Open Access News

The study asked over 1,000 German scientists about their experiences with OA journals, OA preprint archiving, and OA postprint archiving. The responses show strong support for OA. For example, over two-thirds said that OA will improve access to scientific knowledge and produce a lasting change in the landscape of scientific publishing. (PS: If anyone is willing to translate the report's one-page Executive Summary and post it to SOAF, then I'll blog it here.)

Update (July 24). Jutta Haider has translated the executive summary. Excerpt: 'Until now, throughout all disciplines, very few researchers actively publish in Open Access. Of all those questioned only about every tenth had published in an Open Access journal. According to those questioned the distribution of freely accessible preprints on the Internet -­ common practice only in some subjects - is also done infrequently. Somewhat more frequently papers that had already been published elsewhere are secondarily distributed for free online....In contrast to the low Open Access publication activity a majority of those questioned throughout all disciplines approve of an increased advancement of Open Access by the German Research Foundation. Whereas those at earlier stages of their careers in the natural, life, and engineering sciences support the advancement of Open Access somewhat more strongly than their already more established colleagues....The preparedness of scientists to use part of their funding to finance the free availability of their publications is proportionate to the expenditure scientists already have to provide to publish conventionally. Therefore life scientists are most prepared to pay author fees for open access publications, while humanities scholars and social scientists are least prepared....Proposals of the researchers with regards to the question how the German Research Foundation could advance Open Access essentially aim at the following: measures to intensify the debate surrounding freely accessible publications, measures to assure the quality of Open Access journals, and the ­ technical, legal, organizational ­ support of secondary Open Access publication of material that was previously published in a conventional way.' (Thanks, Jutta!)

Also see this summary: Wallace Ravven, Unprecedented industry-backed laws limit public safety, study shows, Medical News Today, July 22, 2005. Excerpt: 'Two laws recently passed by Congress with strong industry backing have had a chilling effect on government efforts to protect public health, according to a UCSF study. The laws make all raw data produced by federally funded research available for public review, and require that any data disseminated by the government adhere to definitions of quality set by the law - definitions that industry interests helped develop. The new laws allow industry advocates to more easily challenge or stall government scientific research and weaken proposed regulations that affect them, the UCSF researchers assert. Yet at the same time, research by industry faces no such high standard, and as a result, pharmaceutical, tobacco and other industries can make claims that are harder to challenge than the government's research-based standards, says Lisa Bero, senior author of the study and professor of clinical pharmacy and health policy at UCSF. Bero and her colleagues urge passage of new laws to increase public access to industry-sponsored science - at least to the same level as government-funded research....The two laws in question are the Data Access Act, passed in 1998, requiring for the first time that all raw data produced under federally funded research studies be publicly available, and the Data Quality Act of 2001, requiring that government-disseminated data adheres to standards established by the law.'

PS: Also see my article on the Data Qualitiy Act from April 2002.

Wouldn't it be great if you could conduct a full text search of books the same way you search the web? You'd sit down at your computer, type in some search terms, and get a list of every book at your local library that contains those terms -- complete with brief excerpts that show the terms in context. It sounds like science fiction, but Google is now working to make it a reality. The Google Print project aims to scan digitally and index every book ever written, creating a search engine for books just as powerful as its industry-leading search engine for the web. Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle Google faces isn't technological, but legal. Publishers are accusing Google of copyright infringement, and they're demanding that the company get individual permission from each publisher before it scans their books. So far, Google has resisted the demands, insisting that building such a search engine is a legal fair use under copyright law. There's a strong case for that position, and given the tremendous benefit Google Print would bring to library users everywhere, Google should stick to its guns. The rest of us should demand that publishers not stand in the way....The Constitution states that the purpose of copyright is to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." In other words, intellectual property increases public access to creative works by giving authors the incentive to produce them. Given Google Print's tremendous potential to help readers find the books they want to read, it would be perverse to invoke copyright law to strangle the service in its cradle.

Abstract: This is an unpublished and longer version of a short paper that was submitted (and not accepted) to JCDL 2003. In this paper we describe our initial goals for DLIST, a digital library for Library and Information Science Research and Practice and for Information Technology as it relates to LIS. DLIST is built upon the open access eprints model, but extends materials in the collection beyond the formal, scholarly literature to include other types of content created by researchers and practitioners. DLIST is intended to promote resource sharing in LIS and IT and to attempt to bridge the gap between research and practice. The notion of open access is briefly discussed as a central tenet for the development of the intellectual commons as an interactive space for learning.

This may be old news to those in the eprints world, but Google News is automatically picking up new deposits in at least some repositories. This morning I googled for news on virtual learning and up came this from the University of Southampton eprints server.

Comment. This is news to me. I knew that Google Scholar crawled OA repositories but not that Google News did so too. I wonder how many OA repositories it crawls, how many more it plans to add, and how it selects the lucky ones. To nominate your repository for inclusion, send an email to Google News at source-suggestions@google.com.

It is now over six months since the launch of Cerebrospinal Fluid Research in December 2004. Cerebrospinal Fluid Research is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. To fund this, from July 1st 2005 authors of articles accepted for publication will be asked to pay an article-processing charge (APC) of £330.00. Traditionally, readers pay to access articles, either through subscriptions or by paying a fee each time they download an article. Escalating journal subscriptions and shrinking library budgets have resulted in libraries subscribing to fewer journals, and the range of articles available to readers is becoming more limited. Although traditional journals publish authors' work for free (unless there are page or colour charges), paying to access articles limits the number of people that can read, use and cite them. The benefits of Open Access and of Cerebrospinal Fluid Research's Open Access policy were highlighted in a previous editorial....The APC pays for online submission and efficient peer review, for the article to be freely and universally accessible in various formats online, and for the processes required for inclusion in PubMed and archiving in PubMed Central, e-Depot, Potsdam and INIST. There is no remuneration of any kind provided to the Editor-in-Chief, to any members of the editorial board, or to peer reviewers; all of whose work is entirely voluntary. Although some authors may consider £330 expensive, it must be remembered that Cerebrospinal Fluid Research does not levy additional page or colour charges on top of this fee. With the article being online only, any number of colour figures and photographs can be included, at no extra cost. Another common expense with traditional journals is the purchase of reprints for distribution, and the cost of these reprints is frequently greater than our APCs. Cerebrospinal Fluid Research provides free, publication-quality pdf files for distribution, in lieu of reprints.

Update. Also see the supplement Charles posted on July 27.

The journal will support an unusual, wiki-based form of author collaboration. '[W]hile the majority of articles will still be published in the traditional fashion, a novel, collaborative approach has been implemented as well. Potential authors can simply begin contributing to such an article while the system tracks the individuals' contributions. The article is then submitted through the normal review process and, if accepted, authorship is assigned based on the tracked contributions as the last step of the review process.' One of the collaborative papers now in progress is on Open Access and Reputation. Help write or revise it and join the list of co-authors.

(PS: I like the wiki experiment. The editors can launch important topics without knowing who might be qualified to write on them and without committing the journal to publish the results unless they are good enough.)

The same wiki supports a series of community projects. One current project is on self-archiving. This is the wiki first launched by Ari Friedman (blogged here on June 27), now under the journal's umbrella.

The biggest opportunities for RSS are not in the blogosphere but as a corporate communication channel....The inherent capacity for consumers to select the content they wish to receive will be the driving mechanism for keeping advertisements to a minimum and content quality consistent....RSS, being a tool that saves Internet surfers time and allows webmasters to re-purpose and re-package existing and new content will, in my opinion, continue to thrive [after blogs fade]. A business effectively using RSS can bring new site visitors, increase search engine positioning, and generate product interest. The flexibility of RSS as a communication medium and the expansion capabilities of the enclosure tag will allow RSS to flourish as an online marketing tool. Each day businesses are adopting new uses for RSS, and users are becoming accustomed to skimming content that *they* choose in a single centralized location....Businesses using RSS as a communication vehicle are able to create keyword-rich, themed content, establishing trust, reputation, and ongoing communication with current and prospective customers....RSS will create new revenue channels. RSS has the potential to help companies develop strong relationships with consumers and create brand loyalty. RSS Feeds will draw existing customers and prospective clients, translating to a new or renewed income stream.

Federal funds for academic research [in the US] rose by 13.1 percent in 2003, the second straight year of double-digit increases, the National Science Foundation reported on Wednesday. The growth, coupled with a continuing drop in funds from industry, fueled an increase in the federal share of academic-research money to nearly 62 percent, its highest level since 1985. The numbers come from the NSF's annual "Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges." The survey is based on figures from the 2003 fiscal year, the most recent data reported by the agency.

Comment. If the US required OA to publicly-funded research (with reasonable exceptions e.g. for classified research), then we'd see a steady growth in the "market share" for OA to match the steady shift toward publicly-funded research. This may be an obvious point, but unfortunately it needs repeating. The NSF survey quantifies a continuing lost opportunity to accelerate research, increase the return on public investment, and serve the public interest.

The world of medical research is increasingly concerned about the need to completely document all trials and ensure that they are accurately and completely reported. Researchers owe an ethical obligation of imparting full and correct information about their trials to both their research participants and the public at large. Thus, knowledge gained from research should be in the public domain and freely available to everybody. Making research data public also serves the purpose of conserving resources by avoiding unnecessary duplication of research work....Though trial registration is an important initiative it is not a panacea since it does not provide access to unpublished data submitted to regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration. Should the principle of only considering registered trials be applied across the board by all journals? This is undoubtedly necessary in the long run.

The Web has changed the way in which many researchers access scientific information, conduct research, communicate their findings, and share data. There is now a need to assess the impact of Web publication in order to promote wider and better use of this new medium. Recent attempts have been made to go beyond the strict use of bibliometric indicators....The Web offers advantages as institutions represent "natural units," with their own institutional domains that mark their presence on the Internet. Since most institutions have a specific Internet domain or subdomain for all their Web pages, quantitative data can be extracted using specifically designed crawlers, or the robots of the major search engines. The contents of these institutional Web sites might include not only final papers or preprints, but also valuable information on other aspects of their scientific activities. Raw data, teaching materials, slides produced for meetings or conferences, in-house software, graphs, media files, and even administrative information might be useful to pupils, colleagues, and partners worldwide....[W]e designed a combined assessment model for ranking the institutional domains of universities worldwide based on "Web presence" indicators. Three different features of these domains were assessed: the size of their Web presence (measured by the number of Web pages), visibility (reflected by the number of in-links from pages external to the domain), and the number of "rich" files available [for downloading]....Data were collected using the major search engines. The full results are available from Ranking of World Universities in the Web, where the first 1,000 universities are listed according to Web criteria.

Comment. This study shows once more that OA to research articles through institutional repositories increases the visibility and stature of the institutions, the authors, and their works. It should strengthen the case for universities to launch OA repositories and fill them.

The birth control patch Ortho-Evra may be more dangerous than people once thought. After filing a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request for federal drug safety reports on the birth control patch, the Associated Press discovered that "the risk of suffering a survivable blood clot while using [Ortho-Evra] was about three times higher than while using birth control pills." What's alarming isn't so much the findings of the FDA study, but rather the fact that the AP had to submit a FOIA request to obtain them. Why weren't these studies made available to the public? How can a person be expected to make a decision about their health if they don't have all the facts? In order to help protect the public (and in order to regain some of the credibility lost in the past year) the FDA needs more transparency. Unfortunately, legislation that would help to remedy this problem, such as the Fair Access to Clinical Trials Act (some information is currently and more will hopefully be posted at www.clinicaltrials.gov), is held up in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. What are they waiting for?

When I look at the online world these days, I feel like I'm watching one of those old nature films in which an unseen narrator excitedly whispers as a baby bird miraculously pecks its way through the eggshell and announces itself to the world. Who is this fragile new creature? I feel the same sense of amazement as I contemplate the new modes of expression made possible by digital technologies. What is this podcasting, this video-blogging and these new public-domain repositories? Here's my excited narrator's whisper: A lot of new media genres seem to be empowering individuals by providing them with a lightweight commons infrastructure. Unlike today's media market...the new online commons are soaring because they tend to be more efficient, versatile, responsive and socially authentic as modes of communications....As we are able to capture more of our socially created value through commons (blogs, wikis, webcasts, open source, etc.), we are forcing the mass media to re-tool its business models in order to compete with the strange new forms of non-market value-creation. Can they do it? What sorts of "value-added" service will they excel in? Whatever the eventual answer, the balance of power between commons and markets is suddenly, for the moment, open for re-negotiation! The market can no longer capture and control so much of our creative and cultural lives. We must make the most of this opportunity, not just in establishing new online commons that are more responsive to us (and, usually, free!), but in validating the general power and theory of the commons.

From the "about" page: 'This guide has a limited scope. It is meant to help scholarly societies - and small publishers - assess the options available to them for the future of their journal publishing programmes. Though the option of keeping the status quo of subscription-based journals is discussed, the focus is on conversion of existing journals to open access, either in one go, or via an intermediate managed transition phase.'

From the text: 'Scholarly Societies are 'natural' Open Access publishers....A society serious about furthering the science and practice in its chosen field is bound to consider these benefits [of OA] and to look for ways of using them wherever possible for the attainment of its goals. By switching to open access publishing they will do much to further the widespread dissemination of knowledge in the area of science that they foster and promote....[T]he perception is widespread that the societies benefit more from the traditional publishing model than they are ever likely to do from these new emerging input-paid models, at least if one looks at revenues. As said before, this is a false perception. For societies that make the choice for open access, this guide aims to provide practical help to reduce or even eliminate financial risks and make conversion of an existing journal into an open access one a smooth and professional process.'

The Journal of Biomolecular Screening will submit molecular interaction data to the Biomolecular Interaction Network Database [BIND] prior to publication, becoming the ninth journal to take this step, the Blueprint Initiative, which maintains BIND, said last week. Under the agreement with the journal's publisher, SAGE Publications, data from pre-publication manuscripts will be submitted to BIND and BIND record identifiers will be published in the final articles. The Journal of Biomolecular Screening is the ninth journal to require pre-publication data to be submitted to BIND. The others include Science, Nature Cell Biology, and Immunology.

The purpose of traditional copyright law was to encourage the creation of works based on and to ensure reasonable access to original thought. Despite this harmonious intent, an intrinsic tension exists between libraries and copyright holders, as the former promotes "free" access to information that ultimately reduces the income of the latter. The expansion of copyright laws to electronic documents has shifted the balance between these two interests. This article discusses recent copyright legislation and case law as well as provides an overview of the practical effects of these laws on day-to-day library acquisitions, collection development, and collection management activities.

Simply an idea for systematic incentives at all institutional levels necessary to implement institutional archiving of peer-reviewed papers produced by their faculty. Some of the key concerns are addressed outlining the roles of senior faculty, junior faculty, librarians and others in fulfilling what should be an administrative imperative in all academic disciplines and campuses. These concerns include incentives for long term electronic archiving, institutional maintenance of copyright for their employee's intellectual product, motivation of authors to participate in a new publishing paradigm, precise and timely access to peer-reviewed literature and the peer review process. Concludes with a rhetorical calling to arms of all University administrators who would need to lead an assault on an entrenched and well-funded publishing industry.

Rapidly developing online information technologies provide dramatically new capabilities and opportunities, and place new responsibilities on all involved to recreate networks for scholarly communication. Collaborations between all segments of the information network are made possible and necessary as we attempt to find a balanced and mutually beneficial way to maximize these new technologies. This is a time of paradigm change in information delivery that calls for new approaches and considerations. Some of the important new options that require consideration are: the delivery of unbundled and integrated media materials; the recognition and appropriate separation of the costs for delivery which are distinct from those of peer review and formatting/ branding; the rationale and means of presenting additional flexible and customizable cost models based upon a variety of factors; and the possible role for agents in developing standardized product packages. This article attempts to highlight some important areas for focused attention, and discusses the responsibilities for proactive input by librarians in these early design considerations.delivery which are distinct from those of peer review and formatting/ branding; the rationale and means of presenting additional flexible and customizable cost models based upon a variety of factors; and the possible role for agents in developing standardized product packages. This article attempts to highlight some important areas for focused attention, and discusses the responsibilities for proactive input by librarians in these early design considerations.

A bill before Canada's Parliament could make it illegal for search engines to cache Web pages, critics say, opening the door to unwarranted lawsuits and potentially hindering public access to information. The legislation in question, Bill C-60, is designed to amend Canada's Copyright Act by implementing parts of the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization treaty, the treaty that led to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the U.S....But according to Howard Knopf, a copyright attorney at the Ottawa firm of Macera & Jarzyna, a brief passage in the bill could mean trouble for search engines and other companies that archive or cache Web content....Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, agreed.

Also see Jack Kapica, Could Googling become illegal?, Globe and Mail, July 12, 2005. Excerpt:

Could it be possible that Canada will make Google or any other Internet search and archiving engines illegal? Bill C-60, which amends the Copyright Act and received its first reading in the House of Commons on June 20, suggests it could be illegal for anyone to provide copyrighted information through "information-location tools," which includes search engines.

In September 2004, the members of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) published a joint editorial aimed at promoting registration of all clinical trials. We stated that we will consider a trial for publication only if it has been registered before the enrollment of the first patient. This policy applies to trials that start recruiting on or after 1 July 2005. Because many ongoing trials were not registered at inception, we will consider for publication ongoing trials that are registered before 13 September 2005. Our goal then and now is to foster a comprehensive, publicly available database of clinical trials. A complete registry of trials would be a fitting way to thank the thousands of participants who have placed themselves at risk by volunteering for clinical trials. They deserve to know that the information that accrues from their altruism is part of the public record, where it is available to guide decisions about patient care, and deserve to know that decisions about their care rest on all of the evidence, not just the trials that authors decided to report and that journal editors decided to publish....Our September 2004 editorial specified the information that we would require for trial registration. Attendees at a recent meeting of the WHO registration advisory group identified a minimal registration data set of 20 items (Table). The WHO-mandated items collectively address every key requirement that we established in our September 2004 editorial. The ICMJE supports the WHO minimal data set and has adopted it as the ICMJE's requirement....We stated our requirements for an acceptable trial registry in the September 2004 editorial, and they remain the same. The registry must be electronically searchable and accessible to the public at no charge. It must be open to all registrants and not for profit. It must have a mechanism to ensure the validity of the registration data.

Abstract: The advent of open source software has prompted some theoretical speculation about the applicability of open source production principles to biomedical research. This paper moves beyond theoretical analysis into an empirical examination of biomedical research projects that operate under what might be called an open and collaborative model. Open and collaborative projects represent a fresh approach to biomedicine in that they not only disavow its exclusionary behavior but they also reject its small-lab based structure. The paper argues that open and collaborative biomedical research represents a promising experiment. Not only has it produced software and genomic data that is usable, but the resulting public domain status for this software and data may reduce access and transaction cost problems for follow-on innovators. The model's least intuitive, but most exciting, application may involve wet lab systems biology: in this context, the model may allow a more coordinated and comprehensive attack than has heretofore been possible on the sorts of problems that cause promising drug candidates, particularly for complex diseases, to fail. Open and collaborative biomedical research does diverge, however, from non-biomedical open source production. Particularly outside the area of software, open and collaborative biomedicine may require restrictions on participation; significant centralization and standardization; reliance on public funding; and limitations on use of copyleft licensing. Additionally, if the model is to gain significant traction, practical problems involving the division of consulting revenues between scientists and universities as well as inefficient biological science publication norms will have to be addressed.

• Bonita Wilson and Allison L. Powell, A Tenth Anniversary for D-Lib Magazine
• Amy Friedlander, Really 10 Years Old?
• Ronald L. Larsen, Whence Leadership?
• Stephen M. Griffin, Funding for Digital Libraries Research: Past and Present
• William H. Mischo, Digital Libraries: Challenges and Influential Work
• Clifford Lynch, Where Do We Go From Here? The Next Decade for Digital Libraries
• William A. Arms, A Viewpoint Analysis of the Digital Library
• Andreas Paepcke, Hector Garcia-Molina, and Rebecca Wesley, Dewey Meets Turing: Librarians, Computer Scientists, and the Digital Libraries Initiative
• Stuart L. Weibel, Border Crossings: Reflections on a Decade of Metadata Consensus Building

Abstract: This article briefly describes two schemes, Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) and Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA), which enable up to date scientific and clinical literature to be distributed via the World Wide Web to individuals in developing countries at zero or minimal cost as a result of agreements between publishers.

Giandomenico Sica is the editor-in-chief of the series. Each volume will appear in an open-access edition as well as a priced, printed edition. (Disclosure: I am a member of the Editorial Advisory Board.)

Lately there have been a number of media reports and editorials about new legislation to update the Copyright Act and in particular about the issue of educational access to works on the Internet. They say that Bill C-60 will make it illegal to use Internet material for educational and research purposes. In fact, Bill C-60 will not address Internet material, although it does contain provisions to enable the use of the Internet for distance education and the digital delivery of inter-library loans. As well, the Government has taken special care to ensure that the exercise of new digital rights for creators will not hamper access to works for educational or other socially important purposes. The issue is complex and raises a number of difficult considerations. For example, what material on the Internet should be considered "publicly available" for uncompensated use? Copyright legislation provides that copyright protection arises automatically upon creation of an original work, whether or not the author of the work wishes to exploit the right. Stakeholders who have been consulted, including rights holders and educators, have nevertheless agreed to the principle that "where there is no expectation of payment, there should not be a requirement to pay." However, no agreement has been reached on a set of criteria to identify "publicly available material." In fact, no other country has specifically addressed the issue of educational use of Internet material....Rather than dealing hastily with this issue or refusing to address these educational concerns, the Government has undertaken to consult more broadly on this issue. We hope to gather new insights that will enable us to address the interests of all Canadians. Good public policy can only emerge from a full, open and constructive dialogue. Consultations on this issue are expected to begin this fall, at the same time as hearings on Bill C-60 get underway in Parliament.

Background. For a good example of the kind of criticism the ministers are trying to answer, see Michael Geist, Technology, culture, education, P2P Net, June 27, 2005 (blogged here on June 28).

Abstract: The current methods of publishing chemical information in bioscience articles are analysed. Using 3 papers as use-cases, it is shown that conventional methods using human procedures, including cut-and-paste are time-consuming and introduce errors. The meaning of chemical terms and the identity of compounds is often ambiguous. Valuable experimental data such as spectra and computational results are almost always omitted. We describe an Open XML architecture as proof-of-concept which addresses these concerns. Compounds are identified through explicit connection tables or links to persistent Open resources such as PubChem. It is argued that if publishers adopt these tools and protocols, then the quality and quantity of chemical information available to bioscientists will increase and the authors, publishers and readers will find the process cost-effective.

Thank goodness the PDFs we download and pass around don't come impregnated with some tracking technology that is generating metrics information back at the server. At least, they didn't in the past. Toronto software company Remote Approach now offers Map-Bot, a tool to track PDF traffic, much as Web sites collect IP addresses and other data from visitors. Like Adobe Policy Server, Map-Bot can force users to be connected to the Web in order to read the documents. It can track who's e-mailing PDFs to whom and what they're reading—in real time. Though other companies such as Adobe offer more expensive and elaborate tracking software, Remote Approach's tool alone has the power to spread among the masses, with its simple, low-cost (starting at $9.95 a month) subscription-based service, administered over the Web....But the potential for the technology to tarnish PDFs' image is staggering....If Remote Approach's idea takes off, competitors with less innocent designs --such as collecting e-mail addresses-- could jump in beside them. All of a sudden, some PDFs we download could come with nasty little bots attached that can generate spam. Not all of them, just enough to give us pause --sort of the way we now look at e-mail attachments with a jaundiced eye, even when they come from well-meaning friends. Too much of this stuff, and PDFs will become a lead-generation device for commercial interests, and not a viable publishing platform. In other words, they will be vulnerable to the same problems as Web pages and e-mail, and suddenly not such a great value proposition. Let's not go there.

For background, see my Trojan Horse eprints from SOAN for May 2, 2005.

"ATA believes that the NIH policy's success will be measured by the number of articles deposited in PubMed Central and made accessible to the public soon after publication," said [Heather] Joseph. "ATA has consistently asked that the NIH provide statistics on the number of papers that are posted on NIH's PubMed Central repository to help gauge the policy's effectiveness. We are very pleased that both the Senate and House have requested this critical data from NIH. Moreover, we commend NIH Director Elias Zerhouni for his positive response to ATA's request to post these critical submission data on the NIH public access website." (To view this document, go to www.taxpayeraccess.com/docs/NIH_Postings_Response.pdf)

The correct URL for the Zerhouni letter is www.taxpayeraccess.org/docs/NIH_Postings_Response.pdf (changing .com to .org).