[Insight-users] IMAGINE.....

[Luis Ibanez]

Imagine the UK Parliament releasing a report on
Science and Technology discussing the issues on
Open Science publishing:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39902.htm

----------------

Some quotes for those who are too busy to read the full report:

"Government invests a significant amount of money in scientific
  research, the outputs of which are expressed in terms of journal
  articles. It is accountable for this expenditure to the public.
  We were dismayed that the Government showed so little concern
  about where public money ended up."


"We are convinced that the amount of public money invested in scientific
  research and its outputs is sufficient to merit Government involvement
  in the publishing process. Indeed, we would be very surprised if
  Government did not itself feel the need to account for its investment
  in the publishing process."


"We recommend that the Research Councils consider providing funds
  to enable researchers to publish their primary data alongside their
  research findings"


"Institutional repositories should be a key component of any
  long-term strategy to ensure the preservation of digital
  publications."


"All researchers, regardless of the nature of their institution, should
  be granted access to the scientific journals they need to carry out
  their work effectively"


"We see this as a great opportunity for the UK to lead the way in
  broadening access to publicly-funded research findings and making
  available software tools and resources for accomplishing this work."




For those who understand that the basis of the scientific process
is the methodology of contrasting evidence, and not the pedantic
effort for building researchers careers:

    "Institutional repositories should accept for archiving articles
     based on negative results, even when publication of the article
     in a journal is unlikely."




and... for those who appreciate the power of Syllogisms    :-)

"All of the academics that we spoke to were confident that they could
  determine the quality of a research article for themselves. This stands
  to reason given the fact that it is the same academics who carry out
  the function of peer review. Ironically it is this facility for
  self-regulation that calls peer review into question.

  If academics can distinguish a good article from a bad one by
  themselves, why do they need another academic to carry out this
  function for them? From this argument stems the view that peer
  review is unnecessarily censorious."