Academic research is publicly funded -- why isn't it publicly available? | Erica Stone

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2018

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

In the US, your taxes fund academic research at public universities. Why then do you need to pay expensive, for-profit journals for the results of that research? Erica Stone advocates for a new, open-access relationship between the public and scholars, making the case that academics should publish in more accessible media. "A functioning democracy requires that the public be well-educated and well-informed," Stone says. "Instead of research happening behind paywalls and bureaucracy, wouldn't it be better if it was unfolding right in front of us?"

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features intellectual access advocate Erica Stone, recorded live at TEDx Mile
0:06.9	High Women, 2016.
0:10.2	Do you ever find yourself referencing a study in conversation that you didn't actually read?
0:20.1	I was having coffee with a friend of mine the other day,
0:22.8	and I said, you know,
0:24.6	I read a new study that says coffee reduces the risk of depression in women.
0:29.8	But really?
0:32.4	What I read was a tweet
0:34.9	that said, a new study says drinking coffee made decreased depression to risk in women.
0:44.3	And that tweet had a link to the New York Times blog where a guest blogger translated the study findings from a live science article, which got its original
0:55.7	information from the Harvard School of Public Health news site, which cited the actual study
1:01.5	abstract, which summarized the actual study published in an academic journal.
1:09.2	It's like the six degrees of separation, but with research.
1:14.4	So when I said I read a study, what I actually read was 59 characters that summarized
1:21.8	10 years of research.
1:25.6	So when I said I read a study,
1:28.3	I was reading fractions of the study
1:32.3	that were put together by four different writers
1:34.3	that were not the author before it got to me.
1:38.3	That doesn't seem right.
1:40.3	But accessing original research is difficult because academics aren't regularly engaging with popular media.
1:48.0	And you might be asking yourself,
	...

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