> Many companies are only willing to enter into research agreements with a lab providing that lab is willing to sign an NDA. This would prevent companies like Google, NVIDIA, Apple, and Facebook from working with research labs. This is especially short-sighted since a student who is working at a federally funded university will have to publish their work.
There are different types of NDAs. I'm more concerned about the ones which are used to silence whistleblowers than the types used to protect pre-release product information, PII, or partner trade secrets. That's not a difficult split to make. Tools include: (1) Time bounds on NDAs. (2) Domain bounds on NDAs. (3) Publishing the agreements themselves.
This goes for a broader set of abuses too -- not just research fraud, but also sexual abuse, gross negligence, corruption, etc. A lot of this stuff goes on at elite schools, and lots of people are bullied or bribed into signing their rights to talk about this stuff away.
> This is already true. I have known many faculty whose emails were FOIA-able and as a result, they preferred in-person communication for sensitive topics.
This is not true in general, but it is on some specific government projects. Most normal grants (NSF, etc.), it's definitely not true on.
As a footnote, odds are if faculty weren't willing to conduct business by email, something improper was going on. That thought process is common in a corporate setting, but not in an academic setting.
There are different types of NDAs. I'm more concerned about the ones which are used to silence whistleblowers than the types used to protect pre-release product information, PII, or partner trade secrets. That's not a difficult split to make. Tools include: (1) Time bounds on NDAs. (2) Domain bounds on NDAs. (3) Publishing the agreements themselves.
This goes for a broader set of abuses too -- not just research fraud, but also sexual abuse, gross negligence, corruption, etc. A lot of this stuff goes on at elite schools, and lots of people are bullied or bribed into signing their rights to talk about this stuff away.
> This is already true. I have known many faculty whose emails were FOIA-able and as a result, they preferred in-person communication for sensitive topics.
This is not true in general, but it is on some specific government projects. Most normal grants (NSF, etc.), it's definitely not true on.
As a footnote, odds are if faculty weren't willing to conduct business by email, something improper was going on. That thought process is common in a corporate setting, but not in an academic setting.