On 4-8-2012 6:02, waggy wrote:
> Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> On 03/08/2012 05:50 PM, Darren New wrote:
>>> In addition, the school itself gets a copy of the thesis (or many
>>> copies) and they wind up in the department or library or something.
>>> Certainly when the student publishes a thesis, the school isn't going to
>>> fail to have a vanity copy.
>>
>> Sure. But that doesn't help *me* read it. I always seem to have trouble
>> getting my hands on interesting papers and stuff...
>
> At my university, I have to deliver two printed copies to the school library.

I had about 300 IIRC. Different system. Ours is better ;)

> I must also deliver an electronic copy to a commercial online publisher to make
> available through their private (paid) service. Registering a copyright and
> providing open access are add-on costs for the author.

I thought that even the USA had gone over to the sensible system that 
everything one writes is automatically copyrighted.

> I'll shell out the bucks for the copyright since my thesis has immediate
> commercial applications and I don't want one company monopolizing it.

I don't see how a copyright could help here. A patent might, but a 
copyright just protects the wording, not the idea. You could prevent a 
company to get a patent because of prior art. But as the thesis is an 
official document with a date, you don't need a copyright either.

> (I don't
> mind not getting a piece of it since public funds paid for the research and most
> applications involve safety.)
>
> I'm also on the open-access side of scholarly publication.  However, I have
> worked with professional technical editors and think we need to figure out how
> to get them back into the technical publication process. Peer review generally
> works well enough for checking the content, but it seems silly that researchers
> also need to have the specialized skills of a proofreader, copy editor, graphic
> artist, and sometimes even page layout specialist.

It is part of the western world's attempt to keep the Chinese out. Their 
English is often so bad that we can reject the papers they send to the 
journals without even looking at the content. Or looking at it, 
reproducing and publishing first, depending on your morals.

> Modern software doesn't make these respectable jobs obsolete, it just gives
> authors the tools to do all of them themselves, poorly, when we could be doing
> more of the research we're good at.

Somehow I think you do not understand the reasons behind modern 
research. Employing someone to do research is mainly because otherwise 
the statistics look bad. When researchers do actually research they 
spends money on top of their salary. To cut the costs it is important to 
prevent that.

> [It feels good to leave that preposition there at the end, where it belongs.]
>
>


-- 
Women are the canaries of science. When they are underrepresented
it is a strong indication that non-scientific factors play a role
and the concentration of incorruptible scientists is also too low

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