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China backs bold plan to tear down journal paywalls
In a huge boost to the open-access movement, librarians and funders in China have said that they intend to make the results of publicly funded research free to read immediately on publication.
The move, announced at an open-access meeting this week in Berlin, includes a pledge of support for Plan S, a bold initiative launched in September by a group of European funders to ensure that, by 2020, their scientists make papers immediately open.
It is not yet clear when Chinese organizations will begin implementing new policies, or whether they will adopt all of Plan S's details, but Robert-Jan Smits, the chief architect of Plan S, says the stance is a ringing endorsement for his initiative. "This is a crucial step forward for the global open-access movement," he says. "We knew China was reflecting to join us — but that it would join us so soon and unambiguously is an enormous surprise."
In three position papers, China's National Science Library (NSL), its National Science and Technology Library (NSTL) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), a major research funder, all said that they support the efforts of Plan S "to transform, as soon as possible, research papers from publicly funded projects into immediate open access after publication, and we support a wide range of flexible and inclusive measures to achieve this goal". "We demand that publishers should not increase their subscription prices on the grounds of the transformation from subscription journals to open access publishing," the papers say.
Previously: Plan S: Radical Open-Access Science Initiative in Europe
Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation Join "Plan S" Open-Access Initiative
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 10 2018, @05:15PM (5 children)
If they stick to the plan, China will definitely become the most scientifically powerful country. And they were already headed in that direction. But there will be lots of temptations to curtail it.
Also, as pointed out above, it will give a strong boost to those who can read Mandarin. Even if there is machine translation, such translations are usually quite imperfect...and often impenetrable unless you already know exactly what's being talked about.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday December 10 2018, @08:58PM (3 children)
Competition is good. Perhaps this competition will push the West towards greater academic freedom. It's a gruesome, disgusting hypocrisy that the Land of the Free keeps the bulk of its scientific findings locked, barred, and paywalled, and not even with the justification of collecting a fair price, as the fair price was already paid. Can't even call that reasonably ethical capitalistic behavior, it's just plain theft. Collect money, then don't render services or goods in exchange. Academic publishers are straight up thieves. I'll gladly struggle to learn Mandarin if that's what it takes to be free from them.
Japanese competition sure jolted the US auto industry into making decent cars again. Competition works in many fields, and should work to liberate research. Here's hoping the Chinese stay on course with this plan and see it through.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 10 2018, @10:49PM (2 children)
How are the publishers theives? The academics choose where they publish, no one is forcing them to do it this way. The truth is all most care about is whether you are likely to cite their paper. If you arent someone likely to cite it they could care less if you can read it or not.
So the problem is on the academic side, the publishers are just providing them a 'get your paper cited' service so they can get more grants. Its strange that the grant agencies dont care more about open access though...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:58PM (1 child)
Academic publishers were for disseminating research, and protecting researchers from exploitation and distraction. Now, they're among the worst offenders. They weren't supposed to gouge anyone for access, they were supposed to charge only enough to cover their expenses. They weren't about profit, they were about expanding human knowledge.
They demand researchers turn over all copyright, and pay the authors of the works they publish 0% of the revenue they collect. The reason why was only to avoid the work, expense, and legal problems with having to get hundreds of permissions over and over in order to do routine organizing, publishing, and dissemination. This was not an issue when they kept their end of the unwritten agreement, which was not to hoard knowledge, and not to gouge the public and especially fellow researchers for access.
But now, they've broken their end of this unwritten bargain. Technological advance has made publication and dissemination far less costly and cumbersome. Print is now an impediment. But like publishers of other sorts, they too have balked at modernizing. They do want all the cost savings that technology brings, but they don't want to pass any of that on. They're still charging $30 for one 10 page research paper. Do you think $10 for a paperback is high? At the prices academic publishers try to charge, a typical 300 page novel would be $900.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @11:06PM
Yep, no disagreement. Still not their fault academics keep paying them for doing literally nothing.
This isn't like your grandma who can't be expected to understand how the internet works so still pays for AOL... academia supposedly consists of the best and brightest who are being primarily funded by taxes to improve the future of the country. They have let you down, not the publishers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @03:41AM
Time for me to learn Mandarin. And consider moving to China. I mean they're fucked up but at least they're headed in the right direction unlike the U.S..