FIRST Act

After just a brief Google search on open access, it quickly came to my attention that there is currently legislation that is applicable to the open access debate. The FIRST act, or Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology act, "restricts access to publicly funded research article by up to three years". As stated in the articles we read, currently articles can be must be made available after one year. The Electronic Frontier Foundation strongly opposes this act, saying that it reverses all of the progress towards open access that has been made in the past few years. The Science Insider points out other controversial parts of the legislation, which include limiting funding to the National Science Foundation and greater restrictions on their grant writing. Most of the sites discussing the bill stated that it was highly controversial and largely seen as a negative change. The intention behind the bill, according to Inside Higher Ed, is to streamline the country's funding of science projects. However, the bill introduces a lot of problems with open access and scientific research.