David Hanson and three co-authors, Policy Changes In Budget Bill, Chemical and Engineering News, January 7, 2008. Excerpt:
...The open-access provision orders NIH to provide the public with online access to published research that was supported by NIH. This means that all NIH-funded investigators will be required to deposit electronic copies of resulting peer-reviewed manuscripts to PubMed Central —NIH's online, publicly accessible journal archive— for posting no later than 12 months after publication. NIH's current policy calls for voluntary submission of manuscripts.
Journal publishers, including the American Chemical Society (which publishes C&EN), have expressed reservations about the mandatory posting of manuscripts. "We question how a mandatory policy can be implemented consistent with respect for author and publisher copyrights and intellectual property interests and why NIH chose not to work more cooperatively with scientific publishers in achieving goals for public access," says Glenn S. Ruskin, director of the ACS Office of Legislative & Government Affairs....
Comments
This description of the new law might leave the impression that NIH grantees may deposit their manuscripts any time within 12 months of publication. But deposits must be made immediately upon acceptance in a journal, and PubMed Central must release them to the public within 12 months of publication.
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.
