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ACM is embarrassing
Jan. 14th, 2013 01:36 amHow are we going to get the ACM to switch to open access?
There is all of this research getting done, and people at home and people around the world have a hard time reading it. Granted, it's usually possible to find a copy of what you want, since computer scientists are often good about having home pages with copies of their articles, but the premier professional society for computer scientists should not impede humans from learning about computer science.
There's been some rumbling in government (and rumbling at government) to mandate this sort of thing, for federally-funded research, which would shake up scientific publishing a lot. But I think it's preferable for us as technologists to change the ACM from the inside before government forces it to switch. It would be embarrassing to have politicians tell technologists what the morally right thing to do is.
I've been chewing on this idea for a while, but it's seemed especially urgent since Aaron Swartz died, and I think now it's time we do something.
So the question is: what's the most effective way to rally people to bother the ACM until they take down the paywall and help folks at home get access to the research? I don't think the counter-arguments that they've put up so far, "it would mess up our business model! We depend on that revenue!!" are at all sensible -- this just means that they need to change the organization to either take in money in a different way or cut costs.
I am way, way more attached to disseminating knowledge than to the current structure of the ACM. If it came down to it, I would happily see the ACM dismantled and replaced with something OA-friendly. But maybe it won't come to that.
There is all of this research getting done, and people at home and people around the world have a hard time reading it. Granted, it's usually possible to find a copy of what you want, since computer scientists are often good about having home pages with copies of their articles, but the premier professional society for computer scientists should not impede humans from learning about computer science.
There's been some rumbling in government (and rumbling at government) to mandate this sort of thing, for federally-funded research, which would shake up scientific publishing a lot. But I think it's preferable for us as technologists to change the ACM from the inside before government forces it to switch. It would be embarrassing to have politicians tell technologists what the morally right thing to do is.
I've been chewing on this idea for a while, but it's seemed especially urgent since Aaron Swartz died, and I think now it's time we do something.
So the question is: what's the most effective way to rally people to bother the ACM until they take down the paywall and help folks at home get access to the research? I don't think the counter-arguments that they've put up so far, "it would mess up our business model! We depend on that revenue!!" are at all sensible -- this just means that they need to change the organization to either take in money in a different way or cut costs.
I am way, way more attached to disseminating knowledge than to the current structure of the ACM. If it came down to it, I would happily see the ACM dismantled and replaced with something OA-friendly. But maybe it won't come to that.
