Michael Stebbins and three co-authors, Public Access Failure at PubMed, Science Magazine, July 7, 2006 (accessible only to subscribers). A letter to the editor. (Thanks to Jim Till.) Excerpt:
As of January 2006, only
approximately 3.8% of NIH-funded research papers published after 1 May 2005 had been submitted
to the PMC repository.
Low compliance only tells part of the story. More than half of the manuscripts available on PMC
were published before 2 May 2005. Many reviews and commentaries, which fall outside of the
scope of the request, and papers inappropriately made publicly available before the publisher’s public
access embargo were also found in the database. This suggests either wide misunderstanding of
the policy or deliberate submission of papers falling outside the scope of the database....
By NIH estimates, if only half of the eligible papers are submitted to the database, the cost would
reach $2 million per year, or $62 per paper. Without a mandatory policy, however, submission
of half of all eligible papers is unlikely. The NIH already provides close to $30 million annually to
cover publication costs [at non-OA journals]. As the policy expands, archiving could cost an additional $3 million....
Both internal and external
warnings that, if voluntary, the program would fail were outweighed by the NIH’s desire to allay
the concerns of some publishers and those advocating public access policies.
There is some good news, though. Authors publishing in some of the more influential journals
in biomedical research seem
to have a higher compliance
rate than the estimated average....
NIH’s faltering experience so far indicates that
public access policies must be mandatory and
curated if they are to have any chance of success. It
would also be wise for there to be a real demonstration
of public desire or need before we expand
it to other agencies. Unfortunately, this experiment
has cost taxpayers money and the NIH credibility.
Comment. Two quick responses.
If the compliance rate for the NIH policy rose to 100%, the cost to the agency would be $3 million total, not "an additional $3 million" on top of the $2 million for 50% compliance.
The authors call for "a real demonstration of public desire". But they are assuming that the policy's goal of "public access" means "lay public" rather than "professional public" or "all who can make use of this research". In fact, researchers are the primary beneficiaries of the policy, and lay readers secondary. Some lay readers will want to read this literature, and will be able to do so, but most will benefit indirectly because researchers benefit directly.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/10/2006 05:11:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
