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