[ESIP-all] Why you should submit something to the AGU session on 'Improving Public Access to Science Research'

[Joe Hourcle]

I know, there have been a whole lot of 'invitation' type e-mails
out there that have been going around ... and you're probably
still up in the air about which one(s) you should try to contribute
to.

So, for those of you who have projects that are in any way related
to making sure that the public find out about science, I give you
the following reasons for submitting to PA008, 'Improving Public
Access to Science Research':


1. You want people to know about your great project, but know that
   writing journal articles is a pain and by the time it's published,
   it'll be months out of date.

2. Because it's not really public access if you just throw data up
   on a website without telling anyone it's there.

3. You need to find a creative outlet, and posters are much less
   dangerous than interpretive dance.

4. Using poorly thought out user interfaces teaches you valuable
   lessons in what no to do when building your own systems.

5. You haven't submitted an AGU abstract since they switched over
   to Abstract Central, and would like to better understand why
   I keep criticizing their system so much. (see #4)

6. It's a PA session, so you can submit to this session *and* another
   one.[1]

	corollary : If you work for the federal government, that means
	it's twice as important for you to be allowed to go to the AGU
	than those only presenting once ... and you can claim it's 'public
	outreach' without stretching the truth.

7. Because you think this is important enough to warrant an oral
   session and want to give agency representatives a forum to tell
   us what policy changes they've made and are planning.



... okay, a couple of those technically apply to submitting any
abstract, or to any PA/ED one ... but c'mon, if you've read this
far, I'm hoping that you care about the last one.

Here's the deal -- we submitted two sessions on the topic -- one
in Union, one in PA (Public Affairs).  The Union one got rejected.

[2]

So, we've invited EPA, NASA, NOAA, USDA and USGS [3] to present in
the PA session, in hope that we can get enough abstracts submitted
to get an oral session.  Otherwise, they all end up with posters,
and that's just sad.

If you're among us who is under travel restrictions, you can always
send a poster with a friend even if you're not going.[4,5]

If this plea makes you think, 'I want to help, but I don't deal
with that sort of thing', a few things from the OSTP memo to spur your creativity:

	* policies that enhance innovation and competitiveness;
	* improving findability, accessibility, and usability of data and papers;
	* balancing long-term preservation and costs;
	* training, education and workforce development in data management;
	* developing, promoting and sustaining repositories;

So, again, PA008 :

	http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/scientific-program/session-search/sessions/pa008-improving-public-access-to-science-research/

And to submit an abstract ... well, let's just say it's a bit
obtuse, but it starts at :

	https://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/scientific-program/abstract-submission-policies/

-Joe

[6]





[1] http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2013/scientific-program/abstract-submission-policies/ , which says "additional" for ED/PA, which makes it sound like you can submit to *two* ED/PA sessions (but I'm not sure if that's true).

[2] I have tastefully removed my snarky comments about AGU being a sore loser in the fight for opening up the public's access to research.  See http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/scholarly-pubs-%28%23065%29.pdf , in which it was claimed that "Peer-reviewed articles are not the direct result of the expenditure of taxpayer funds; on the contrary, they result from a significant publisher investment."

[3] In fairness to all agencies, this list is in alphabetical order.  And not all will show up as officially 'invited' in the session due to AGU's limit of 4 invites and some issues w/ trying to get non-members into the system by today.

[4] This method has also been used to subvert AGU's 'one abstract per person' policy by using other people's AGU numbers to submit abstracts in their name.

[5] It's probably bad taste to start a pool on the number of AGU attendees, and then put my money on 50% of last year's attendance.

[6] And as the rest of the message in questionable taste, I have intentionally left off my signature, as this message has in no way been endorsed by my employer or even anyone else affiliated with the session (I didn't send it to them, so they can't be blamed).