As a growing number of research institutes and professional societies move to embrace open or free public access publishing, legislation is pending in Congress that would mandate scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health to post their final peer-reviewed manuscripts online within 12 months after journal publication.
But don't expect the door to unencumbered access be thrown wide open anytime soon: a number of professional research societies still oppose various aspects of open access, and the mandatory NIH directive is in danger of being scuttled because it is included in NIH's Fiscal 2008 budget bill, which President Bush has pledged to veto if it exceeds predefined spending limits.
Nevertheless, the trend is growing. On June 26 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced that starting next year it will require its scientists to deposit copies of journal articles in NIH's PubMed Central free database within six months of publication....
Last week (July 1), the American Physiological Society (APS) announced a new open access publishing option that allows authors for its 13 journals to post studies online immediately after being accepted for publication....
Since May 2005, NIH policy requests scientists to submit their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts with PubMed Central "as soon as possible" after acceptance for publication but not later than 12 months. But with compliance averaging less than 5%, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni conceded the voluntary approach wasn't working. "A mandatory policy seems to be the one that will be necessary," Zerhouni told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in March. He asked lawmakers to make public access within 12 months a condition of NIH grant funding, which they have done....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/06/2007 09:12:00 AM.
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.