News

Most of the millions of Americans who turn to the web for health information are pleased by what they find - though few check the quality check of what they find...

Open-access bill divides schools, publishers
Legislation would require the posting of federal research results free of charge online

An open-access bill now pending in Congress stipulates that any research funded with federal tax money must be made available online free of charge within six months of its publication in a scholarly journal. Publishers of such journals oppose the bill, believing it will cut into their revenue; most colleges and universities support it, believing it will speed the advancement of knowledge...

...The open-access movement also got a boost from university administrators this month in an open letter signed by presidents of 56 liberal-arts colleges who voiced their support for free access to information gained through federally funded research. They join a group of 25 research-university provosts who took a similar stand in July.
Both groups support the Federal Research Public Access Act, which would require journal articles that report research paid for by the federal government to be made freely available within six months of publication. The bill, sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, has been referred to a Senate subcommittee.
"We're looking to build support for the Senate bill," said Nancy S. Dye, president of Oberlin College, who helped to draft the letter. "This is important for anyone who is interested in new knowledge."...

The ways scientists share and use research are changing rapidly, fundamentally, and irreversibly. The signs are plain to see. E-mail and a
growing range of other network technologies efficiently and rapidly link researchers from around the globe and enhance informal communication. Most scientific literature is now created in digital form and, in nearly every discipline, some scholarship is digital-only or can be fully understood only in digital form. Google has cataloged more than eight billion web pages and a billion images, and is now undertaking to digitize books on a scale that previously seemed unthinkable.
These changes signal a new era of digital scholarship. Many of yesterday’s limitations on research and learning are being swept away by the Internet. For the first time in history, we have a practical opportunity for efficient, unlimited sharing of information at virtually no cost beyond that of providing it to the first reader...

On Sept. 6, a group of 56 presidents from various liberal arts colleges around the country issued an open letter supporting the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006. This letter, which was co-signed by Swarthmore College President Al Bloom, brought the issue of open access research further to the forefront of higher-level education.
"[President Bloom] was pleased to [sign the letter] for precisely the reasons the letter urges support of the legislation," Vice President Maurice Eldridge ’61 said in an e-mail. He went on to say, however, that "the college is not a part of any national movements to support or oppose the legislation."...

The presidents of 53 liberal arts colleges have signed a letter supporting the Federal Public Research Access Act, which would require free and public access to research funded by the federal government. Librarians have for years protested the steeply rising costs of academic journals, noting that each year they can afford fewer of the resources that students and faculty need. Supporters of the legislation argue it would level the playing field for researchers and would appropriately allow public access to publicly funded science.
Publishers of academic journals and the scholarly societies they represent lambasted the legislation, saying it would undermine peer review and the quality of the journals. Allan Adler of the Association of American Publishers said the legislation is "short-sighted" and is simply an attempt by librarians to obtain for free what they have always paid for. The academic community, however, seems inclined to disagree. The new letter of support from college presidents follows similar support in July from the provosts of 25 research universities.
According to the new letter, which was drafted by a library group at Oberlin College, the legislation would "democratize access to research information" and would "benefit education, research, and the general public."
Inside Higher Ed, 6 September 2006 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/06/access

When the Federal Public Research Access Act was proposed this year, scholarly society after scholarly society came out against the legislation, which would require federal agencies to publish their findings, online and free, within six months of their publication elsewhere. The future of academic research was at stake, the societies said, and both their journals and the peer review system could collapse if the legislation passed.
It is increasingly hard, however, to say that those societies reflect the views of academe on the issue. In July, the provosts of 25 research universities came out in favor of the legislation, saying that the current system of research publishing leads to outrageously high journal costs that are harming libraries and making it impossible for people to follow research. Now the presidents of 53 liberal arts colleges - at the behest of their librarians - are issuing a joint letter backing the legislation. And while it is unlikely that the bill will pass this year, the new letter that was released Tuesday is part of a broader effort by open access supporters to place higher education in a new position when the debate is renewed next year...

Twenty-three more universities have joined efforts to push Congress to pass legislation that would require the free posting online of research financed with taxpayer dollars. The legislation, S 2695, which is pending in the Senate, would require each of the 11 federal agencies that spends more than $100-million yearly on research to create an online repository and make its grantees post their research papers in it within six months of publication (The Chronicle, May 3)...

After disappointing results from the 2005 National Institutes of Health's (NIH) policy designed to enhance public access to government-funded research, new, more sweeping legislation introduced this year is gaining momentum. Late last week, 25 provosts of major research institutions published an open letter urging the Senate to consider the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA)...

In response to the Provosts' Open Letter supporting a legislative requirement for open access to federally-funded research articles, Alan Adler, vice president for legal and government affairs of the Association of American Publishers, said "what the university community is excited about is the prospect of being able to get access to all this published material free online, which is not terribly surprising. But why should universities be excited about the government inserting itself into the process of providing access to research?
Congress must not be fooled by this rhetorical sleight of hand...

If universities pay the salaries of researchers and provide them with labs, and the federal government provides those researchers with grants for their studies, why should those same universities feel they can’t afford to have access to research findings?
That’s part of the argument behind a push by some in Congress to make such findings widely available at no charge. The Federal Public Research Access Act would require federal agencies to publish their findings, online and free, within six months of their publication elsewhere. Proponents of the legislation, including many librarians and professors frustrated by skyrocketing journal prices, see such "open access" as entirely fair. But publishers - including many scholarly associations - have attacked the bill, warning that it could endanger research and kill off many journals...

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn gained a boost last week in his effort to launch his "Google for government spending"...

The world’s oldest learned society will on Wednesday tear up its 340-year-old business model with the launch of an "open access" journal allowing people to read its new scientific papers free of charge.
The Royal Society in London virtually invented the subscription-based system of peer-reviewed scientific journals when it started the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665.
But in a trial that will be closely watched by researchers and journal publishers around the world, it will allow authors to pay for costs of publication themselves...

A little-noticed provision in a bill passed last week by the House Appropriations Committee would require federally sponsored researchers to make their findings more widely available to the public.
The provision appears in an appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for the 2007 fiscal year, which begins on October 1. It would require all researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health to submit electronic versions of papers reporting their findings to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's online system, and they would have to do so within one year of publication in a scholarly journal...

The U.S. government risks jeopardizing the "quality and credibility" of Federally sponsored scientific research by failing to encourage the open exchange of scientific information, according to the National Science Board (NSB), which recommends the administration establish a consistent policy for exchange of government research.
The NSB, an independent panel that provides advice to the president and Congress on science policy issues, surveyed nine Federal agencies that conduct or support research, and found "no consistent Federal policy regarding the dissemination of research results by Federal employees." ...

If you're like most students, you'll write a research paper during your time at UF. More than likely, you'll need to access articles published in academic journals, which you'll do thanks to a subscription by the UF libraries. But what do you do when the library doesn't have a subscription?
That situation is today's reality. Last year, UF's library materials budget was well under the average of the top 10 public universities, and just more than half the budget of the University of Michigan. Next year, the library is planning to cancel $750,000 in journal subscriptions due to funding constraints. Ultimately, UF will never be able to afford all the research materials we might need. The question is not, "What if we didn't have access to research?" but, "How can we make things better?"
Today, Congress has the opportunity to improve access to vital research...

Two very important pieces of legislation that would markedly increase public access to taxpayer-funded research have been introduced into the U.S. Senate. The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, introduced by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and cosponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), would require free online access within six months of publication for virtually all peer-reviewed journal articles resulting from federally funded research.
The American Center for CURES Act of 2005, introduced by Lieberman and cosponsored by Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), has a similar provision for research sponsored by agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
These bills represent major steps in ongoing efforts to gain public access to federally funded research. They deserve strong backing from the American academic and research library community...

Harold Varmus won a Nobel Prize for changing how we think about cancer. Then he overhauled the NIH. Now he’s battling to make all scientific research free and universally available.
Last night, Harold Varmus appeared to me in a dream. Dressed in cycling garb, the Nobel laureate and former director of the National Institutes of Health was on a mission to rid the world of corks. This is not as foolish a quest as it might sound. In the dream, corks were plugging bath drains and kitchen sinks, clogging street gutters in miniature logjams, even getting stuck in people’s mouths. For Varmus, the moment had come to fight back.
I had been spending some time with Varmus, so I was not surprised to find him in a dream of mine, wearing his biking outfit. At 66, he is an avid cyclist, as well as a jogger, hiker, and rower, and he loves to talk about his physical pursuits. His crusade against the corks makes sense, too. They’re a comically simple metaphor, courtesy of my rubelike unconscious, for a real-life struggle that has engrossed him since he left the NIH seven years ago and that has turned this icon of the scientific establishment into a powerful subversive...

A majority of U.S. adults say federally funded research findings on health issues and other topics should be available for free to doctors and the general public, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll.
In an online survey of 2,501 U.S. adults, 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.
In addition, 81% of Americans say they agree strongly or somewhat that access to such research data will help those living with a chronic illness or disability to get the latest information that might assist them.
And 62% of Americans say they agree strongly or somewhat that making the information available online and for free "will help speed up finding potential cures for diseases," compared to 10% who disagree somewhat or strongly...

Advocates for open access to the scientific literature were heartened recently by the surprising introduction of a Senate bill that would require most recipients of federal research funds to make their findings freely available within six months of publication. The "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006" would expand and add teeth to the watered-down NIH policy which has been ignored by the vast majority of life scientists since its introduction in 2005. FRPAA is even more remarkable given that its co-sponsor, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), is otherwise known for an aggressive pro-business stance...

As fears of an influenza pandemic grow, a struggle has emerged between experts who believe the latest genetic data on the H5N1 bird flu virus should be made public immediately and others who fear that such a policy would alienate the countries collecting virus samples and the scientists analyzing them.
The issue may come to a head this week at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, the governing body of the World Health Organization. Health ministers from more than 190 countries will consider a resolution that would require them to provide flu data and virus samples to the scientific community "in a timely manner."...

Two senators have introduced a bill requiring that manuscripts of articles based on taxpayer-funded science research appear online and be available free to the public six months after they appear in scientific journals. Some publishers argue that the bill could jeopardize the peer-review process and the livelihood of corporate and nonprofit journal publishers.
The bill’s co-sponsors, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), announced the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 earlier this month. It mandates that agencies with annual research budgets of more than $100 million to implement a public access policy granting swift access to research supported by those agencies...

Newly proposed US legislation is calling for federally-funded research papers to be posted free of charge on the Internet.
The Federal Research Public Access Act, introduced on 2 May by Senators John Cornyn and Joe Lieberman, would require every federal agency with an annual research budget of more than 100 million US dollars to implement a public access policy. The proposed US bill comes shortly after a study published by the European Commission on Europe's scientific publication system, which recommends, among other actions, ensuring published articles arising from EU-funded research are made available in open access archives after a given time period...

A proposal to require federally funded scientists to make their accepted papers freely available online within 6 months of publication has reignited a bruising battle over the future of scientific publishing...

The public-access policy of the National Institutes of Health marked its first anniversary last week, and all involved in the debate agree that it has failed to create free online access to the biomedical literature.
Open-access proponents are rejoicing because that failure has created new momentum to strengthen the policy. That momentum further worries the policy's early detractors -- mostly publishing groups that fear a loss of revenue if the contents of their journals are free online. They are lobbying to keep things just as they are.
"All we've seen this year," said Peter Suber, director of the Open Access Project at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group in Washington, "is one step after another to strengthen" the policy...

American legislators have proposed that scientific research paid for by US taxpayers should be freely available online to everyone. Analysts described the move as a "potential banana skin" for established scientific publishers such as Reed Elsevier, Springer and Informa...

A new law proposed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., would require all publicly funded research to be available online, at no charge, within six months of its publication. For statistics-hungry undergraduate and graduate students alike, this proposal is a godsend.
The Federal Research Public Access Act - which also is supported by John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas - is a logical extension of the Freedom of Information Act. When research is financed with tax dollars, it is every citizen’s right to access the information. And though critics have opposed the plan because the free access could hurt circulation and advertising sales of scholarly journals, reports financed by the federal government should be compiled for the purpose of discovery and fact-finding - not to supplement income for magazines...

Is it fair for the government to fund scientific research, only to have that research locked up in a US$300 academic journal? Senators Cornyn (R-TX) and Lieberman (D-CT) don't think so, and they've got a plan to change the current system. That plan is the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (PDF), a new bit of legislation making its way through the senate. The bill mandates that most federally funded research be freely published online after publication in an academic journal.
The bill contains a few caveats, though: such publication won't take place until at least six months after an article appears in a journal, and it won't necessarily be an exact copy of the journal article. If the publisher refuses to allow for a copy from the journal, the author's own copy of the paper's final version will be used instead....

A hard-hitting newly-tabled piece of US legislation could radically alter access to US-funded scientific research and embarrass the EC over its lack of clarity and action in its report on scientific publishing last month.
Hard on the heels of a new EC report, Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Cornyn have proposed that US-funded research papers should be available freely within six months.
The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 states that every federal agency with a research budget over $100 million would have to implement a public access policy, which would require researchers funded by the US government to submit an article to a peer-review journal and to ensure free online access is available within six months...

A coalition of library groups has applauded the introduction of the "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006," introduced May 2 by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). If passed, the bill would require federal agencies with "extramural research portfolios over $100 million" to make the electronic versions of peer-reviewed articles publicly available via the Internet within six months of publication. The bill would significantly expand the weakened and ineffective policy implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last year that merely requested NIH-funded researchers deposit their papers within a year after publication...

One of the greatest events in the history of Open Access may have just happened. On May 2, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced the bipartisan Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA) (S.2695). The legislation is co-sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. If passed, the policy would require that agencies with research budgets of more than $100 million enact policy to ensure that articles generated through research funded by that agency are made available online within 6 months of publication...

Scholarly publishing has never been a big business. But it could take a financial hit if a proposed federal law is enacted, opening taxpayer-financed research to the public, according to some critics in academic institutions.
The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, proposed last week by Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, would require 11 government agencies to publish online any articles that contained research financed with federal grants. If enacted, the measure would require that the articles be accessible online without charge within six months of their initial publication in a scholarly journal.
"Not everybody has a library next door. I don't mean to be flippant about it, but this gives access to anybody," said Donald Stewart, a spokesman for Senator Cornyn. "The genesis of this was his interest in open government and finding ways to reform our Freedom of Information laws and taxpayer access to federally funded work."...

WASHINGTON, DC - In an effort to increase taxpayers' access to federally funded research, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Tuesday introduced the bipartisan Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006. The legislation is co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.).
The bill requires every federal agency with an annual research budget of more than $100 million to implement a public access policy. The policy must ensure that articles generated through research funded by that agency are made available online within six months of publication.
"This legislation is a common-sense approach to expand the public's access to research it funds. And it will help accelerate scientific innovation and discovery", Senator Cornyn said...

A coalition of library groups this week applauded the introduction of the "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006," introduced Tuesday by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). If passed, the bill would require federal agencies with "extramural research portfolios over $100 million" to make the electronic versions of peer-reviewed articles publicly available via the Internet within six months of publication. The bill would be a significant expansion of the weakened and ineffective policy implemented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last year that merely requested NIH-funded researchers deposit their papers within a year after publication. In addition to the NIH, the Cornyn/Lieberman bill would involve other agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Transportation, as well as EPA, NASA, and NSF...

A smoldering debate over whether taxpayers should have free access to the results of federally financed research intensified yesterday with the introduction of Senate legislation that would mandate that the information be posted on the Internet.
The legislation, which would demand that most recipients of federal grants make their findings available free on the Web within six months after they are published in a peer-reviewed journal, represents a rebuke to scientific publishers, who have asserted that free access to their contents would undercut their paid subscription base...

A Senate bill introduced on Tuesday would require most recipients of federal grants to post their research findings at no cost on the Internet within six months of publication in a journal, the Washington Post reports. In 2005, NIH encouraged its grant recipients to post their findings on the Internet one year after publication, but within the first six months only 4% voluntarily complied, the Post reports. The new bill, co-sponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), would apply to research funded by the 11 federal agencies -- including the USDA, Department of Homeland Security, NASA and the National Science Foundation -- that provide a minimum of $100 million in outside funding each year...

WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- The Alliance for Taxpayer Access announced its support Tuesday for a Senate bill that broadens access to federal scientific research.
The bill, called the "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006," was introduced by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. The proposal would require federal agencies that fund more than $100 million in annual external research to make electronic manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from their research publicly available via the Internet....

Recent disclosures of fraudulent or flawed studies in medical and scientific journals have called into question as never before the merits of their peer-review system.
The system is based on journals inviting independent experts to critique submitted manuscripts. The stated aim is to weed out sloppy and bad research, ensuring the integrity of the what it has published.
Because findings published in peer-reviewed journals affect patient care, public policy and the authors' academic promotions, journal editors contend that new scientific information should be published in a peer-reviewed journal before it is presented to doctors and the public.
That message, however, has created a widespread misimpression that passing peer review is the scientific equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval...

While the Internet is certainly affecting how the mainstream media works, there's another area that the anyone's-a-publisher paradigm is affecting: the world of scientific journals.
The place I used to work, the American Chemical Society, just laid off a bunch of people who put its journals together, outsourcing the operation to the company that prints them. (The ACS folks will get to reapply for their jobs.)
The move is indicative of the pressure scientific organizations are feeling as a new generation of scientists enter the lab having grown up in an Internet world...

Tiny computers that constantly monitor ecosystems, buildings and even human bodies could turn science on its head. Declan Butler investigates.
"What are you doing in the lab? Why aren't you out working in the field?" These are not the sorts of question you usually put to your computer. But they should be, according to the proponents of a new type of information technology sometimes known as 'smart dust'....

Political momentum is growing for a change in federal policy that would require government-funded health researchers to make the results of their work freely available on the Internet. Advocates say taxpayers should not have to pay hundreds of dollars for subscriptions to scientific journals to see the results of research they already have paid for. Many journals charge $35 or more just to see one article -- a cost that can snowball as patients seek the latest information about their illnesses.Publishers have successfully fought the "public access" movement for years, saying the approach threatens their subscription base and would undercut their roles as peer reviewers and archivists of scientific knowledge. But the battle lines shifted last month when ...