Jello wrote:
] whit wrote:
] ] Decius wrote:
] ] ] ] Researchers who receive grant money from the National
] ] ] ] Institutes of Health will be "asked" to submit their
] ] ] ] results to a public Web site within a year after they
] are
] ] ] ] published in a scientific journal, under a new and
] ] ] ] controversial NIH policy announced yesterday.
] ] ]
] ] ] Haven't ya'll heard of a library?
] ]
] ] You missed the point. NIH wants researchers (those they
] fund)
] ] to make their raw data readily available to anyone wishing
] to
] ] replicate the results reported in the published article. As
]
] ] it stands now, anyone can email the researchers and request
] ] their data, who will happily provide whatever they request.
]
] ] Seems a bit odd that NIH would request that scientists would
]
] ] post their data online. Email at least encourages
] ] collaboration and communication. Regardless - NIH seems to
] be
] ] sticking their nose in places they shouldn't. I'm afraid
] they
] ] will soon demand the kinds of research they believe should
] be
] ] done. Canada has a brilliant funding model in place
] (NSERC).
] ] NIH should take note.
]
] I kinda thought that the issue was this: if my tax dollars
] payed for that research, then shouldn't the results be
] published in a publically accessible form that I don't have to
] pay for? Libraries are great, but libraries have to pay for
] the journals, and online access to them is limited.

The results are indeed publicly available to anyone, regardless of the journal price or whether your local library carries it. They always have been! Email the author and ask for a reprint. That's the way things are done in academia. If you find an article you're interested in (I recommend http://scholar.google.com), fire off an email to the author and they would be more than happy to send you the paper. Publishers should really be taken out of the loop, it's really getting out of hand. Academics do the research, review the manuscripts, and publishers make out like bandits!

RE: NIH Grant Recipients Are 'Asked' to Post Data (washingtonpost.com)