[Insight-developers] Re: NIH Open Access Mandate : How to Comply

[Luis Ibanez]

A colleague of mine raised concerns about how he can publish
papers in Closed-Access Journals (that enforce copyright
restrictions on papers) and still comply with this new
US Federal Law.



The answer is simple:


       *DO NOT TRANSFER YOUR COPYRIGHT TO THE JOURNAL*
         *WHEN YOU SUBMIT A PAPER FOR PUBLICATION*


Once you transfer your copyright, you *are not* the owner of
the paper, and you can no longer control its distribution.


If you retain your copyright, then you are entitled to decide
how the paper can be redistributed. That includes having the
right of sending your paper to any *public database*.



Here are two specific options to achieve this:



1) Lobby the Journals to convince them to create Open Access
    options for authors.

    Elsevier journals already do this.
    http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6349045.html

    As cheap labor for all Journals, and as customers/consumers
    of the Journals we have a word to say on how we want the
    distribution of scientific literature to be done. It is
    simply: Free Market economy logic.

    We are cheap labor for Journals when we give away for free
    the copyright of our papers (you wouldn't do that if you
    where writing Harry Potter, would you ?). We are cheap labor
    for Journals when we volunteer to review papers for them for
    free, or when we volunteer to be associate editors for free.



2) Do not transfer your copyright to closed-access Journals
    when your papers are accepted for publication. Instead,
    assign a *license* to the Journal (and all the readers)
    to allow them to publish *your* papers without infringing
    on *your* copyright.


    An example of such license is the
    Creative Commons by Attribution license:

        http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

    This license is already used by many of the Open Access
    Journals, such as the BioMedCentral and PLoS Journals.


    If this offer is not good enough for the close-access
    Journal that you want to publish in, then that Journal
    is *not good enough for you*, or for all the tax payers
    who indirectly funded your research through NIH, and
    therefore you should take your papers elsewhere.


    There are 3,031 Open Access Journals:

                  http://www.doaj.org/

    and have published 166,781 articles so far.

    Many of these journals have been endorsed by Nobel
    Laureates. After all, they are the ones who lobbied
    the US Congress to make laws about Open Access:

        http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/bof.html




-------------


All that being said,


    Let's just get out of the medieval practices of publishing
    scientific research like if they were romantic novels.

    The WEB was invented for sharing scientific information.
    It is time it serves its original purpose.


    Start the new year with an open mind and engage in
    Scientific Publishing 2.0:

    Submit to PLoS ONE:

             http://www.plosone.org

    * Review for PLoS ONE,
http://www.plosone.org/static/commentGuidelines.action#discussion

    * Blog in PLoS ONE about papers.
http://www.plosone.org/static/commentGuidelines.action#annotation

    * Cite papers from PLoS ONE

    * Reuse material from PLoS ONE
      (Yes!, you can do this without becoming a criminal
       copyright infringer)



   You will find the feeling strange...

   It something you have not experienced for a long time
   with any Journal:


                 It is called Freedom !






   Happy New Year,



      Luis



-----------------
Luis Ibanez wrote:
> 
> http://www.taxpayeraccess.org./media/release07-1226.html
> 
> Alliance for Taxpayer Access
> www.taxpayeraccess.org
> December 26, 2007
> 
> 
>                 PUBLIC ACCESS MANDATE MADE LAW
> 
>          President Bush signs omnibus appropriations bill,
>   including National Institutes of Health research access provision
> 
> 
> Washington, D.C. – December 26, 2007 – President Bush has signed into
> law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764), which
> includes a provision directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
> to provide the public with open online access to findings from its
> funded research. This is the first time the U.S. government has mandated
> public access to research funded by a major agency.
> 
> The provision directs the NIH to change its existing Public Access
> Policy, implemented as a voluntary measure in 2005, so that
> participation is required for agency-funded investigators. Researchers
> will now be required to deposit electronic copies of their peer-reviewed
> manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine’s online archive,
> PubMed Central. Full texts of the articles will be publicly available
> and searchable online in PubMed Central no later than 12 months after
> publication in a journal.
> 
> "Facilitated access to new knowledge is key to the rapid advancement of
> science," said Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
> Cancer Center and Nobel Prize Winner. "The tremendous benefits of broad,
> unfettered access to information are already clear from the Human Genome
> Project, which has made its DNA sequences immediately and freely
> available to all via the Internet. Providing widespread access, even
> with a one-year delay, to the full text of research articles supported
> by funds from all institutes at the NIH will increase those benefits
> dramatically."
> 
> "Public access to publicly funded research contributes directly to the
> mission of higher education,” said David Shulenburger, Vice President
> for Academic Affairs at NASULGC (the National Association of State
> Universities and Land-Grant Colleges). “Improved access will enable
> universities to maximize their own investment in research, and widen the
> potential for discovery as the results are more readily available for
> others to build upon.”
> 
> “Years of unrelenting commitment and dedication by patient groups and
> our allies in the research community have at last borne fruit,” said
> Sharon Terry, President and CEO of Genetic Alliance. “We’re proud of
> Congress for their unrelenting commitment to ensuring the success of
> public access to NIH-funded research. As patients, patient advocates,
> and families, we look forward to having expanded access to the research
> we need.”
> 
> “Congress has just unlocked the taxpayers’ $29 billion investment in
> NIH,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly
> Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a founding member of the
> ATA). “This policy will directly improve the sharing of scientific
> findings, the pace of medical advances, and the rate of return on
> benefits to the taxpayer."
> 
> Joseph added, “On behalf of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, I’d like
> to thank everyone who worked so hard over the past several years to
> bring about implementation of this much-needed policy.”
> 
> For more information, and a timeline detailing the evolution of the NIH
> Public Access Policy beginning May 2004, visit the ATA Web site at
> http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.
> 
> 
> ###
> 
> 
> The Alliance for Taxpayer Access is a coalition of patient, academic,
> research, and publishing organizations that supports open public access
> to the results of federally funded research. The Alliance was formed in
> 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles stemming from taxpayer-funded
> research become fully accessible and available online at no extra cost
> to the American public. Details on the ATA may be found at
> http://www.taxpayeraccess.org.
> 
>