[The NIH] policy may be both redundant and in conflict with the publishing procedures and policies of most independent scientific journals. For example, the electronic version of each American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) issue is immediately available at no cost to institutions in developing countries designated as low income by the World Bank, and the public can obtain at no cost all editorials and review articles immediately and all other content 12 mo after publication. [PS: Where's the conflict?] At the same time, and to ensure scientific integrity, AJCN policies include ownership of copyright to all accepted material....[T]he NIH does not allow publishers to link the final published version of articles to PubMed Central. [PS: Untrue.] Furthermore, the NIH policy contains no safeguard against the possibility that the initially accepted manuscript that is submitted by the PI to PubMed Central contains factual errors that are only caught later and corrected during the Journal’s copyediting process. [PS: Untrue; publishers may deposit the copy-edited version, which would supersede any earlier version, or they may limit deposit to the copy-edited version.]...[T]he AJCN takes the position that the PI is ultimately responsible for any conflicts that may arise from compliance with the NIH policy, ie, from the premature submission of accepted manuscripts. According to the copyright agreement that all authors sign when submitting a manuscript to the Journal, the AJCN owns the copyright to all material destined for publication. To facilitate compliance with the NIH policy, the AJCN will grant the PI permission to deposit an accepted manuscript in PubMed Central with the stipulation that the PI accepts any liability that may arise from the release of the manuscript in its unpublished form. To avoid this potential liability, the AJCN recommends that the PI delay submission of the manuscript to PubMed Central until after the copyediting process is complete. At that point, the PI will be provided with a PDF of the final version of the article that is to be published in the AJCN. Provision of this final version of the article to PubMed Central will avoid any ambiguity that could otherwise result from the existence of one uncopyedited and another copyedited version of the same article. If the PI decides to submit the uncopyedited version of the manuscript to the NIH, a further stipulation of our permission is that the manuscript must contain [a disclaimer] at the top of the title page....
Comment. After many needless threats and misunderstandings, this is a good policy. It's much better for the author, the journal, and readers for PMC to host the copy-edited version than an earlier version. I especially commend AJCN for allowing deposit of the published version with no embargo. For other journal policies on NIH-funded authors, see my June and July newsletters.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/09/2005 07:55:00 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.
