Live Chat: Should Scientific Papers Be Free? - ScienceNOW

"The open access publishing movement recently scored a victory when the White House announced it will soon require U.S. science agencies to make the scientific papers they fund freely available online within 12 months of publication. Are taxpayers entitled to see the scientific papers they fund? Could public access improve scientific research? What does the new policy mean for journals? And does it go far enough? Join us for a live chat at 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, 7 March, on this page. With us will be Heather Joseph, who advocates for open access as the executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and Fredrick Dylla, who has criticized the concept as executive director of the American Institute of Physics. You can leave your questions in the comment box below before the chat starts. The full text of the chat will be archived on this page."