Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research

Authors

Joan Giesecke, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

1-9-2012

Document Type

Article

Citation

Comment submitted to The White House (Obama Administration) on "Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research", January 9, 2012.

Abstract

The complete collection of articles resulting from publicly funded research should be made freely accessible, so that the public can fully use them – (i.e. text mine, data mine, compute on them, create derivative works) without commercial restriction.

Public access policies can be successfully implemented by respecting and working within the current copyright framework.

The federal government is the appropriate entity to provide permanent stewardship of these articles, and is in a unique position to ensure that publicly funded articles are permanently preserved, made accessible, and useable.

Publishers are one player that might be encouraged to participate in public/private partnership by providing approved repositories that meet conditions for public accessibility, use rights, interoperability and long-term preservation of publicly funded articles.

For any public-access policy to be successful there must be consistency of requirements and mandates.

Immediate access is the ideal time to optimize scientific and commercial utility of information contained in these articles.