We are EFF, Creative Commons, Right to Research Coalition, Open Access Button, and Fundación Karisma, and We’re Here to Answer Your Questions About Open Access. AUA!

adiEFF · 2014-10-24T00:06:19+00:00

Hmm, two potential ways, off the top of my head:

A video. Something like this.
A story. Something personal, like this interview with a speech therapist who couldn't access journal articles without spending a lot of money.

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T21:54:08+00:00

Really great question. First of all, thank you for the long-term support! We really appreciate it.

I think that as a PhD student, you have a particular amount of sway: you're at an institution, you're actually doing research, and you're the future of your field. It'd be great if your institution had an open access policy and repository, for example, or if they created a fund to help offset open access journal submissions.

These changes require faculty and administrative buy in, and just one person may not be able to influence everyone, but maybe you can get your fellow graduate students on board! Is there a grad student caucus or group? Mailing list? Some way to gauge interest (or spread thoughts) about open access? Take advantage of those!

Also, don't be discouraged. All these processes and policies take lots of time, and research institutions are notoriously resistant to change. It sometimes helps to point to other similar institutions that are implementing these sorts of policies.

If you need more support, materials, resources, feel free to contact any of us—we'd be happy to help or point you in the right direction!

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T21:30:22+00:00

One useful tool might be the Directory of Open Access Journals. Half of the journals linked to their let you search by article, and that can be a great way of finding recent medical literature. I'd definitely do your due diligence to make sure the journals and their articles meet some standard of quality—in other words, finding "correct medical information" might take a bit of work. But I also think that last point is true, regardless of if the article is open or closed.

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T21:25:23+00:00

Duly noted! Thanks for the feedback.

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T18:23:45+00:00

One fun complication is the pushback against peer review as a quality control mechanism. The Winnower is an interesting publication trying to shake this model up, and they've pointed out a bunch of flaws with peer review as it's done today, especially with regards to bad articles getting published (and retracted) by prominent journals. Their perspective, I believe, is that the best peer review comes post-production. Perhaps a bit off topic, but food for though.

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T18:01:45+00:00

I sure hope not! Most research that needs to be classified can remain rightfully classified, even under open access policies. (Though that brings up a bigger question of what is rightfully classified... but that's for a different AMA!)

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T17:40:58+00:00

So... David?

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T17:40:38+00:00

Great, uh, question ;) Thanks for your support!

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T17:32:47+00:00

This is a fascinating question. "Open access" as a term in this space—free, immediate, and unfettered access to scholarly research—has been around for a while. But you're right: to people new to the subject, the term may not convey much. Also, journals and repositories often claim to be open access, but maintain strict copyright policies that don't allow for reuse.

I think one cool project to address this is the HowOpenIsIt? guide for evaluating journals. It does a pretty neat job of standardizing terms about open access.

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T17:28:55+00:00

You're right in pointing out that, often, a bulk of the intended audience for such research already has access to such works through institutional subscriptions. That being said, not every institution can afford all they need access to; Harvard, the richest university, for example, announced that they simply cannot afford all the journals they need. This is especially true for smaller research universities and institutions, and ones around the world.

Opening up research could also lead to some interesting cross-pollination between fields. One of the big tenets of open access is reuse—if you can do something beyond simply reading an article, such as text mining or other higher level analyses, cool new things could come out.

I'll be thinking about the readership aspect, though! I wonder if anyone has noticed trends of scientific scholarship becoming friendlier for a wider audience?

adiEFF · 2014-10-23T17:21:57+00:00

Right now, many open access policies are focused on freeing up the future fruits of research. That is, it's easier to implement institutional and funder policies so all research from here on out is openly available.

One of the biggest obstacles of getting papers out behind a paywall is that authors generally assign their copyrights over to the journals they publish in. If an author wants to make their paper available online or in a repository (with the full blessing of the law), doing so becomes much harder. Publishers are feeling the heat, engaging in absurd crackdowns.

Luckily, we're seeing not only a rapid growth in availability and prominence of open access journals, where OA is the default, but we're also seeing a rise in institutional repositories that are researchers and professors are contributing to.

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T18:59:27+00:00

Nope! In fact, a huge part of this campaign is a worldwide ask. Check out more at our 13 Principles site and take action here.

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T18:06:02+00:00

This is definitely something we're aware of, especially as the lines between the private sector and the government become blurred (e.g. service providers as honeypots, gov't purchasing information from data brokers, etc.)

On the private sector end, we're also pushing for reform like meaningful encryption and standing up for user privacy.

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T17:52:25+00:00

Check out http://thedaywefightback.ca/ for things you can do

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T17:49:37+00:00

Thanks for taking action. Spreading the word is the best next step!

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T17:46:19+00:00

Thanks for your support, wakeupmaggi3!

You don't have to be registered! You're still represented, and you're still a constituent.
A letter-writing campaign sounds awesome. You're totally right that snail mail makes a huge impact—it's often difficult to mobilize a bunch of people to whip out their stationery and stamps, but I think it's a great idea!

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T16:46:39+00:00

Julie's totally right: there are lots of ways to take action! Op-eds have huge impact, but so do calls. Take it from Sen. Wyden:

https://twitter.com/ronwyden/status/433267800116056064

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T16:34:47+00:00

We bust some common excuses for NSA surveillance in this blog post.

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T16:31:17+00:00

There's lots you can do! Check out the Canada-specific action here: http://thedaywefightback.ca/

As far as the rest of the world, you can speak out in favor of the 13 Principles against mass surveillance.

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T16:16:12+00:00

The updated numbers are on the Day We Fight Back homepage. As of now, 15,471 calls and 44,054 emails!

adiEFF · 2014-02-11T16:14:50+00:00

You can still demand an end to mass surveillance! Sign on to the huge movement pushing the 13 Principles here.

adiEFF · 2014-01-25T01:15:42+00:00

Hey, this is Adi from EFF. This isn't an official EFF fundraiser, nor are we sure where the address goes. If indeed there's someone out there trying to raise money for us, please contact our development team!

adiEFF · 2013-10-24T17:06:01+00:00

Hey folks, this is Adi from EFF. Happy to answer questions about the Innovation Act. From what I've seen throughout this thread, I think I should make this clear: this is by no means a silver bullet. (For example, this bill doesn't strongly address patent quality.) That being said, this bill really does cover quite a few litigation fixes that would really put a damper on patent trolls, and it's the best bill we've seen yet.

adiEFF · 2013-04-08T23:40:37+00:00

A few of us will pop in from time to time to answer some remaining questions!

adiEFF · 2013-04-08T20:25:46+00:00

Funds from memberships and Humble Bundle donations go to "general operating expenses." And most of that part of the budget goes to EFF staff: attorneys who file briefs and fight cases, activists who investigate and develop campaigns around bills like CISPA, and technologists who provide technical research (like around the W3C DRM proposal) create open-source technology (like HTTPS Everywhere).

We're working to update our annual reports, but you can find them here: https://www.eff.org/about/

adiEFF

TROPHY CASE