea.

What do you guys think?

[Manitude]

It's not worth it. Most people not involved in research will not understand the papers. Those that will understand them either get them for free (through a university, for example) or would be prepared to pay for journals.
£50m for the odd chance that a few people want to look at data they probably won't understand just doesn't add up to me.

[jam277]

I could say that taxpayers pay for the research so should have the right to actually see where their money has gone to. Also companies can show their research to everyone rather than just to a couple of individuals, I get that not many people will understand it though but I think it's still a good idea to just show taxpayers what they pay for.

Still think that 50-60 million could be paid by taxes or some other means without taking it out of research money which would halt the progress of new research.

[poohat]

Its a horrible idea and is basically a subsidy to journal publishers, I think that many of the people who are saying "this is good" dont really understand the subtelties and are being taken in by the 'free research' line.

Green open access (where academics self-archive papers on their own websites) is what we should be moving towards, and a lot of major journal publishers (including Elsevier) now allow this. However these proposals are for gold open access, which is something else entirely. Under the proposed system, academics need to pay £1000-2000 in order to publish their papers, and no extra money is being made available for this. The academics who are on large grant-driven projects will be fine, but those who have to work under small grants will be screwed since they cant afford to publish. The likely outcome of this is going to make science even reliant on large grant funding, with even less freedom for independent researchers.

[johndoranglasgow]

Oh God that's a terrible idea.
Wasting money that could actually be spent on furthering projects, to give the public access to something that will appear as a random assortment of incredibly long words laced with latin and actively discouraging those on tight budgets in the process.

[Dirac Delta Function]

(Original post by poohat)
Its a horrible idea and is basically a subsidy to journal publishers, I think that many of the people who are saying "this is good" dont really understand the subtelties and are being taken in by the 'free research' line.

Green open access (where academics self-archive papers on their own websites) is what we should be moving towards, and a lot of major journal publishers (including Elsevier) now allow this. However these proposals are for gold open access, which is something else entirely. Under the proposed system, academics need to pay £1000-2000 in order to publish their papers, and no extra money is being made available for this. The academics who are on large grant-driven projects will be fine, but those who have to work under small grants will be screwed since they cant afford to publish. The likely outcome of this is going to make science even reliant on large grant funding, with even less freedom for independent researchers.

I agree, except that I should point out, this rule only applies to publications from research that is funded by the councils. If you are not on such a project, you are not obliged to abide by the rule.

I do wonder what happens for collaborations where a co-author is not project-funded. I guess the rule would probably still apply.

[Joinedup]

(Original post by Manitude)
It's not worth it. Most people not involved in research will not understand the papers. Those that will understand them either get them for free (through a university, for example) or would be prepared to pay for journals.
£50m for the odd chance that a few people want to look at data they probably won't understand just doesn't add up to me.

lots of people will be able to comprehend a lot of publicly funded research tbh. Some fields will be less comprehensible to the public than others though.
I agree with poohat that they picked the wrong model... Guess the members of a yet another parasitic middleman profession were able to lobby hard and sway policy in their favour

[Dirac Delta Function]

(Original post by Joinedup)
lots of people will be able to comprehend a lot of publicly funded research tbh. Some fields will be less comprehensible to the public than others though.
I agree with poohat that they picked the wrong model... Guess the members of a yet another parasitic middleman profession were able to lobby hard and sway policy in their favour

For mathematical areas such as maths, theoretical computer science and theoretical physics, the only people who will understand it are those who have been educated to post-graduate level in the field. For lab based subjects, even if someone with a BSc in the area could understand it, what use is it?

The payoff to the public is near-zero. The cost to the project is quite substantial.

[AntisthenesDogger]

Bad idea. Small grant researchers are going to be more shafted than already. All this does is promote the continuation of the stranglehold major journal publishers have.

[Joinedup]

(Original post by Dirac Delta Function)
For mathematical areas such as maths, theoretical computer science and theoretical physics, the only people who will understand it are those who have been educated to post-graduate level in the field. For lab based subjects, even if someone with a BSc in the area could understand it, what use is it?

The payoff to the public is near-zero. The cost to the project is quite substantial.

yep I said some publicly funded research wouldn't be comprehensible to the public. Afaict The main case for any form of oa is that it'll eventually reduce the amount of public money going to publishers - that is the public payoff, members of the general public being able to read research they may or may not understand is just a fortunate (imo) side effect.

Yep I said I didn't like the gold model, (i.e. I'd prefer green) though fwiw there's a piece in the guardian saying the actual cost of gold will likely be closer to 10m than 50m.

[Sime]

I think a lot of people are interpreting this as being the opening up of research to the UK public, and while that is true it perhaps isn't the goal of this measure. Currently many universities, libraries and institutions and have to spend great sums of money in order to access these journals and gain licenses so that their student and academics can access them in and out of campus. These fees, mounting to the hundreds of thousands for larger universities could then be used to improve the facilities at universities.
Furthermore, presuming the research will be made freely available internationally as well, this gives access to vital research papers to many universities in developing nations that would otherwise have been unable to access them due to the cost. This should help stimulate their science and technology sectors.
So although many members of the UK public might find the papers irrelevant to them, they hold a great deal of value and importance for researchers, science and technology students and academics.

[Mbob]

(Original post by Sime)
I think a lot of people are interpreting this as being the opening up of research to the UK public, and while that is true it perhaps isn't the goal of this measure. Currently many universities, libraries and institutions and have to spend great sums of money in order to access these journals and gain licenses so that their student and academics can access them in and out of campus. These fees, mounting to the hundreds of thousands for larger universities could then be used to improve the facilities at universities.
Furthermore, presuming the research will be made freely available internationally as well, this gives access to vital research papers to many universities in developing nations that would otherwise have been unable to access them due to the cost. This should help stimulate their science and technology sectors.
So although many members of the UK public might find the papers irrelevant to them, they hold a great deal of value and importance for researchers, science and technology students and academics.

And also to companies - small organisations couldn't afford to subscribe to lots of journals. Part of the proposals are about making technology transfer easier.

The only disadvantage of this scheme is that British research will be open to people all over the world, while we will have to pay to see theirs. While this may help British papers get a few more citations, it seems a little like the UK taxpayer will be paying more than their fair share.

[Sime]

(Original post by Mbob)
And also to companies - small organisations couldn't afford to subscribe to lots of journals. Part of the proposals are about making technology transfer easier.

The only disadvantage of this scheme is that British research will be open to people all over the world, while we will have to pay to see theirs. While this may help British papers get a few more citations, it seems a little like the UK taxpayer will be paying more than their fair share.

That's quite true, but hopefully this could spur on other countries to do the same, and there have already been reports of calls within the EU Parliament to make this a EU-wide policy.