On open access, open science and Congress
Yesterday, I heard about a bill introduced in December in the House of Representatives entitled the "Research Works Act." The bill catalyzed an open conversation on Twitter between Tim O'Reilly and Darrell Issa about H.R. 3699.
- You can read the bill at Thomas.gov, GovTrack or OpenCongress using the links below:
H.R. 3699: Research Works ActA bill in the U.S. Congress: To ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector.- Alexis Madrigal, the Atlantic's excellent technology editor, brought the bill -- and its sponsors in the House -- to my attention in two tweets yesterday:
Why is open Internet champion @DarrellIssa supporting an attack on open science? bit.ly/xgRbVo #SOPA- When I looked at what other people were saying about the bill, I found that my publisher, Tim O'Reilly, had shared his opposition to it in the morning:
Regulatory capture at work-AAP applauds @darrellissa for a bill preventing federal agencies from mandating open access plus.google.com/10703373124620…- .... and that Tim had directly engaged Rep. Issa about why he'd authored the bill:
- @DarrellIssa If you're so interested in openness, why did you author HR 3699, which prevents open access to federally funded research?
- Rep. Issa, who has became one of the most voluble congressmen on Twitter over the winter as the debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act has moved forward, replied and said he'd respond.
@timoreilly hey Tim. Not in front of a comp now but I'll tweet you in a little bit w/ the background.- And he did, a few hours later, in this series of tweets:
- @timoreilly Tim, I'm firmly committed to open, accessible federally funded research. #opendata #openscience
- @timoreilly I understand your question, but HR 3699 does nothing to cut off access to federal funded research data. #opendata #openscience
- @timoreilly we included this to protect #openscience & #opendata: "...does not include progress reports or raw data outputs..."
- @timoreilly what NIH currently does is post the final pre-publication draft, which is intellectual property, of a scholarly journal
- @timoreilly it's like a reporter writing a story about one of our hearings. the committee does the work, available to everyone for free...
- @timoreilly ...but the reporter's publication has the right to determine how the article disseminated.
- On Friday, Tim responded:
- @DarrellIssa Several thoughts: 1) What @michaelneilsen said. 2) the NIH policy you appear to be targeting gives journals a 1 year exclusive
- Tim was referencing tweets to Rep. Issa by Michael Nielsen, an proponent of open science. Nielsen is also a pioneer in the field of quantum computing, which is a decent 21st century parallel for calling someone a "rocket scientist" 100 years ago.
@DarrellIssa Your analogy is not correct: the scientists are doing the work of _both_ the committee and the reporter... (cc @timoreilly )
