More on OA to education research. I've learned more about why the GAO report singles out the Department of Education (DOE) from all the other federal agencies that fund research (see previous blog entry). The answer is that Congress adopted the Education Sciences Reform Act in November 2002. The statute created the Institute of Education Sciences within the DOE, and directed it to "conduct research, evaluations, and wide dissemination activities in areas of demonstrated national need (including in technology areas) that are supported by Federal funds appropriated to the Institute...." The GAO was willing to recommend open access for the results of DOE-funded research, and the DOE was willing to accept the recommendation, because the Education Sciences Reform Act already required essentially the same thing and the DOE was already in the process of implementing it.

If you're looking for ways to generalize from the DOE to other federal funding agencies, then look at why the Education Sciences Reform Act requires "wide dissemination" for education research. The statute gives the Institute of Education Sciences the mission "to provide national leadership in expanding fundamental knowledge and understanding of education...in order to provide parents, educators, students, researchers, policymakers, and the general public with reliable information about the condition and progress of education...." The good news is that Congress has already adopted a policy about education research that it could well adopt for almost any other kind of research. The bad news is that some federal funding agencies might think that they have to wait for Congress to act. [Open Access News]

1:41:51 PM    

More on the GAO report. Two quick addenda on the GAO report, which despite its title is as much about open access as conflicts of interest.

1. The report is based in part on a survey of the 200 universities that received the most federal research funding in the year 2000. Here's how the report describes the results (p. 12): "Among the 171 university respondents to our survey, 91 universities (53 percent) supported posting the grantee''s final technical reports on the agency''s Web site, and 31 universities (18 percent) opposed posting the final technical report, while 49 universities (29 percent) either were uncertain or did not respond. Primary advantages that universities cited for posting final technical reports on an agency''s Web site include facilitating the access of other scientists to research results, facilitating collaboration among scientists, providing prompt dissemination of research results, and providing a public record if the results of a research project are not published. Primary disadvantages that universities cited for posting final technical reports are the potential for (1) an invention to be prematurely disclosed, (2) a scientific journal to reject a manuscript because it views posted reports as publications, (3) proprietary information to be disclosed, (4) research results to be prematurely disclosed, (5) incomplete or misleading report results to be prematurely disseminated, (6) an investigator to be to harassed by opponents to the research, and (7) universities to incur added administrative costs in complying with agency requirements."

2. I've said that the report endorses open access for the usual good reasons, in addition to the help it could provide in preventing financial conflicts of interest. Here's how it describes the rationale for open access (p. 16): "A fundamental principle of scientific research is that wide dissemination of research results is vital for validating these results and advancing the field of science. Posting final research reports, or similar information, on federal agencies'' Web sites can advance scientific research by providing other scientists with timely access to research results and facilitating collaboration. Posting this information also provides access to members of the public interested in the research and a public record if the results of agency-funded research are not published, thus maximizing the benefit of the federal investment. For these reasons, five federal agencies, including Energy and NASA, already routinely disseminate research results through their Web sites. While posting research results might create concerns in some fields, such as biomedical research, these concerns are less applicable for Education, which like Energy and NASA, has a specific statutory requirement to widely disseminate research results."

Note that the report does not use the term "open access". It talks about posting research data and reports to public and private government web sites. [Open Access News]
1:41:07 PM    

More on the Elsevier boycott and cancellations. Jonathan Knight, Cornell axes Elsevier journals as prices rise, Nature, November 20, 2003 (accessible only to subscribers). Background on the Cornell decision to cancel "several hundred" Elsevier journals. Excerpt: "Cancellations by other universities are also likely, says Duane Webster, director of the Association of Research Libraries in Washington DC. 'Cornell is just the first,' he says. Among those still negotiating is Harvard University, which is unlikely to renew its deal with Elsevier, according to library director Sidney Verba. He says that the price rises will probably result in a large reduction in Elsevier subscriptions. The University of California has been in negotiations with Elsevier since March over the rising price of online access. In a notice to faculty members dated 15 October, the university’s academic senate warned that a reduction in journal access would be likely if no agreement could be reached. Last month, the faculty senate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that Elsevier’s pricing was unsustainable. It urged faculty to give up editorships at Elsevier journals and to submit papers elsewhere." (Thanks to Garrett Eastman.) [Open Access News]
10:14:26 AM    

USA Today on open access. Dan Vergano, Upstart science journals take on the powerhouses, USA Today, November 19, 2003. On the PLoS Biology launch. Excerpt: "Science's Rocky-style publishing battle starts its second round Monday when a groundbreaking journal releases its latest [second] issue....The two sides are at odds over 'open access,' an idea that is gathering strength in the scientific publishing world. Most journal publishers retain copyrights to reports on scientific findings that appear in their pages, even when the research is publicly financed. Scientists cannot give away copies of their own research papers without violating publishers' ownership rights. And publishers charge fees that can run as high as $30 for individual papers, plus subscription prices that some scientists and librarians complain have spiraled grossly out of hand." [Open Access News]
10:14:02 AM    

GAO calls for open access to education research. The US Government Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report on November 14 recommending "that the Department of Education [DOE] post the final technical reports of the research it funds on its Web site." Moreover, the DOE "agreed with the recommendation to post research results on its Web site."

I'm still reading the report, but haven't yet found a reason why it singles out the DOE from all the other federal agencies that fund research. Nor does the DOE site have a press release on the subject. However, the GAO report does offer a helpful table of Agencies That Post Research Results on Their Web Sites (bottom of page 2). The table lists the Departments of Agriculture (annual and final technical reports), Defense (final technical reports), and Energy (final technical reports), the National Center for Environmental Research (annual and final report summaries), and NASA (abstract of final technical reports).

The primary purpose of the GAO report is to urge all federal agencies that fund research to agree on a common policy for preventing financial conflicts of interest. Open access only enters the picture as one among other tools for reducing such conflicts. But if open access will reduce such conflicts for DOE-funded research, why not for all government-funded research? For that side of the story, see Eugene Russo, Uniform conflict rules needed, The Scientist, November 19, 2003. According to Russo, the report authors hesitated to make a general call for open access when they saw the "minefield of concerns" it raised. Excerpt: "On the issue of open access to government-funded data, report authors had a very negative reaction from biomedical researchers at Emory University when they proposed posting all results on the World Wide Web, Cheston said. Among the major concerns were protecting patentable information, avoiding rejections from prestigious journals as a result of premature data release, and ensuring that findings have been properly vetted by peer review so that neither researchers nor the public are misled. The GAO did recommend, however, that the Department of Education post the final technical reports of the research it funds on its Web site." [Open Access News]

10:13:35 AM