SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Science Commons, and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have jointly released a white paper to help university and medical school administrators ensure their institutions comply with public access requirements that are soon to be a condition of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.
Effective April 7, 2008, investigators must deposit articles stemming from NIH funding into the agency's PubMed Central online archive, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication in a journal. Complying with the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy: Copyright Considerations and Options will help provosts, research administrators, and campus counsel understand their institution's copyright-related obligations and options under the new Congressionally mandated policy, which was announced in January and replaces an earlier voluntary approach.
The timely analysis was prepared by Michael W. Carroll, an attorney, copyright expert, and faculty member at Villanova University law school. Carroll reviews the policy and its background, explains the legal context, and presents six alternative copyright management strategies that will help grantee institutions assure they reserve the necessary rights for articles to be made available in PubMed Central.
Carroll has been involved for several years in copyright issues as a member of the Creative Commons board and an advisor to Science Commons. In 2004 he worked with SPARC to develop the popular SPARC Author Addendum, which enables authors to reserve rights to deposit their works in open online archives....
[S]aid Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC: "The sooner we can get effective implementing mechanisms in place, the sooner researchers, institutions, and the public can put PubMed Central to work. With April implementation drawing near, this paper will be a great tool to help administrators jumpstart the local planning process."
"Congress and the NIH recognize that the Internet makes a difference," said John Wilbanks, Vice President of Science Commons. "Faculty authors can no longer sign away their copyrights in a business-as-usual manner when doing so means that their work will never be openly accessible over the Internet. This white paper is a step in making sure authors and universities understand how to move forward with a solid legal footing." ...
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.
