

University Of California Approves Major Open Access Policy To Make Research Free - nahcub
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/02/university-of-california-approves-major-open-access-policy-to-make-research-free/

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adamzerner
This is a relevant read: [http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-
is-science...](http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-
behind-a-paywall)

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rflrob
The policy is imperfect, though, due to an opt out clause.
[http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1413](http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1413)

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skrebbel
Without that clause, many major researches will leave UC because they have
virtually no journal to publish anymore. Indeed, that sucks, but you have to
attack this problem in steps.

The fact that it's an opt _out_ is significant. Most universities haven't even
gotten as far as saying "dear staff, please think about doing that open access
thing once in a while". UC says "You're going to do open access, unless you
really don't want to and then you can do otherwise". The push is very strong.
The university, centrally, very clearly and unambiguously declared what they
think is the right direction. Scientists can respond by asking for UC's
(financial / political) support with starting new initiatives and open
journals, or when pressuring existing journals to go open.

In the longer term, actions like these may actually help UC _attract_ top
scientists. If you write a paper, you prefer it to be read by as many people
as possible. The only reason to be OK with it being behind a paywall is if,
somehow, through something culturally grown, it is the only way to advance
your career. If you can have similar career chances publishing openly, then
that is very attractive indeed. I think many researchers will find that this
makes writing papers more worthwhile, more fun.

I'm looking forward to when all modern scientists have a blog on which they
post abstracts and download links, including comment threads and all the fast,
dynamic interaction that entails.

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yummyfajitas
Why would they leave? Major researchers need to publish in major journals in
order to get tenure - if they choose to publish only in lower quality open
access journals, they are perceived as weird and low status.

If UC requires open access this problem is solved. Every researcher has the
perfect excuse for why they didn't publish in a closed journal.

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throwaway1979
Now if University research could not be patented, we'd be getting somewhere
...

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gcr
Why would that be important?

Many professors conduct research that they wish to commercialize in their
startups/side companies.

