National Association of Graduate-Professional StudentsAugust 2010 Newsletter–Volume 24, Number 2

!e Postgraduate Voice

Public Access Hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives!e Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on the topic of “Public Access to Federally-Funded Research.” !e hearing was chaired by the Chairman of the Subcommittee, Congressman Lacy Clay.

!e hearing was comprised of three panels; the first featured individuals skeptical of public access to federally-funded research policies. !is included: Allan Adler from the Associa-tion of American Publishers, Steven Breckler from the American Psychological Association and Ralph Oman from the George Washington University Law School.

Mr. Adler described publishing of research articles as a “collaborative e"ort” between the author and the publisher, and expressed his concern that public access would create an “unwarranted” competition from the government for the rest of the research and publish-ing industry. He described a distinction between peer-reviewed articles which are created as a product of the research and the research itself, stating that the publishers are in charge of the former while the public pays for the latter. He also expressed his concern regarding libraries canceling subscriptions to journals.

Dr. Breckler announced that while APA supports open access, they are concerned that the current e"orts are “not the best” and may weaken the scientific e"ort. Professor Oman stated that the proposed legislation promoting public access (Federal Research Public Ac-cess Act H.R. 5037) is “unfortunate” for a country that both has a free market and prides itself on intellectual property.

After the first panel spoke, Congresswoman Chu from California asked the panel which was more important, the rights of the “publishers or the taxpayers who invest in the re-search?” Mr. Adler again replied that there is a distinction between the research “and the account of the research.”

Congresswoman Maloney from New York stated that she “fears for the future of our coun-try” because “we must hold on to our intellectual property,” echoing the sentiments of the panel. She also stated that she believed researches who peer-review the work of others get paid. !is inaccuracy was subsequently addressed and corrected by the next panel.

Public Access continued on page 3.

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In This IssuePublic Access Hearing – 1,3,4

National Conference 2010 – 1

Graduate-Professional Student Orientation – 2

Collective Advocacy Against Student Taxes – 2

Outreach & Membership Update – 4

!e Western Region A Focus on Colorado – 6

!e Southeast Region A New Beginning – 6

Health Care Legislation – 8

International Student Issues On !e Rise – 9

Join !e ISCC – 10

NAGPS Statement on Public Access – 11, 12

Looking to network with other student leaders? Eager to share best practices with other graduate-professional student or-ganizations? You should attend the NAGPS National Conference!

!e 24th Annual National NAGPS Con-ference will be held November 11-14, 2010 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, MA. !e theme for this year is "Leadership in Action." With nearly twice as many member

schools as last year, this conference will be a great opportunity for networking and sharing with other Graduate-Professional Student Organizations (GPSOs). And if you are not a member, it's okay, you can still participate!

!e cornerstone NAGPS event, this con-ference will include student-led presenta-tions and discussions about best practices and current issues in GPSOs, planning for the future of NAGPS, and fun social

events. !is year, as a special part of the program, we will also o"er skill develop-ment workshops on managing organiza-tional finances, website design and archi-tecture, how to recruit sponsors/donors, and much more.

!e NAGPS National Conference is a great opportunity to hone your leadership skills and gather new ideas for your GPSO - visit www.nagps.org to find out more information and register today!

NAGPS 2010 National Conference

Graduate-Professional Student OrientationAs the summer draws to a close, it's time to orient a new class of graduate-professional students to campus. While the task may seem mundane and me-chanical to many who have been involved in orientation proceedings in the past, you should remember that orientation (and related activities) will serve as the first impression of your graduate-professional student organization (GPSO) for first-year students. With this in mind, I o"er five things that you may want to think about in preparing your orientation programming:

• GPSO Value Proposition: Clearly we would love to have an abundance of volunteers and representatives in each GPSO, and part of the reason that we have orientation programming is to attract new students to be a part of the organization. However, this year focus on the value to the student that the GPSO can deliver - do you do social programming that subsidizes activities, are there travel/research grants avail-able, do you provide training and lead-ership experiences? Take time to craft a

short blurb about your GPSO's "value proposition" to students - it may end up recruiting many more students than you would think.

• Local Involvement: While the center of our lives in graduate school usually revolve around campus, it's important to remember that there is a community surrounding your school as well. As we've seen recently with student taxa-tion battles, student involvement in local organizations and politics is vital! Take the time to encourage your stu-dents to join local sports leagues, civic organizations, or volunteer groups... a bit of e"ort now could make a large di"erence in connecting your students to the city that they are now a part of.

• Civic Engagement: Encourage your students to register to vote locally. Not only will this encourage engagement in elections, but your students will build a connection to the larger community. You should research local and state election laws to determine exactly what the regulations are regarding student voting... however, once you do so you

can hold voter registration drives and civic engagement activities to help promote the cause.

• Smaller Orientations: I would bet that most GPSOs have some presence at the large campus-wide orientation, but do you also do smaller events? We provide an intro to our GSO at every depart-ment's individual orientation. !e talk is usually 15-30 minutes long, but it provides students a more intimate set-ting to ask questions and get detailed information about our GPSO in a set-ting customized for their department.

• Keep it Fun: Don't forget that one of the best ways to deliver a message is by sneaking it between the laughs... your students will be more engaged and active if you make your programming enjoyable!

With that, I hope that your orientation activities are well received and productive.

Jon KowalskiNAGPS Director of Finance

Carnegie Mellon GSA VP External Affairs

!ere is no question about it: as graduate students we share the common experience of living without bounty, mindful of every dollar we are obligated to pay out and aware of the di"erence between lux-ury spending and priority spending.

As the recent international financial crisis descended – imprinting itself on balance sheets home and afar – fragile budgets were exposed aplenty: cash-strapped gov-ernments, defunct businesses, and yes, struggling graduate students everywhere! Many from our cohort, despite our tem-pered financial resilience, experienced many new challenges as funding sources stagnated, jobs were lost, and hiring of new graduates slowed. It was the perfectly wrong time for new taxes to be imposed on students – but that was the unfortu-nate fate of many.

!e Northeast region was – and perhaps still is – a perfect example: students in Pittsburgh, PA, and Providence, RI, were quickly eyed as possible sources of new revenue as city administrators worked to generate funds for dwindling public cof-

fers. Students in both cities – including those in graduate school – contended with the possibility of student taxes that had been devised on the premise that students did not help, and in some cases damaged, the health and financial viabil-ity of the places where they lived and studied. In Providence, students at private colleges and universities faced the possi-bility of a $300 per year student tax; in Pittsburgh, students at all post-secondary institutions faced a tax equal to 1% of the cost of tuition that could amount to as much as $400 per year for some.

!e common experience of students in both Pittsburgh and Providence, though, underscores the value of quick action and collective e"ort. After a very public re-sponse from students in Providence, the tax has yet to be imposed and students remain hopeful that it never will be. In Pittsburgh, students quickly collaborated to present a comprehensive argument against a premise that failed to recognize all the taxes graduate students paid, in-cluding those levied on property, income, parking and amusement. In Pittsburgh,

NAGPS also lent its support. !e local government acknowledged the voice of riled students and agreed instead to part-ner directly with school administrations to evaluate possibilities for generating revenue other than those that would di-rectly target students.

In Pittsburgh, though, the outcome has been more profound as the experience unified schools leading to the creation of the Pittsburgh Student Government Council, an advocacy arm ready to be flexed in defense of city’s students. !e support given by NAGPS to the students in Pittsburgh were reminiscent of NAGPS early days, as a group to advo-cate for a return to tax exemptions on graduate student stipends.

Taken together, though, these stories re-a#rm the value of collective action and show the value of networks and organiza-tions beyond the limits of any single graduate and professional student assem-bly at any one school.

Jason HeustisNAGPS Northeast Region Chair

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Collective Advocacy Against Student Taxes

Public Access continued from page 1.

!e second panel was comprised of Rich-ard Roberts from New England Biolabs, who is a Nobel Prize Laureate, Sharon Terry, CEO of the Genetic Alliance, Elli-ott Maxwell from the Committee for Economic Development, Sophia Cola-marino, VP for Research from Autism Speaks, David Shulenburger, VP of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and Catherine Nancarrow, Managing Editor from the Public Library of Science Community Journals.

Dr. Roberts stated that “access to litera-ture is key to progress.” He spoke about the lack of access not only in higher edu-cation but also as it pertains to high school students who research and partici-pate in science fairs. He said that “most high schools can only dream” of a"ording access to scientific literature.

Ms. Terry provided the point of view of a patient’s advocate and the American pub-lic. She is a parent of a child with pseu-doxanthoma elasticum (PXE) and she and her husband stole access to journals to read over 400 articles on the disease. It was their research which lead to creating PXE International, creating a biobank, cloning the gene, creating a diagnostic test and initiating clinical trials, all of which were made possible by access to literature by non-scientists. Later on in the hearing, Chairman Clay commended her on her statement and her bravery in publicly admitting to accessing this in-formation.

Mr. Maxwell said that having a “greater openness is critical for increasing innova-tion and economic growth” and broaden-ing the impact of science.

Dr. Colamarino spoke about the impor-tance of access for patients and families, for scientists and funders. When asked about the ability of patients to under-stand scientific articles, she stated that while traveling around the country, she found autism patient families “nothing but sophisticated in their understanding,” and desiring to learn more information to find a cure for the disease.

Ms. Nancarrow spoke about PLOS jour-nals as an example of open access policy and that the journals are published “to the highest standards” (retaining their respectability and credibility in terms of peer review, submissions, citations, and

media presence), that they are economi-cally sustainable and that public access to journal articles “transforms research lit-erature” into a “powerful resource for research and education.”

Chairman Clay asked the panel if public access will have a negative e"ect on the peer-review process. Dr. Roberts an-swered “not at all.” Mr. Maxwell said he envisions even more review since there will be more readers.

Chairman Clay then asked about the impact on students and Dr. Roberts said that students “are the future,” and “we do a disservice to students by denying them access.”

Chairman Clay asked if the “reports” published by researchers are “decipher-able.” Mrs. Terry said they are analogous to an auto mechanic’s manual – a few words may need to be referenced in a dictionary, but anyone can learn to un-derstand the technical vocabulary if they wanted.

!e third and final panel was comprised of David Lipman from the National In-stitutes of Health. He spoke about the NIH policy and PubMed Central reposi-tory and the e"ect it has had. It receives 420,000 unique users per day, houses over 2 million full-text articles, and it only costs about $3.5 to $ 4 million to

maintain out of the overall NIH $30 billion budget. It is estimated that 25% of PubMed Central users are from univer-sities, 40% are private citizens, 17% are from companies, and the remainder are government users or others. !is supports the idea that “PubMed Central has be-come a broad-based repository for re-searchers, students, clinicians, entrepre-neurs, patients and their families.”

Chairman Clay asked why it is important to have a government run website as a repository. Dr. Lipman replied that one of the reasons is archiving. Chairman Clay asked what e"ect PubMed Central has had on research and publishing. Dr. Lipman replied that although there were concerns expressed from publishers, noth-ing negative has happened thus far to their subscriptions. However, there are now a lot more people reading the articles and a “proportional increase – more arti-cles and more users.”

Chairman Clay asked if the NIH was willing to help other agencies establish repositories similar to PubMed Central and Dr. Lipman replied “absolutely.” Dr. Lipman stated that 40% of journals automatically deposit the articles, no ex-tra work for authors, and for the remain-ing 60% the author uploads the work him or herself, which is an easy process taking no more than 10 minutes time.

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NAGPS President Alex Evans, NAGPS Ex-Officio Julia Mortyakova, and !e Information Policy, Census, and National Archives Subcommittee Chairman, Congressman Lacy Clay

!e hearing proved to be a great dis-course in airing many possible concerns about open access policies, and demolish-ing certain inaccurate assumptions about what open access would accomplish. !e second and third panels of the hearing spoke as strong advocates for patients, students, and researchers explaining the need for access to research, the willing-ness to understand technical terminology within the articles, and the contribution of this movement to the overall progress of science. NAGPS has been a strong advocate for open access and for the Fed-eral Research Public Access Act and sub-mitted a statement urging Congress to take action on the matter to be included in the documents of the hearing. Presi-dent Alex Evans attended the hearing to show NAGPS’s support.

Complete statements of all of the mem-bers of the panels are available on the subcommittee’s website: http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4449&Itemid=19

Julia MortyakovaNAGPS Ex-Officio

I am ecstatic to be writing this as my first newsletter article while in the position of Director of Outreach. As part of a con-certed e"ort to improve the representa-tiveness of NAGPS, we have made a ma-jor push to recruit more organizational members since the 2009 National Con-ference last November. It is with great pleasure that I announce that we have achieved major membership growth and continue to improve our numbers.

At the 2009 National Conference, our organizational membership totaled 35 graduate-professional student groups. While our members were well-distributed across the United States and represented a diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds, we felt there was a strong need to grow our membership. Not only does a larger membership lend more credence to our advocacy e"orts, but it also supplies a

larger base from which we may draw a variety of ideas and talents.

As of July 22nd, 2010, our organizational membership totals 52 groups, an increase of nearly 50% since the last national conference. At least five more groups plan to join before or at the 2010 Na-tional Conference. It is due to the dedi-cated work of the regional chairs, the other regional recruiters, and the rest of the Board of Directors that our numbers have increased so dramatically, and I wish to thank all involved for their e"orts. I hope our members, new and old, con-tinue to see the strong value inherent in NAGPS, and I look forward to meeting everyone at the 2010 National Confer-ence at MIT!

Kevin McComberNAGPS Director of Outreach

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Outreach & Membership Update

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Making the decision to go to graduate school is never an easy one—leaving a job, changing locations, and getting ac-customed to some serious lifestyle changes are only one part of the transi-tion process. !e other happens once you actually arrive on campus and find your-self among others having the same experi-ences. Graduate studies are a rewarding endeavor, but issues of funding, access to student services, stipends, research assis-tantships, and health insurance remain on the forefront of students’ minds, espe-cially when funding cuts result in changes to school policies. More often than not, there are natural allies not only in your school and on your campus, but in other nearby universities as well. !ose who have lived in the west or southwest know that “just down the road” has a very dif-ferent meaning here than for our east coast friends, with schools scattered all over the state and region. Communica-

tion and collaboration are di#cult when you have little free time or resources, but discussing issues a"ecting graduate stu-dents is even more complicated when the distances are measured in terms of hours and hundreds of miles.

Despite this, graduate students at a few schools in Colorado began discussing sharing information not only about school policies, but also lecture series, local conferences, and events being hosted at di"erent campuses. Recently, a higher education strategic planning fo-rum was held at the Auraria Campus in Denver and invited other students to attend through their graduate student government contacts. As the flagship campus of the University of Colorado system (and the only legacy member of NAGPS in the region), CU-Boulder has been reaching out to other graduate stu-dents through its United Government of Graduate Students (UGGS). Student

leaders are keen to share information, best practices, and ideas and hope that having a better relationship with sur-rounding universities will begin

One step forward has come from NAGPS recruiting, which has recently been fo-cused on predominantly Colorado schools. !ough many campuses are small and have developing leadership councils, the prevailing theme has been one of optimism about the role an infor-mal consortium between schools could play in graduate students’ lives here in the state. Moreover, the next member NAGPS hopes to add from the western region is Colorado School of Mines, which has an energetic and engaged graduate student government we hope will only increase Colorado’s visibility within the national organization.

Kate AllisonNAGPS Western Regional Vice Chair

The Southeast Region – A New BeginningAs you all know at the last southeast re-gional conference the region members voted on a new constitution and board at FIU. For us – the new board – a lot of things are entirely new and we’re trying as best as we can to perform our task. One of the most di#cult challenges at hand is that currently the Southeast region (SER) lacks a clear mission statement. Obvi-ously – similar to the other regions – SER adheres and supports the principles de-fined by the national organization. How-ever, if we want to find something stronger tying SER together than merely being an arbitrary geographic cluster of states with NAGPS members, the ques-tion: “what does the Southeast region stand for” requires an answer. As will also be stated in our upcoming first SER newsletter (expected in August), we are very much interested in any feedback SER members have.

Our region stretches from the borders of Maryland to the tip of Florida and Puerto Rico. Regional, cultural, and linguistic

diversity therefore seem to be that what characterizes our region; maybe even more than for other NAGPS regions. It is in this spirit that the SER board decided to create a temporary function of an SER social justice chair. !e duties of this new position will more or less resemble those of the national social justice function. We appointed someone we believe to be an excellent candidate for this function: Alenette Acuesta Opena from FIU. Alenette is the founder of the Asian American Rainbow Koalition (ARK), a recently naturalized US citizen, a pro-spective law student, and she has a rich background in working on diversity is-sues. !e board very much hopes we will be able to present some first successes of having this function at the NAGPS con-ference in Boston. !e SER members can then decide if we transform this position a full board function.

If you are a student at one of our SER member schools, and if you would like to support us, please drop us a line at:

serc@nagps.org. Just like the national organization, the SER works with dedi-cated volunteers from Florida to Mary-land. If you’d like to help, please know: we will never ask the impossible, nor will we ever expect you to ignore your many graduate student duties. Even if you can only support us a little bit it would be a great help to all graduate and professional students of SER. !ere are many ways in which you could contribute: you could consider putting forward your candidacy for board elections in November, you could write a brief article for our regional newsletter on an issue that may also a"ect other students, or you may want to assist us by providing us with contact details of potential SER members, etc. In any event, the SER board will always be there for its members to the best our abilities.

Fabian BauwensNAGPS Southeast Regional Chair

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The Western Region – Focusing On Colorado Universities

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*Benefit coverage for the plan is provided through StudentResources, a UnitedHealthcare company specializing in university health programs. !

NAGPS offers a health insurance plan* to any students (and post-docs) who do not have access to health insurance. Students are eligible up to 18 months after graduation. Along with access to the injury and sickness insurance program, you can take advantage of value-added benefits not found in most individual health plans. The UnitedHealth Allies® discount program and Collegiate Assistance Program are included with every policy at no additional cost:

The UnitedHealth Allies® discount program provides up to 50% savings on a wide range of health-related products and services including dental, vision and wellness. Enjoy additional savings on massage therapy, sports apparel & equipment, fitness club membership and even textbooks. The discount is accepted at thousands of locations nationwide.

The Collegiate Assistance Program (CAP) provides 24/7, toll-free access to a team of nurses and specialists that are there to help you manage common problems and stressors that can detract from academic success. CAP professionals can assist with health, personal, school, legal, financial, and other concerns.

For more information or to enroll in this plan, visit www.uhcsr.com/nagps !

Health Care LegislationRecently a broad-ranging health care bill was signed into law by the President after a contentious vote in both the House and Senate. !e Patient Protection and Af-fordable Care Act, as amended by the reconciliation bill, will have a direct e"ect on graduate and professional students’ ability to obtain and maintain their health insurance. !e legislation strives to provide equitable access to health insur-ance for all Americans by creating health insurance exchanges, increasing subsidies for individuals and families, expanding Medicare and Medicaid, and enacting insurance reforms.

!e bill language allows universities to continue o"ering their student health insurance plans even though these insur-ance plans are not technically an individ-ual plan or employer o"ered plan. !ese provisions in the bill to protect these stu-dent health insurance plans were put in

place due to the concerns of the Ameri-can College Health Association and America Council on Education. !e stu-dent health care plans will remain but may be reworked due to the insurance reforms in the bill.

Key among these reforms is a condition that insurance companies must allow dependent children to stay on their par-ent’s insurance plans until age 26. Already many insurance companies allow cover-age to continue until the dependent’s early twenties but this pushes the age limit out for everybody allowing graduate and professional students who are still technically dependents to have another option besides university-run student health insurance. Other reforms include prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against or charging higher rates for any individuals based on pre-existing medical conditions, abolishing

the establishment of annual spending caps, imposing a maximum annual de-ductible for individual and family poli-cies, and prohibiting insurers from charg-ing co-payments or deductibles for cer-tain levels of preventative care.

!e timelines for these insurance reforms vary, with a large portion coming into play in late September of 2010 and an-other significant part in January of 2014. Please reference the House Committee on Education and Labor’s webpage on the health reform bill for more information. !e insurance reforms will alter universi-ties’ student health insurance plans thus NAGPS encourages all graduate and pro-fessional students to touch base with their insurance provider for clarification on these changes.

Chad FoersterNAGPS Legislative Concerns Chair

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As an international student gets accepted into a graduate program at a higher educational institution they are required to apply for a visa (type F-1) to be able to enter the United States and attend university. While the contribution of international graduate stu-dents to US innovation has been marked for decades in newspaper articles, media headlines, and even in the form of research publi-cations in many education and business journals, they often have to contend with a tremendous amount of bureaucratic require-ments to receive the F-1 status that allows them to be legal resi-dents in the United States.

!e National Association of Graduate-Professional Students works through its International Student Concerns Committee to play a role in supporting the needs of international graduate students on many di"erent levels and has succeeded on many occasions in voicing its strong opinions on critical topics of interest of many international students.

While the di#culties related to getting a visa and the regulations that exist after receiving it di"er from one nationality to another, for some international students the repercussions of starting a program of study at an American higher education institution are many and require a great deal of compromise.

Iranian graduate students have a newly added complication to their already problematical process of being accepted into a gradu-ate program at a US institution. !e Educational Testing Service (ETS) announced in July of 2010 that it will be suspending regis-trations in Iran for the Test of English as a Foreign Language

commonly known as TOEFL, as a result of new sanctions against Iran adopted by the United Nations and the United States. TOEFL is an essential requirement to being accepted in a major by either the departments o"ering a major, the graduate studies o#ces or both. !is will require Iranian students to travel to neighboring countries to register and take the exam.

Iranian students are only allowed a single-entry visa, hence when they decide to leave the United States while still studying, they need to partake in the lengthy and costly process of applying for and receiving a new visa from a third country. !is complicated process frequently prevents Iranian students from being able to participate in or attend an international conference, an interna-tional internship opportunity, or other professional development opportunities.

Statistically speaking, the impact that international students have on the educational, technological and scientific development is highly notable. !e journal, Review of International Economics published an online article in 2008 suggesting that “a 10% in-crease in the number of foreign graduate students would raise patent applications by 4.5%, university patent grants by 6.8% and non-university patent grants by 5.0%.” !e articles stated that reducing the number of foreign graduate students from the visa restriction “could significantly reduce US innovative activity.”

A call to ease the restrictions of obtaining a visa for international scholars has been made by many academic organizations. !e Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2009 that many organi-zations urged “the federal government to take more-aggressive steps to speed up the delay-plagued visa-application process for foreign students and scholars,” the Chronicle reported a similar call in 2004 that warned that the existing procedures will hinder in-ternational exchange and collaboration.

For some nationalities it is very important to understand which points of entry and departure are allowed for them. A security measure known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) also known as Special Registration was in put in place to track over 35 million non-immigrant visas according to the website of US immigration and Customs enforcement. Stu-dents that are nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria in addition to any nationalities that have been designated by the State Department must register.

!ese procedures are one more complicated addition to certain international students, as they need to leave from specific exit ports, register with the immigration o#ce as they departure and wait for an undefined time that could be hours, at the airport when they return until their entry applications have been proc-essed.

NAGPS will continue to work towards supporting international student needs through its board, committees, and with the assis-tance of its over 50 academic member institutions that always bring to our attention escalating issues, as we look at our options of support.

Tareq DaherNAGPS International Student Concerns Committee Chair

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International Students Issues On The Rise

Join The ISCC

Dear Members,

!e International Student Concerns Committee is looking for graduate students to join the committee in its work on following concerns of international students and its support on international student issues as they arise. We are very dedicated to assisting in-ternational students as they pursue their studies, as we understand the many di#culties that they might face in their journey.

!is committee is committed to work on issues regarding interna-tional students in the nation. Its goals are to establish connections with national organizations and academic institutions that are concerned with international student issues.

We are always committed to work with our members and we ask you to bring up any international student related issues at your institution or that you know of, so that the International Student Concerns Committee can work with you hand in hand as you seek the best for the students at your institution.

We firmly believe that graduate students are able to make changes for the benefit of their student bodies. Our organization has been working on several national issues that relate to us as graduate students and will continue to do so with your help. We encourage you to nominate members from your organization to work with us and serve on the International Student Concerns Committee and provide us with input, support and ideas that can help this committee grow as it works to accomplish its goals.

!e committee will meet on the last Wednesday of every month for an hour, if you are interested in joining our e"orts by serving on this committee please contact the committee chair at iscc@nagps.org.

We are looking forward to your participation and your valu-able input.

Sincerely,

Tareq Daher

NAGPS International Student Concerns Committee Chair

!ank you for reading the NAGPS Newsletter – August 2010We are constantly trying to improve the NAGPS Newsletter:

if you have any feedback, comments, or questions please contact the Director of Communications at the information found below

Volume 24, Number 2

Director of CommunicationsPatrick Gage Kelley

communications@nagps.org

nagps.org

Cover Photo Credit Barbara Piancastelli

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The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc. • PO Box 96503 #36821 • Washington, DC 20090-6503

Office: 202.596.9035 • URL: http://www.nagps.org

Open Access to Federally-Funded Research and the Impact on the Nation’s Graduate Students Washington, D.C. July 26, 2010 On behalf of graduate and professional students nationwide, the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc. (NAGPS) puts forth the following statements regarding the possibility of open access to research:

1. A primary goal of graduate students is to become professional researchers. Research for most is not a hobby, and not a job, but becomes a lifetime pursuit. Open access would enable their work to be explored free of charge by any interested party.

2. Graduate students working on major research projects need to be aware of related work to properly cite prior art, to assess the direction of the field, and to understand where their own work fits into a larger body of research. Open access would allow for timely access to recent work across the entire academic community. This can prevent graduate students from lacking access to a seminal article, from duplicating a prior conclusion, and can allow them to more efficiently work towards their own potentially groundbreaking findings. 3. In today's difficult job market, students need all the help they can get to market themselves amongst their peers. Open access would allow more people to read graduate students’ publications, which could lead to a greater appreciation of their work, future citations, and publishing opportunities. Cultivating a community of researchers who appreciate their work is a core component of success in the post-graduation market. 4. Graduate students often serve as teaching assistants. Teaching courses which may be outside of their principal research area requires them to quickly and efficiently access a large body of research to perform their course duties. Open access would allow both teaching assistants and their undergraduate students the ability to freely, quickly, and easily access any pertinent academic research.

The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc. • PO Box 96503 #36821 • Washington, DC 20090-6503

Office: 202.596.9035 • URL: http://www.nagps.org

5. Finally, as young researchers, graduate students are often involved in innovations on the cutting-edge, such as green energy initiatives, emergency response work, and internet and data policy. Open access could lead these research teams toward the next revolutionary breakthrough. Federally-funded research aims not just to help academics further their careers and publish papers, but to solve real-world problems that advance our country’s science, technology, and policy.

Open access facilitates the openness, transparency, dissemination, and accessibility of research results. The potential of open access is to allow research paid for by government issued, taxpayer dollars, to be released from the paywalls that quarantine these results to only elite institutions. Instead, K-12, college, professional and graduate students, scientists, corporations, and the public will be able to freely obtain and share the most current results of the academic community. Graduate students are intimately involved in reading, reviewing, creating, and publishing academic research. However, this pursuit is not only to attain a university professorship or a job at a top research firm, but to enhance humanity’s understanding of science and our world, and to benefit society as a whole. We urge Congress to take action to support open access.

Alex Evans President & CEO, NAGPS president@nagps.org ----- The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, Inc. (NAGPS) represents the interests of 2.6 million graduate and professional students nationwide. NAGPS provides resources, support, and connections to member organizations, and advocates on their behalf, both locally and nationally. For more information on NAGPS, visit http://nagps.org Press Contact: Patrick Gage Kelley Director of Communications, NAGPS communications@nagps.org (716) 417.3926