Today’s the Last Day: Make the Case for Open Access | Peer to Peer Review - 1/21/2010 - Library Journal

 Today’s the Last Day: Make the Case for Open Access | Peer to Peer Review - 1/21/2010 - Library Journal

Today’s the Last Day: Make the Case for Open Access | Peer to Peer Review

The time to send messages to the White House ended January 21

Barbara Fister, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN -- Library Journal, 1/21/2010

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Have you told the White House what you think about open access to publicly funded research? The Office of Science and Technology Policy has been accepting comments for weeks now, but the window of opportunity to add your thoughts closes today.

You haven’t commented yet? Do it now. Don’t worry. I’ll wait for you.

Okay, now that you’re back, I want to confess that there’s a lot involved that I don’t personally understand: the technical requirements, the need for uniformity, the way the deposits should work—I don’t have opinions on the fine points. What I do believe, though, is that the research funded by our tax dollars is important because it’s a public good. We wouldn’t be funding it with public dollars otherwise. It’s good for academic science, but it’s good for industry, too. (See also what ALA/ACRL and ARL have to say.)

Sharing science
My son is a physics postdoc at the Argonne National Laboratory. He does things with our tax dollars that I couldn’t begin to explain, but I do get that what he does may end up improving batteries that will be sold in products that we’ll be using—laptops, cars, you name it. It’s good for consumers. It’s good for business. And it’s especially good for pushing forward the frontiers of what we know about materials at a very fundamental level. (I mean, he fires photons at stuff to see what happens. That’s pretty basic.)

What if students or faculty at my college need to read up on the latest research published by the people whose synchrotron is funded by our taxes? Well, they’re probably in luck. Physicists are big on sharing. They’ve been doing it for years, through arXiv and by making their own society publications open access friendly. Not everything is available, of course, but quite a lot is. They still publish massive amounts of research, but somehow they feel their interest in supporting a quality publishing operation is not incompatible with fast and free dissemination of results. 

Not on the same page
Other science disciplines taught at my campus aren’t quite as open. In biology, there are myriad worthy societies that rely on earnings from library subscriptions, and there are even more commercially-published journals that rank high in importance. Neuroscience is an exciting concentration that is attracting a lot of students but, oy, it’s expensive. Like physics, chemistry has a major society that represents many branches of the field, but its journals are pricey and the logic of open access is not wired into the discipline as it is in physics.

We also pay a lot just to find out what we don’t have. Our most expensive specialized databases are those covering chemistry and mathematics literature. The vast majority of what these tools index is published in journals we can’t afford, but, if we expect our faculty to be active scholars (and we do), there’s really no alternative. We have to hope that the land grant university up the road whose library we depend on will have enough tax-supported funding to provide access to the fair-use articles we can obtain, and that we’ll be able to afford copyright fees for the rest. For this to work, somebody, somewhere, has to buy a subscription.

Many small colleges like mine are going straight to paying commercial publishers for articles at point of need, and they’re saving a lot of money on subscriptions. But this means that, by design, there is no public asset to explore, even on a licensed, temporary basis. Scientific research is thus a disposable unit purchased for individuals, a solution that still costs libraries thousands of dollars per year. That’s a savings that comes at a steep cost.

Whose crisis?
This situation, of course, is often mistakenly called “the serials crisis.” It might be more accurate to call it the humanities crisis, because both my library and the research university we count on have less money for books, which are the lifeblood of many humanities disciplines. We know we have to pay fees for journal articles, because the only way we share them is by copying. Thanks to the first sale doctrine, we can share a book until it falls apart—and it’s politically a lot easier to not buy a book than it is to cancel a journal or database subscription.

Here’s another thing: it has always seemed peculiar to me that the “5/5 rule” CONTU guideline for the interlibrary loan (ILL) of articles is a flat rate of five articles, published within the most recent five years, regardless of the size of a journal. We can get five articles from a science journal that publishes 1000 short articles a year—and five articles from a humanities journal that publishes 20 long articles a year. That doesn’t seem right, but such are the peculiar metrics of copyright compromises. It’s considered fair use to request by ILL some 20 percent of the humanities journal before paying copyright fees (which tend to be very affordable, anyway) but only one half of one percent of the big science journal, for which copyright fees typically cost the price of a scholarly trade paperback in the humanities. No wonder we’re buying fewer books.

Science in the public interest
We have a long way to go before we sort out the economics of publishing in a digital world. Book publishers are sweating over when to release ebooks, and the newspaper of record is poised to start charging frequent flyers.

But this one is a no-brainer. We believe science is valuable enough that we pour public funding into it. We need to make sure that the results of that funding helps advance our knowledge of the physical and natural world, and that won’t happen if libraries can no longer afford it. Let’s make sure our investment pays off—for the public good.

The White House wants to hear from us. Add your comments to the open forum today.

Barbara Fister is a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN, a contributor to ACRLog, and an author of crime fiction. Her next mystery, Through the Cracks, will be published by Minotaur Books this year.

Today’s the Last Day: Make the Case for Open Access | Peer to Peer Review - 1/21/2010 - Library Journal

White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers -- Kaiser 327 (5963): 259 -- Science

White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers -- Kaiser 327 (5963): 259 -- Science 

White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers Jocelyn Kaiser Should all papers that result from U.S. taxpayerfunded research be made freely available? The White House science office likes the idea and has asked for input on whether many federal agencies should formally adopt it. So-called open access advocates are enthusiastic in comments submitted to a White House forum, but some scientific societies remain wary, fearing that a too-broad public-access policy could kill journal subscriptions. Both sides agree that the White House appears to be moving toward a plan. "They're focusing not on should we do this but how would we do this," says Heather Joseph, executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a librarian group and open-access proponent. The push for mandatory release of research papers started 2 years ago at the National Institutes of Health, which required that grantees send copies of their peer-reviewed, accepted papers to the agency. NIH posts the final manuscripts or published papers in its free PubMedCentral archive; release can be delayed on request up to 12 months after publication. The objective has been to give patients and the public broader access to research results. Despite grumbling from publishers, NIH says the policy is working smoothly. Last month, as part of President Barack Obama's "open government" activities, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) launched an online discussion about whether the NIH model should be expanded to other agencies. The OSTP forum asks nine questions, including how to ensure that authors comply. About 400 comments have been submitted so far from scores of individual scientists, librarians, publishers, and others. The majority support broadening public access, says OSTP Assistant Director of Life Sciences Diane DiEuliis, a neuroscientist on detail from NIH. "There was a fair consensus on the general issue," she told Science by e-mail, as well as on other questions, such as "embargo times": how long an author and journal can keep a paper under private control. Many suggested using the current NIH embargo12 monthsand preferred central repositories like PubMedCentral rather than university archives. But even a 12-month delay worries some nonprofit scientific publishers. For example, mineralogists and anthropologists argued that their papersunlike those in biomedical researchmay have a very long "half life" and that releasing the full text on the Internet could cause journals to lose subscribers. Katherine McCarter of the Ecological Society of America, which has not yet submitted comments, says that for ecology journals, "even a 1-year delay could be a real disincentive to buy a subscription." The cost of producing a single paper can run significantly higher in social sciences because papers need more space and require a "more robust peer-review process," argues William E. Davis III, executive director of the American Anthropological Association. His letter warns that mandatory release of such papers "could well result in the demise of the very journals that ... advocates seek to make more freely available." Despite such concerns, OSTP seems to be moving inexorably toward a general open-access policy. DiEuliis says OSTP will sort through all comments (the deadline has been extended until 21 January) and send suggestions to an interagency working group. This panel will also consider a report due this week from a group of publishers and other stakeholders that OSTP and the House Science Committee convened last June. One possibility, DiEuliis says, is that OSTP could draft an executive order or memo that would set out "minimum standards" but "give agencies flexibility to create custom plans.

White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers -- Kaiser 327 (5963): 259 -- Science

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers - Ars Technica

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers - Ars Technica 

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers A study provides evidence that file sharing takes place with some very specialized media: the research papers published in scientific journals. By John Timmer | Last updated October 29, 2009 6:15 AM CT

The ease with which information can be spread through the Internet has exacerbated tensions among those who pay for, conduct, and publish scientific research. Many journals still require subscription or per-article payments for access to the research they publish, which often leaves the public, who funds a significant percentage of the research, on the wrong side of a pay wall. So far, however, there's been little evidence that the public has been interested enough in research to engage in the sort of widespread file-sharing that plague other content industries. But a new study suggests that may just be because nobody's looked very carefully.

The study, which was spotted by TechDirt, appears in an open-access journal, so anyone can read its entire contents. It describes the sharing of over 5,000 research papers on a site frequented by medical professionals, and the formal community rules that governed the exchange.

During the six months in 2008 that the author tracked the activity on the site, which was a discussion board focused on medical fields, it had over 125,000 registered users. Anyone could start an account, but many of the fora were focused on specific issues, such as those faced by nurses and residents. In addition to those, however, there was a section called the Electronic Library that contained a forum called "Databases & Journals—Requests and Enquiries."

Up to three times a day, users were allowed to submit a request for a published research article, accompanied by a link to the free abstract hosted at the journal's website. Other users would then download the full article and host it somewhere, providing a link in the discussion. If everything was set up properly, the site would track the number of downloads.

Over the course of six months, over 6,500 articles were requested, and over 80 percent of those requests were successfully filled. The articles received a mean of 4.47 views, with one attracting 177 downloads. The author found that the requests roughly paralleled the journal's impact factors, with Nature and Science coming out on top, followed by more specialized medical journals. Figuring an average cost of $30 a download (the price requested by many journals), the publishing industry was potentially losing $1.4 million a year due to the site, although it's unlikely that many of the downloaders would have actually exercised their option to buy an article.

According to the author, the site (which is never named) went inactive in early 2009, although its contents were indexed via Google prior to that point.

The author considers this behavior in the context of the Open Access debate, which has played out in Congress and research institutions. He also terms the file sharing behavior among people involved in the medical profession "ethically dubious," given it involves the distribution of copyrighted material.

There is, however, an alternate way of viewing this that the author doesn't discuss: at least some medical professionals are apparently unable to obtain the publications they feel are needed for their training or practice; given their job responsibilities, it seems unethical to withhold these materials.

In addition, it's worth noting that, although this sort of informal sharing would be obviated if all research was open access, it has a very different history from the formal open access movement. For many years, it was traditional for anyone publishing a paper to order a stack of what were termed "reprints"—essentially the journal article without the rest of the journal's contents—from the publisher, in order to share with colleagues or anyone who was interested, but did not have access to the journal. With the advent of digital publishing, this sort of service shifted to the emailing of PDFs—in a lot of ways, the file sharing seen here could be viewed as the next logical step in this publication sharing process.

In any case, the amount of sharing that goes on is undoubtedly much larger than the file exchanges observed in the study. Many authors are now choosing to simply place articles where anyone can find them, either ahead of print at places like the arXiv, or after, on their university's servers. Offers to share paywalled articles also occur in public forums that aren't dedicated to this exchange, at least based on some of the comments attached to Ars' science articles.

Many publishers are readily adapting to and, in some cases, embracing the increased demands for public access to research results. But there remain a number who are resisting the trend. The study suggests that publishers might do well to adopt some sort of formalized access system, or they may end up facing a growth in the sites that encourage the same sort of sharing that has caused the movie and film industries so much indigestion.

The Internet Journal of Medical Informatics, 2009. DOI unavailable.

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers - Ars Technica

Mandatory Open Access « Cheap Talk

Mandatory Open Access « Cheap Talk 

Mandatory Open Access

April 2, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: economics, incentives, politics, publishing | by jeff

A debate is going on between Lawrence Lessig and Congressman John Conyers about a bill that Conyers is sponsoring. The bill would repeal an existing rule for NIH funding that requires funded research to be published in Open Acess journals.  In addition it would generally prevent federal agencies from imposing these restrictions in the future. A good place to start is here and here are Lessig and Conyers. (hat tip: sandeep.)

There is some debate about the legal issues but to me those issues appear to be a red herring clouding the main dispute.  There is probably one point of agreement: for-profit journals will be hurt.  The disagreement is whether or not this is a good thing.

Requiring open-access publication obviously fulfills the aim of getting the maximum social benefit from dissemination of publicly-funded research.  The marginal cost of distribution is zero, so the efficient price is zero.  But the bill’s proponents argue that a dissemination is only one of the services provided by journals.  Far more important is the evaluation and editing of submitted articles by the peer-review process.  They worry that a zero price means that open-access journals have insufficient incentive to invest in this process.  The result is that it becomes harder for outsiders to distinguish good, credible research from bad, sloppy research.

I have two points to add to this.  First, as an editor of an Open Access journal and a member of editorial boards for many commercial journals I can testify that the publisher’s revenues are not being used effectively (or in most cases, at all) in providing incentives for editors and reviewers to do a good job.  To the extent that the peer-review system works, it works because reviewers have external incentives like reputation, prestige, and plain old scientific integrity.  And these incentives work at least as well in the Open Access world.  (In fact, they seem to work even better since reviewers feel better about their work when it is serving the public interest and not the profits of publishers.)

Second, even if you disagree with the above it remains an empirical question which market structure would best provide material incentives for peer-review.  Open Access publishing prevents the use of distortionary prices for raising the funds to pay reviewers.  The alternative is a model in which authors pay for peer-review with submission fees.  Of course this is also distortionary because the social benefit of having a manuscript carefully evaluated may outweigh the author’s willingness to pay.

But let’s remember:  we are debating a policy about public funding of research.  Basic research is publicly funded precisely because the social benefit of the research outweighs the researcher’s private incentive.  Given this, the funding agency maximizes the value of its subsidy by funding not only the research itself but its dissemination.  This is achieved by requiring Open Access publishing and earmarking some of the funds to pay for peer-review.

Mandatory Open Access « Cheap Talk

nsf.gov - News - Open Access to Scientific Papers May Not Guarantee Wide Dissemination- - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

"Without reading the study and the methodology behind this, it is interesting in terms of results....my initial thought was that most people are encouraged to publish in both, i.e. in journals as well as retaining rights for publication in repositories, so how are these separated in the study." - HSM

Press Release 09-026
Open Access to Scientific Papers May Not Guarantee Wide Dissemination

New research challenges assumption that having research published in open access journals and other free sources leads to more exposure and citations

Back to article | Note about images

Millions of research papers and other scholarly material are available on the internet, however, in many cases a person or library must pay to access them. In recent years, as the internet has helped lower the cost of publishing, more and more scientists have begun publishing their research in open source outlets on the internet. Since these publications are free to anyone with an internet connection, the belief has been that more interested readers will find them and potentially cite them. New research from James A. Evans and Jacob Reimer of the University of Chicago suggests that being in an open source publication does not necessarily increase the number of times a research paper is used by other researchers.
Credit: Jupiter Images

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James Evans, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, discusses his research into the impact of open source publishing on disseminating scientific information. Evans and his partner Jacob Reimer, a student of neurobiology at the University of Chicago, examined millions of journal articles and other publications. They concluded that having a publication available online in an open source journal did increase the number of times it was read and cited, but having the publication available online in a commercial format increased its usage even more. These findings seemingly contradict previous research into open source publishing. Evans and Reimer did discover that open source publishing provides a vital source of information for researchers and scholars in the developing world who may not otherwise have access to this type of material. Their research appears in the February 20, 2009 edition of the journal Science.
Credit: National Science Foundation/AAAS

The research into open source publications appears in the February 20, 2009, edition of the journal Science.
Credit: Copyright AAAS 2009

 

nsf.gov - News - Open Access to Scientific Papers May Not Guarantee Wide Dissemination- All Images - US National Science Foundation (NSF) - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

Fair Copyright in Research Works Bill Reintroduced

Fair Copyright in Research Works Bill Reintroduced

The Fair Copyright in Research Works bill (H.R. 801) was reintroduced on Tuesday, February 3rd, after being reshelved in 2008.

Library Journal: Copyright Research Bill Reintroduced (04 Feb 2009)

Library Journal: New Wrinkles as Bill Banning NIH-Like Public Access Resurfaces (05 Feb 2009)

Nature Publishing Group Expands Open Access Choices

Nature Publishing Group Expands Open Access Choices 

Nature Publishing Group Expands Open Access Choices

Nature Publishing Group (NPG; www.nature.com) is expanding open access choices for authors in 2009, through both "green" self-archiving and "gold" (authors-pays) open access publication routes. Eleven more journals published by NPG are offering an open access option from January 2009. NPG has also expanded its Manuscript Deposition Service to include 32 further titles.

An open access option is now available to authors submitting original research to Molecular Therapy, published by NPG on behalf of the American Society of Gene Therapy, and to 10 journals owned by NPG. The journals offering this option are Cancer Gene Therapy, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Genes and Immunity, International Journal of Impotence Research, Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, Journal of Human Hypertension, Journal of Perinatology, Molecular Psychiatry, The Pharmacogenomics Journal, and Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases.

For a publication fee of £2,000 (about $3,000 U.S.; €2,400) articles will be open access on the journal website and will be identified in the online and print editions of the journal with an open access icon. The final, full-text version of the article will be deposited immediately on publication in PubMed Central (PMC), and authors will be entitled to self-archive the published version immediately on publication. Open access articles will be published under a Creative Commons license.

Editors will be blind as to whether or not authors have selected the open access option, avoiding any possibility of a conflict of interest during peer review and acceptance. Print subscription prices for these journals will not be affected. Site license prices will be adjusted in line with the amount of subscription-content published annually.

Continuing its support for the "green route" to open access on high-impact journals, NPG has extended its Manuscript Deposition Service. Forty-three journals published by NPG now offer the free service to help authors fulfill funder and institutional mandates for public access. In addition to Nature and the Nature research journals, 28 society and academic journals published by NPG now offer a Manuscript Deposition Service to authors of original research articles. A full list of participating journals is available on Nature.com at www.nature.com/authors/author_services/deposition.html.

Source: Nature Publishing Group

Nature Publishing Group Expands Open Access Choices

Genome Medicine: Bridging the gap between research and clinical practice

Genome Medicine: Bridging the gap between research and clinical practice 

Genome Medicine: Bridging the gap between research and clinical practice

Today, BioMed Central's premier open access medical journal Genome Medicine has officially launched with the publication of its January 2009 issue.

Genomic medicine is at the leading edge of medical advances and is one of fastest growing areas of biomedical research. Our growing understanding of the human genome and proteome is making it possible to identify the genetic changes that underlie human disease, and to offer a new set of tools for diagnosis and treatment.

Technological innovations are bringing us ever closer to an era of personalized medicine, in which treatment plans are optimized according to the genetic makeup of the individual and the characterization of their particular problem. Earlier diagnoses, improved prevention, and reduced risk of adverse side effects are just some of the benefits that are anticipated from this next generation of medicine.

The launch of Genome Medicine as an open access journal ensures that information on the latest research advances are available not just to researchers, but also to physicians and their patients around the globe, providing up-to-date information that will affect medical treatments.

Progress in genomic medicine will depend on effective collaboration between basic researchers and clinicians. Genome Medicine will feature a column, "Musings on Genome Medicine", written jointly by Dr David G Nathan, a leading physician, and Dr Stuart Orkin, a geneticist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. The first column examines the significance of genome-wide association studies, suggesting that while these studies are useful, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on them have not allowed us to discover strong links between genetic variants and the risk for the majority of common diseases, and it is not at all clear that useful therapies will emerge from the associations that have been made. The column goes on to suggest that researchers must always focus most of their resources on experiments that are ultimately, most likely to contribute to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of health and disease.

The journal emphasizes research into the clinical use of new genomic diagnostics and therapeutics. The practice of genomic medicine brings with it a wide range of challenging ethical, social, and legal questions, and Genome Medicine has a special section focused on these areas. In the launch issue, Timothy Caulfield and colleagues discuss the practical and ethical challenges of using information relating to ethnicity and ancestry in medical research and warn 'Given the potential for misinterpretation and misapplication of research findings, great care must be used in the characterization of study samples and the interpretation of observations', noting that 'such rigor is often absent in the reporting of race and ethnicity in the biomedical literature'.

All disciplines of medical research are likely to be profoundly affected by the genomic approaches and technologies currently under development, and an understanding of developments in these areas is increasingly important to the effective practice of medicine. The new open access journal Genome Medicine will give scientists, clinicians and patients the information they need to make sense of this rapidly changing field.

###

1. Genome Medicine (http://genomemedicine.com/) is an online peer-reviewed journal which publishes open access research articles of outstanding quality in all areas of medicine studied from a genomic or post-genomic perspective. The journal will have a special focus on the latest technologies and findings that impact on the understanding and management of human health and disease.

2. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.

Genome Medicine: Bridging the gap between research and clinical practice

Cell Transplantation Now Open-Access

 Cell Transplantation Now Open-Access

Cell Transplantation Now Open-Access

Cell Transplantation - The Regenerative Medicine Journal , the number two journal ranked by impact factor in the field of transplantation, has become an "open access" journal from the 1st January 2009, starting with volume 18, making it available on the World Wide Web without subscription to researchers and clinicians as well the public and members of the media. The journal's new open access policy aligns it with the policies of a growing number of funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Foundation, said journal coeditor-in-chief Dr. Paul Sanberg, Distinguished Professor at University of South Florida Health.
"Making important research easily accessible to the public creates a win-win situation for citizens and for researchers," said Sanberg. "The advantage for our authors is that fellow researchers and students will be able to download, reference and cite the latest research. Also, members of the public, who may have interests or concerns about the progress of the science of cell transplantation, can be better informed about groundbreaking research."
The open access movement in scholarly publishing, increasing over the last several years, unlocks an educational door that formerly required an expensive key. Many researchers, as well as institutional libraries, have in the past been unable to afford to provide their students, researchers and faculty members expensive journals with subscription rates that rise into the hundreds of dollars per year. It is estimated that globally well over 1,500 scholarly journals are now open access journals.
According to Cell Transplantation co-editor-in-chief Dr. Camillo Ricordi, Diabetes Research Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, accessibility also means greater impact on the science community when more researchers are able to access, read and cite a greater number of studies.
"Science can move more quickly when access to the latest research is unhindered," said Dr. Ricordi.
Contributors to Cell Transplantation have applauded the move.
Both Drs. Ricordi and Sanberg agree that the public, who will ultimately benefit from the advancements in cell transplantation, should be able to stay informed.
"Cell Transplantation represents hope for millions of people who want to see our pioneering clinical efforts treat and cure diseases such as cancer, diabetes, spinal cord injury, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease," said Dr. Sanberg.
----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Cell Transplantation Now Open-Access

BioMed Central Blog : Head & Neck Oncology: a new open access publication

BioMed Central Blog : Head & Neck Oncology: a new open access publication 

Head & Neck Oncology: a new open access publication

BioMed Central has launched a new open access publication, Head & Neck Oncology. Led by Editors-in-Chief Adel El-Naggar, Colin Hopper, Waseem Jerjes and Tahwinder Upile, the journal encompasses all aspects of clinical practice, basic and translational research relating to tumours of the head and neck. The journal is the official publication of the Head & Neck Optical Diagnostics Society.
By providing researchers and clinicians in the field with practical updates at the edge of translational research, the journal aims to facilitate collaboration between specialists for the benefit of the patients. For further information please visit the journal ‘About’ page, or read the inaugural Editorial.
Head & Neck Oncology is providing financial assistance to support the journal's important contribution to the field. Authors who would like to request assistance with article-processing charges are encouraged to contact the Editors-in-Chief.
Register now to receive article alerts when new research is published, or visit the instructions for authors before submitting your own research to Head & Neck Oncology.

BioMed Central Blog : Head & Neck Oncology: a new open access publication

About-Face: Psychological Association Will Not Charge for Open Access - Chronicle.com

About-Face: Psychological Association Will Not Charge for Open Access - Chronicle.com 

About-Face: Psychological Association Will Not Charge for Open Access

Apparently charging scholarly authors $2,500 to place their articles in a free online database wasn’t such a good idea. Facing withering criticism from open-access advocates, the American Psychological Association has announced that the fee policy “is currently being re-examined and is not being implemented at this time.”

After the plan to charge authors and their universities was reported by The Chronicle last week, some critics called the psychological association “cash-flow hounds.” The association had planned to levy the charge against authors for placing their articles in PubMed Central, the online database run by the National Institutes of Health.

The fee put researchers in a bind because the NIH’s guidelines require scientists with its grants to place their articles in the database, but the psychological-association plan would charge those researchers a fee for complying with the rule. An association official told The Chronicle that the group was considering the fee to recoup lost revenue from journal subscriptions and licenses due to open access.

Peter Suber, in the Open Access News blog, says he applauds the change of heart but worries that the new position is only temporary because the association says the policy is still being re-examined. —Josh Fischman

About-Face: Psychological Association Will Not Charge for Open Access - Chronicle.com

BioOne unveiled its new “Model Publication Agreement”

 

Last week BioOne unveiled its new “Model Publication Agreement,” with an announcement that ought to generate more attention than it has. BioOne is “ a collaboration between scientific societies, libraries, academe and the private sector [that] brings to the Web a uniquely valuable aggregation of the full-texts of high-impact bioscience research journals.” The decision to create a model publication agreement grew out of the perceived need to help some of its publishers, especially the scholarly societies, deal with the legal complexities of publishing in the digital age. The model agreement was drafted for BioOne by an attorney for an intellectual property firm in San Francisco, and it represents a superb and realistic balancing of the needs of author’s and academic publishers.

The core of the model agreement is a double license; the author grants to the publisher both a time-limited exclusive right of first publication and a perpetual, non-exclusive license to publish, distribute and sublicense. Subject to these two licenses, copyright is retained by the author. The model agreement contains a number of options or “fill-in-the-blank” points where publishers can customize the license to fit specific conditions. As an attempt to lower the transaction costs associated with publishing, and as an equitable balancing of needs that do not have to be in permanent competition, this is an excellent model to be followed in academic publishing.

It is unfortunate but predictable that one of the most immediate responses from the publishing community was a very revealing demur to the BioOne model agreement project. A university press director posted his objections within two days of the announcement; his position that the agreement is inappropriate even for academic publishers exposes the growing gap between academic publishing and the values of the academy that supports it.

One complaint is that, without an exclusive right in the published works, the publisher will have no standing to sue putative pirates who want to steal academic work. First, we should note that there will still be a rights holder under the model agreement who can enforce the copyright – the author. The problem is that the author’s interests not only do not coincide with the publisher in some cases, they sometimes conflict. The objecting press director notes that the author may actually benefit from wider distribution by a “pirate,” so one wonders why authors should continue to sign away copyrights to organizations who want to wield them as litigation weapons contrary to the authors’ interests. Copyright is supposed to be an author’s right; its genesis as a publisher’s right (associated with their role in censoring unpopular content) is centuries out of date.

And this brings us to the second revealing question about this objection – who are the pirates we are supposed to fear enough to give up copyright entirely to publishers? In fact, the only “pirates” against whom publishers tend to threaten litigation are the authors themselves and their institutions. The “theft” these publishers want to control is faculty authors passing out copies of their work to their own students or to others on campus, to their colleagues at other institutions, and via their websites. No one seriously expects large-scale republication of scholarly content for profit; all that is being defended by these grabs for exclusive copyright transfer is the traditional, and increasingly expensive, subscription model of access. If there is real danger that subscriptions will be canceled because authors retain their own copyrights, and this has never been shown to be the case, all it would illustrate is that this traditional business model has runs its course and no longer serves the interests of those it was created by and for.

The Ithaka report on university publishing asked presses and their parent institutions to reexamine how well publishing is integrated with the interests and values of the academy and the specific university. The BioOne Model Publication Agreement can help advance that integration, and objections to it are a profound illustration of the problem we need to address.

Scholarly Communications @ Duke » A model for academic publishing

Medical News Today News Article

Medical News Today News Article 

Options For University Implementation Of NIH Policy Offered By New Whitepaper

03 Mar 2008   
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Science Commons, and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have jointly released a white paper to help university and medical school administrators ensure their institutions comply with public access requirements that are soon to be a condition of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.
Effective April 7, 2008, investigators must deposit articles stemming from NIH funding into the agency's PubMed Central online archive, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication in a journal. Complying with the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy: Copyright Considerations and Options will help provosts, research administrators, and campus counsel understand their institution's copyright-related obligations and options under the new Congressionally mandated policy, which was announced in January and replaces an earlier voluntary approach.
The timely analysis was prepared by Michael W. Carroll, an attorney, copyright expert, and faculty member at Villanova University law school. Carroll reviews the policy and its background, explains the legal context, and presents six alternative copyright management strategies that will help grantee institutions assure they reserve the necessary rights for articles to be made available in PubMed Central.
Carroll has been involved for several years in copyright issues as a member of the Creative Commons board and an advisor to Science Commons. In 2004 he worked with SPARC to develop the popular SPARC Author Addendum (http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/), which enables authors to reserve rights to deposit their works in open online archives.
"The benefits to biomedical research of the new NIH policy are ultimately nothing short of tremendous," said Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC. "The sooner we can get effective implementing mechanisms in place, the sooner researchers, institutions, and the public can put PubMed Central to work. With April implementation drawing near, this paper will be a great tool to help administrators jumpstart the local planning process."
"Congress and the NIH recognize that the Internet makes a difference," said John Wilbanks, Vice President of Science Commons. "Faculty authors can no longer sign away their copyrights in a business-as-usual manner when doing so means that their work will never be openly accessible over the Internet. This white paper is a step in making sure authors and universities understand how to move forward with a solid legal footing."
Karla Hahn, Director of the ARL Office of Scholarly Communication, added, "The new NIH requirement should accelerate ongoing efforts to establish norms for authors to routinely retain rights to deposit works in local as well as national digital repositories. Carroll's much-needed analysis clarifies the new opportunities for institutions to develop strategic approaches to rights management issues."
----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Complying with the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy: Copyright Considerations and Options is available free on the SPARC Web site at http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/nih/copyright.html.

Medical News Today News Article

NOT-OD-08-033: Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research

NOT-OD-08-033: Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research 

Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research

---

Notice Number: NOT-OD-08-033

Key Dates
Release Date:   January 11, 2008
Effective Date:  April 7, 2008

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH), (http://www.nih.gov/)

Department of Health and Human Services
Action
Notice; Revised Policy Statement
Summary

In accordance with Division G, Title II,  Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 ), the NIH voluntary Public Access Policy (NOT-OD-05-022) is now mandatory. The law states:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Specifics

1. The NIH Public Access Policy applies to all peer-reviewed articles that arise, in whole or in part, from direct costs ¹ funded by NIH, or from NIH staff, that are accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008. 

1. Institutions and investigators are responsible for ensuring that any publishing or copyright agreements concerning submitted articles fully comply with this Policy.

1. PubMed Central (PMC) is the NIH digital archive of full-text, peer-reviewed journal articles.  Its content is publicly accessible and integrated with other databases (see: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/).

1. The final, peer-reviewed manuscript includes all graphics and supplemental materials that are associated with the article. 

1. Beginning May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC or NIH Manuscript Submission reference number when citing applicable articles that arise from their NIH funded research. This policy includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.

Compliance

Compliance with this Policy is a statutory requirement and a term and condition of the grant award and cooperative agreement, in accordance with the NIH Grants Policy Statement For contracts, NIH includes this requirement in all R&D solicitations and awards under Section H, Special Contract Requirements, in accordance with the Uniform Contract Format.

Inquiries

Send questions concerning this Notice or other aspects of the NIH Public Access Policy to:

Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health
1 Center Drive, Room 144
Bethesda, MD  20892-0152
Email:  PublicAccess@nih.gov
Website: http://publicaccess.nih.gov

¹Costs that can be specifically identified with a particular project or activity. NIH Grants Policy Statement, Rev. 12/2003; http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps_2003/NIHGPS_Part2.htm#_Toc54600040

NOT-OD-08-033: Revised Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research

MIT Libraries News » Blog Archive » Details of Revised NIH Public Access Policy Published

"From MIT -- Details on the recently passes open access manadate for NIH.......HSM "

Details of Revised NIH Public Access Policy Published

Posted January 15th, 2008 by Ellen Duranceau

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), as previously reported, was directed by new legislation to mandate open access to all peer-reviewed journal articles published as a result of NIH grant funds, through PubMed Central, the digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature. NIH has now revised its home page, FAQ, and Public Access Policy, describing the new mandatory submission process.

Details that may be of interest to the MIT community:

• TIMING: The policy applies to all peer-reviewed articles that are accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008.
• PUBLISHER AGREEMENTS & COPYRIGHT: From the FAQ: “Authors should work with the publisher before any rights are transferred to ensure that all conditions of the NIH Public Access Policy can be met. Authors should avoid signing any agreements with publishers that do not allow the author to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.”
  • A publisher’s compliance with the NIH policy can be checked by reviewing the SHERPA site.
  • The NIH suggests some possible language that can be used to modify a publisher’s agreement: ““Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after publication by Journal.”
  • MIT offers authors an amendment to publisher agreements that was developed to support MIT authors who wanted to comply with the original NIH policy. The amendment language allows authors to comply with the revised policy as well. Download the amendment.
  • The new policy does not change the author’s copyrights’ status. The author can still “assign [copyrights] to journals, subject to the limited right that must be retained…to post the works in accordance with the Policy” in PubMed Central.
• PUBLICATION COSTS: NIH will reimburse for publication costs, including author fees. (Some journals charge article processing fees for articles that will be made openly available.  NIH’s policy is to cover such costs.)
• POSTING TO PubMed Central: Posting is required even if you publish in an open access journal, or if the article is freely accessible on the publisher’s website.

For further information about the new NIH policy, or using the MIT amendment, please consult the Scholarly Publication website, or contact:

Ellen Finnie Duranceau / Scholarly Publishing & Licensing Consultant / MIT Libraries / x38483 / efinnie@mit.edu

MIT Libraries News » Blog Archive » Details of Revised NIH Public Access Policy Published

The Scientist : Blogs

 

Open access lives in NIH bill

Posted by Bob Grant

A provision mandating public access to research published by NIH-funded scientists has survived in the funding bill making its way through Congress this week.
The provision was originally part of a funding bill that President George W. Bush vetoed last month. It mandates that the NIH adopt a policy requiring agency-funded scientists to post their published research on the agency's publicly-accessible digital archive, PubMed Central, within 12 months of appearing in peer-reviewed journals.
The specifics of that policy are vague in the bill and will be left to the NIH to hammer out should the law be passed. For example, it remains unclear whether the law would affect previous grantees or just current and future grantees, Peter Suber, an open access advocate, told The Scientist. "It will take NIH a while to figure out which policy it wants to adopt."

The Scientist : Blogs

Free contents in NEJM « Be openly accessible or be obscure

Free contents in NEJM « Be openly accessible or be obscure 

Free contents in NEJM

December 15, 2007 at 12:00 pm · Filed under open access

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a top-ranked medical journal with an impact factor of 44 (2005 data, see this FAQ).

Registered users have free access to research articles that are six months old or older. However, the tables of contents of each issue (such as the issues for 2007) of the NEJM indicate that the free full text is available immediately, without registration, for a minority of the contents of each issue.

I’ve looked at the 15 most recent issues (the issues from September 6, 2007 to December 13, 2007) and have tabulated the contents for which the free full text is already available. The section that lists the “Article Summaries” was omitted, as were the “Book Reviews”. A total of 315 individual items were identified in the contents of these 15 issues. The free full text was accessible upon publication for 103 of these items (33%). The largest number of items (92) in an individual section was in the “Correspondence” sections of these issues. The free full text was immediately accessible for 26 of these letters (28%).

The “Perspectives” section of the NEJM “Provides a quick assessment of a single, important topic“. There were 36 items in the “Perspective” sections of these 15 issues, of which 25 (69%) were immediately freely accessible. Prompt free access was also provided to 20 of 29 (69%) of items in the “Images in Clinical Medicine” sections.

Of a total of 60 “Original Articles” in these 15 issues, only 8 (13%) were freely accessible upon publication, and of a total of 35 “Editorials”, 7 were already freely accessible (20%).

Why are some items in the table of contents freely accessible immediately upon publication, while others are not? I’ve been unable to find an answer to this question in the FAQs that are available via the NEJM site. I’ve contacted the journal via email in an attempt to obtain an answer.

Free contents in NEJM « Be openly accessible or be obscure

CBC.ca - Mansbridge One on One

CBC.ca - Mansbridge One on One

Interview -- Open access discussion starts about 7 min into the interviewe.  Link to the video ... video here

 

RICHARD SMITH

Richard Smith

Author, The Trouble with Medical Journals
Former editor, British Medical Journal

Watch the episode
(runs 30:00)

November 24, 2007

It seems every week there's a new medical study in the headlines, followed weeks later by other studies that seem to contradict the first findings.

What are we supposed to believe? And are journalists being vigilant enough in what they choose to report?

It's a delicate question but this week's guest has some tough answers to consider.

Catch Mansbridge One on One on CBC Newsworld this weekend at the following times:

CBC.ca - Mansbridge One on One

Linux.com :: Open Access bill vetoed

Linux.com :: Open Access bill vetoed 

Open Access bill vetoed

By Bruce Byfield on November 16, 2007 (3:00:00 PM)

Supporters of the open access movement (OA), the open-source-inspired community that promotes free access to academic research, are disappointed but not discouraged by the defeat of a bill that would have required research published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States to be available to the public. Instead, they see the bill as an important step in raising awareness about OA among American legislators and the general public. Nor do they rule out the eventual passage of the OA provisions.

The bill in question is the Labor, Health, and Human Services (LHHS) Appropriations Act, 2008, or HR 3043, which set a budget of $606 billion for spending in these areas. Among the dozens of provisions in the bill was the statement that:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

The bill was vetoed by President George W. Bush on November 13. The reason for the veto was not the OA provision, which was not mentioned in his explanation of the move, but rather the proposed funding for what Bush described as "wasteful projects" such as a prison museum, a sailing school, and a program for teaching Portuguese as a second language. Funding for stem cell research, which was expected to be a reason for the veto, had already been removed from the bill.

In contrast to Bush's statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described LHHS as "a bipartisan and fiscally responsible bill."

The veto was widely seen by both the mainstream media and OA supporters such as blogger Peter Suber and Matt Cockerill of Biomed Central, the world's largest OA publisher, as part of Bush's ongoing budget struggle with the Democratic majority in the Congress and the Senate. As Cockerill puts it, considering the recent power struggles between the White House and Congress, everyone was "very much forewarned" of the veto.

The bill returned to Congress on November 16 for a vote to overturn the presidential veto. The vote did succeed, and a revised appropriations bill is now in the works. Whether that revised bill will include the OA provision is still uncertain.

Implications

Obviously, the policy of NIH, one of the largest funders of research in the world, has a wide influence, and passage of the bill would probably have encouraged OA support elsewhere in the world. However, disappointment over the bill's failure is muted by the fact that the provision for OA in HR 3043 was relatively mild, as Suber points out.

Similarly, Cockerill notes that policies in such countries as the United Kingdom and Germany are in many cases already in advance of the proposed NIH policy. "This is just one facet of the overall trend to OA," he says.

Both Suber and Cockerill saw reason for optimism. Suber points out that despite intensive lobbying by publishers' groups such as PRISM, a proposed amendment by the White House that would have limited the OA language to ensure that the NIH policy did not undermine peer review or copyright did not survive.

Similarly, two amendments by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), one to delete the OA provision and the other to dilute the language, were also defeated. Both amendments, Suber suggests, may have been inspired by Reed Elsevier, one of the largest academic publishers in the United States and one of Inhote's top financial supporters.

"It's very clear, and a matter of public record, that a good deal of money is spent by the publishers on lobbying about issues like this," Cockerill says. "But clearly in this case that wasn't enough to block the move toward increasing OA in research. The strength of feeling in government and among the research community has been able to overcome that strong lobby.

Just as importantly, Cockerill suggests that the three-year history of the effort to pass the NIH initiative into law has resulted in increasing awareness of OA among researchers, academic administrators, and elected officials. "The high profile of this bill has certainly kept OA in people's attention." he says. "A lot of the support for OA has been coming, not just from those directly involved in the research community, but also those who have an interest in medical research -- patients, disease-interest groups, taxpayers, and people who have an interest from a lay person's point of view. I think it has been very good in continuing to further awareness of OA."

Cockerill says that the rise of the Internet has increased the demand for accessibility in general. People, he says, are asking, "Who benefits from freezing access to data? Is it the public, or is it only special interest groups who want to maintain the status quo? That question is arising in many situations."

As one proof of the increased awareness, Cockerill cites a recent student forum he attended at Harvard Medical School. Several years ago, he suggests, such a forum would probably have debated the merits of OA. Now, the debate is over the most practical steps needed to implement it. Increasingly, the basic desirability of OA is being taken for granted.

At any rate, as Suber predicted before these events in the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, the OA provision stands a strong chance of being revived. Suber notes that a modified version of LHHS is required to fund the related government departments in 2008, and that the NIH proposal has a good chance of being included in the revised appropriations bill.

"OA has always had strong bipartisan support, and we depended on Republicans as well as Democrats this year for the strong votes in each house," Suber writes. "We particularly depended on Republican support to help prevent the publishing lobby from inserting a stronger objection to the NIH policy." In the long run, then, perhaps not only the war but this particular battle may still be won.

Bruce Byfield is a computer journalist who writes regularly for Linux.com and IT Manager's Journal.

Linux.com :: Open Access bill vetoed

Medical Illustrations » Open Access and Medical Art

Medical Illustrations » Open Access and Medical Art 

Open Access and Medical Art

Posted under Open Access

With the growing interest in open access, no-cost, medical journals, such as Open Medicine and PLoS Medicine, I’m drawn to wonder what the open access publishing movement means for medical illustrators?

Open access publications operate under the Creative Commons license, which proposes that individuals are able to copy, download, reprint, reuse, distribute, display or perform the published work, free of charge, with the only condition that they cite the origin of the published work.

Author’s with an academic affiliation are able to publish journal articles because they are financially supported by their home institutions. The author’s salary likely comes with conditions that encourage (read expect) them to publish, and publish often. While authors do not get paid (by the journal) to submit articles, they are of paid to write - they are provided a salary by their home institution, which provides them time to do and report on their research.

Ever wonder how much an “average” journal article costs to write? You could start with the average salary for a professor in a medical school is $85,241 / year (as suggested by salary.com). Let’s further assume the person is hard-working and puts in 50 hours a week, or 2450 hours a year if they take few weeks off to enjoy some holiday cheer. The hourly rate for this salary would then work out to $35/hour. Now the challenging part - estimating how long it takes to write, edit, submit, review, revise, re-edit, and resubmit a paper. There is also the issue of multiple authors to cloud the issue. However, even assuming a paper takes ONLY 150 hours to bring from raw data to published study - the cost easily exceeds $5000.

So the author(s) publish their paper, after spending over $5000 worth of time - and the article is available for free to the academic community. There are tremendous benefits to the rapid and wide dissemination of medical information that the open access system provides. Usually the research is paid for by public funds - so the information should be widely available (ideally to everyone who paid for it).

But when the author(s) recognize the value of medical illustrations - they will want to include quality medical images in their article. There are a couple common options. Perhaps the researchers have a medical illustrator available at their home institution - because their institution has recognized the value of providing this valuable resource, which improves publication quality and overall impact of the institution. Alternatively, the author(s) have to pay an independent illustrator to prepare artwork to be incorporated into the article. The later situation takes money out of the authors pocket, or more likely - out of their research grant).

In Canada, the costs associated with the development of web pages, multimedia presentations, and artwork for publications, or information dissemination, are all eligible expenses for research grants awarded by CIHR and NSERC.

Regardless of the way the medical illustrations are paid (internally or by a grant) the Creative Commons License does provide the opportunity to put conditions on the transfer of copyright. Most importantly - there can be a condition on the work restricting its future use for commercial gain. For example, the journal Open Medicine, publishes their articles under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada license. The author and artist are therefore able to protect their rights to the investment made in the development of a published illustration.

Initially I was concerned that open access publishing might reduce the opportunities for publishing medical illustrations, but after exploring the issue further - there seems to be great opportunity here. If the costs for publishing are reduced, more articles are able to be published and distributed more widely - then medical artists will have increased opportunities. Also - the electronic formats of open access journals also increases the opportunity for including multimedia and animation content, expanding the publishing possibilities. It’s a brave new world, indeed.

Food for thought:

CIHR Policy on Access to Research Outputs.

“CIHR considers the cost of publishing in open access journals to be an eligible expense under the Use of Grant Funds.” A good place to discover and note if CIHR does also accept artwork development as an eligible expense.

Blog post about CIHR open-access support

Directory of Open Access Journals

CMAJ congratulates colleagues at Open Medicine and … Open Medicine responds.

Medical Illustrations » Open Access and Medical Art