Legislation

I recently received a copy of a letter the US Chamber of Commerce is circulating in opposition to H.R. 5037, the Federal Research Public Access Act. Since I decided to respond to the letter at length, I thought I would share my response with the community. Below I quote their letter in full with paragraph-by-paragraph responses to their argument. Dear Chairman Towns and Ranking Member Issa: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region, opposes H.R. 5037, the “Federal Research Public Access Act,” and urges you not to bring it before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for consideration. ...

Earlier this year I blogged about what I thought should go into an open textbook bill (with clarifications the next day). I’m extremely pleased that Senator Durbin has introduced a bill which closely resembles these recommendations and therefore, to my mind, is on exactly the right track. You can read Durbin’s remarks as he introduced the bill, and then study the full text of S. 1714 on GovTrack (where you can also subscribe to a feed of all bill-related activity). ...

GovTrack has the full text of the remarks made by senators as they introduce legislation. Here are Sen. Cornyn’s remarks as he introduced S. 1373, the Federal Research Public Access Act: Sen. John Cornyn [R-TX]: [Introducing S. 1373] Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Federal Research Public Access Act. I am very pleased to be joined again by my good friend and colleague, Senator JOE LIEBERMAN, who has remained dedicated to seeing this important legislation passed. This bipartisan bill is the same legislation we introduced in the 109th Congress. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure American taxpayers’ dollars are spent wisely, which is even more important now in this time of fiscal tension. ...

Open Education News and Open Access News are running stories about a new OA mandate from the Institute of Education Sciences: Recipients of awards are expected to publish or otherwise make publicly available the results of the work supported through this program. Institute-funded investigators should submit final, peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from research supported in whole or in part by the Institute to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) upon acceptance for publication. An author’s final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all graphics and supplemental materials that are associated with the article. The Institute will make the manuscript available to the public through ERIC no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Institutions and investigators are responsible for ensuring that any publishing or copyright agreements concerning submitted articles fully comply with this requirement. ...

This year’s MASTER STUDY RESOLUTION for the 2009 General Session, a “joint resolution of the [Utah] Legislature [which] gives the Legislative Management Committee items of study it may assign to the appropriate interim committee” over the summer, includes something we have been hoping to see! Item 30 reads: 30. Educational Resources in the Public Domain - to study how curriculum materials and other learning resources created with state funds may be placed in the public domain. ...

Responding to some comments on yesterday’s post about my ideal open textbook legislation: Ben Werdmuller asked, “Is there any reason for not including the whole range of permissive CC licensing, including the Public Domain one?” Yes indeed! For one, I think it is crucial that the licenses allowed all be remix-compatible with one another. That means no ND license (no remix is allowed at all) and only one SA license (otherwise, no remixing is possible across works). BY and CC Zero (in effect a public domain license) are remix compatible with everything, as would be a public domain dedication (let’s please remember that licenses only apply to copyrighted material - since materials in the public domain are not copyrighted they can’t have a license!). Using NC is likely important to incentivize publisher participation, which I address below. ...

Stephen says, “My argument is that if you require a letter of suipport from publishers, then publishers will immediately turn this into a cartel, which would mean that prices would not drop at all. You do not address this line of reasoning at all.” I’ll happily address it here, but Stephen’s comment also ignores my main point. First, let me deal with the suggestion that price will not drop at all. A content-complete openly licensed version of the book online is all the price control that is needed. The existence of this version controls price by providing an alternate mechanism for accessing the content. If you really want a printed version, and you can purchase one for $25, you’ll purchase one. If you really want a printed version, but you can only buy one for $75, you’ll just print out all the pages at Kinko’s and put them in a three-ring binder. More than one person will create and distribute (legally) a PDF that makes printing for your three ring binder really easy, and no one will purchase the $75 version from the publisher. The same is true for an audio version, etc. So the existence of the free version provides price control all by itself. If the publisher wants to sell books, those books have to satisfy Wiley’s magic formula of open book sales: ...

There’s a lot of talk about open textbook legislation going around right now. I recently reported on HR 1464, which was a great first start, but on reflection could be improved significantly. I’ve had some opportunities to think about what the “perfect” open textbook bill would look like, so I thought I’d share MNSHO. The legislation would create competitive funding opportunities to create open textbooks in any content area. These would be multi-stage grants (like the SBIR program), with additional funding tied to the successful completion of initial project goals. ...

I never thought I would title a post in all caps, but I can’t believe I’m reading what I’m reading. H.R. 1464, introduced by Bill Foster of Illinois, is titled: To require Federal agencies to collaborate in the development of freely-available open source educational materials in college-level physics, chemistry, and math, and for other purposes. After quoting a number of findings about how completely out of control the textbook market and textbook prices are, the bill goes on to say: ...