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posted by
Fnord666
on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:08PM
from the dogs-and-cats-living-together dept.
from the dogs-and-cats-living-together dept.
What happens to research that is funded by taxpayers? A lot ends up in subscription-only journals, protected from the eyes of most by a paywall.
But a new initiative known as Plan S could change that. Plan S focuses on making all publicly funded research immediately fully and freely available by open access publication.
It sounds like a good idea – but there are possible downsides. This model could potentially undermine peer review, the process vital for ensuring the rigour and quality of published research. It could also increase costs of publication for researchers and funding bodies. So let's do Plan S right.
Taxpayers will have the right to see the research they paid for?
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All Publicly Funded Australian Research Could Soon Be Free for You, the Taxpayer, to Read
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You humans are all alike.
(Score: 2) by jb on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:56AM (1 child)
Depends on the field.
My understanding was that peer review in academia as an idea potentially to standardise on has been on the table since Oldenburg's famous paper, roughly half a millennium ago, although it didn't get adopted as a standard until much later: about 200 years ago for the various medical disciplines; about 100 to 150 years ago for the other sciences & some early adopters in engineering; then finally in the mid 20th century for the less scientific disciplines.
Even when peer review is not used as a formal requirement, it tends to happen naturally in many disciplines: as I understand it "letters on" the published research of scientists by their peers (in disciplines without formal requirements for peer review at the time) were published relatively common in the 18th & 19th centuries.
That was both better & worse than the current system. Better because the reviewing author put his name (and therefore staked his own reputation) on his review, which was naturally conducive to a higher quality of review; but worse because research in unpopular or noncontroversial fields often didn't get reviewed at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:07PM
Yes, of course people had others give feedback on their work/ideas. That is not what "peer review" means.