Research paid for by taxpayers will soon be open to the public, according to a memorandum released by the White House Friday.
The memo told federal agencies that give more than $100 million in research funds a year to submit plans to openly release the research within a year of its peer-reviewed journal release.
The government already requires research funded by the National Institutes of Health to be published on PubMed.gov, said David Norton, UF’s vice president for research. The new directive mirrors this process for all taxpayer-funded research.
Norton said the initiative will affect UF research, which received $423 million in government funds in 2012, but nobody knows what the new plans will require.
UF Scholarly Communications Librarian Christine Fruin said open access legislation has been an issue for years, but bills usually don’t get far. Fruin said the fear now is that unless such a bill passes, the next administration could reverse the president’s directive.
Traditionally, papers are submitted to journals for peer review and then released to the public for a subscription fee or on open access sites.
“It’s just counter-intuitive to lock up research paid for by taxpayers behind journal paywalls,” she said.
UF pays for access to multiple journals a year, Fruin said. Once students are unaffiliated with the university, their free access is cut off.
Director of the Florida Program for Shark Research George Burgess said he has no problem opening research to the public and other scientists after it’s been through the traditional peer-review publication process. However, he fears open research could be misinterpreted or used for data theft, or it could cause issues with medical confidentiality.
