White House directs open access for federally-funded research

[BainsBane]

Great news for everyone interested in science and social science research. This appears more open than the current NIH and NSF directives for publishing research in open access journals. The agencies must develop their own open access plans. The article doesn't mention humanities research (NEH), which currently has no open access requirements.


"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has moved to make the results of federally funded research available to the public for free within a year, bowing to public pressure for unfettered access to scholarly articles and other materials produced at taxpayers' expense.
"Americans should have easy access to the results of research they help support," John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote on the White House website.
An online petition on the White House website demanding free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research drew 65,704 signatures.
The directive comes amid a changing landscape for publishing and the availability of information due to the Internet.
Scientists have long published the results of their work in scholarly journals, and many such publications have warned that open access would destroy them and the function they provide the scientific community."

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-directs-open-access-government-research-032324158.html

[dballance]

1. Wasn't This One of the Outcomes Aaron Swartz was Trying to Effect w/ His Activism?

Glad to see it happening and so sad it comes too late for Swartz.

[BainsBane]

2. Yes, the article mentions him

"The White House move also came some six weeks after the suicide of Internet openness activist Aaron Swartz, who was renowned for making a trove of information freely available to the public.
Swartz ran into trouble in 2011 when he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to allegedly stealing millions of academic articles and journals from a digital archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The activist, who pleaded not guilty to all counts, faced a lengthy prison sentence and a hefty fine if convicted in a trial that was set for later this year.
Swartz's family and supporters blamed prosecutors for overreaching in his case, and his suicide drew attention to questions about the 1984 U.S. computer fraud law, much of which was written before the Internet."

[BainsBane]

3. in case anyone is interested

kick