From Union of Concerned Scientists: This week, the National Research Council is holding public comment meetings on increasing public access to federally funded research—both access to the data and publications. We encouraged the UCS Science Network to weigh in with their own ideas on how the government can increase public access to its science. After all, this is the science that we all pay for through our tax dollars.
This public comment meeting comes fresh on the heels of President Obama’s executive order and accompanying open data policy unveiled last week that make “open and machine-readable the new default for government information.” The move was well received by the open government community as “monumental” and “mark[ing] a new aggressive move” for the administration, but thus far, has been met with trepidation by some in the scientific community (more on this in a future post).