Tuesday, February 02, 2010

"Improving Access to Research"

Source: Paul N. Courant, James J. O'Donnell, Ann Okerson, and Crispin B. Taylor, Science 22 January 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5964, p. 393
"Last week, the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee's Roundtable on Scholarly Publishing (on which we served along with 10 others) released a report arguing that journal articles derived from federal research funding should be made publicly available as quickly as practicable—generally in a year or less after publication—and in ways that will improve scholarship by maximizing the scope for interoperability across articles, among disciplines, and internationally. Currently, there is no consistency regarding which version of an article is freely available. In contrast, the roundtable's report recommends that access policies aim toward making the "Version of Record" (the final version of an article in its published form) publicly available. And the report also asserts that any successful scheme for public access must provide methods for permanent public access."

I strongly agree that if my taxes are used to support research, then the results of the research should be made available free and readily accessible (on the Internet) as soon as precticable.

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