[afro-nets] NIH and Voluntary Public Access to Research

[Leela McCullough <leela@healthnet.org>]

NIH Guidelines on Voluntary Public Access to Research Released
--------------------------------------------------------------

[Feb 04, 2005]

 From kaisernetwork.org
http://www.nih.gov/ NIH Director Elias Zerhouni on Thursday re-
leased details of a new agency policy that requests scientists
make agency-funded research publicly available online at no cost
within 12 months of publication in a scientific journal, the
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62156-2005Feb3.html
Washington Post reports. The policy, which is voluntary, "repre-
sents a compromise between competing forces that had lobbied the
agency intensely during the past year," according to the Post
(Weiss, Washington Post, 2/4). Zerhouni in September 2004 pro-
posed requiring NIH-funded researchers submit their research
within six months of publication in a scientific journal to
NIH's no-cost Internet database, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/
PubMed Central. Currently, scientific journals -- for which an
annual subscription typically costs between $200 and $6,000 --
retain control over published information
(http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?hint=3&DR_ID=27959
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 2/3).

Policy Details

The new policy asks scientists beginning May 2 to post their
work on PubMed "as soon as possible and within 12 months of fi-
nal publication." NIH also plans to establish a working group as
part of the National Library of Medicine's
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/od/bor/bor.html Board of Regents to de-
velop the database with NIH. The group will include patient ad-
vocates, scientists, librarians and publishers. According to the
Journal, the database will archive research and will be "easily
searchable by the public via the Internet" (Corbett Dooren, Wall
Street Journal, 2/4). NIH awards about 212,000 researchers work-
ing in 2,800 facilities more than $23 billion in competitive re-
search grants and contracts annually. The scientists publish an
estimated 60,000 papers annually
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/health/chi-0502040212feb04,1,5292179.story 

(Gorner, Chicago Tribune, 2/4). About 10% of articles in medical
journals are written by NIH-funded scientists, the Post reports
(Washington Post, 2/4). According to the Chicago Tribune, "sci-
entists widely are expected to comply" with the policy, even
though it is not mandatory (Chicago Tribune, 2/4). However, Har-
old Varmus, former NIH director and current president of the
http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/44.cfm Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center, said the policy should have stated that scien-
tists are "expected" to submit their work to the database,
rather than requesting that they do so (Washington Post, 2/4).

Zerhouni Comments

Zerhouni "explained that the agency is trying to take a more
gentle approach" in an effort to encourage "maximum" participa-
tion from scientists, according to the Journal (Wall Street
Journal, 2/4). Zerhouni said the agency expected that "only in
limited cases will authors deem it necessary to select the long-
est delay period." He added, "Our goal is to change the land-
scape of scientific publishing by opening up a venue for scien-
tists to do the right thing. The goal is to make this research
available to the public without damaging the peer-review proc-
ess." He added, "We're saying that scientists should release
their findings as soon as possible for the benefit of the pub-
lic. After all, the public paid for them" (Chicago Tribune,
2/4).

Other Comments

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said, "I commend the NIH for encourag-
ing scientists and publishers to make more federally funded re-
search publicly available in a single, searchable archive" (Wall
Street Journal, 2/4). Science Editor in Chief Donald Kennedy
called the policy a "reasonable path," adding that requiring no-
cost public access within six months could have had "fairly se-
rious consequences for some journals" (Talan,
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsacc044134476feb04,0,4456293.story 

Long Island Newsday, 2/4). However, Rick Johnson, director of the
http://www.arl.org/sparc/ Scholarly Publishing and Academic Re-
sources Coalition, said that the policy "falls short of the
bright light of transparency that Dr. Zerhouni promised." He
added that the policy might be "career-jeopardizing" for many
researchers because, he predicts, publishers will urge slow pub-
lic release while NIH will encourage quick release (Washington
Post, 2/4). Michael Eisen -- assistant genetics profes sor at
http://www.berkeley.edu/ University of California-
Berkeley and co-founder of the http://www.plos.org/ Public Li-
brary of Science, which publishes two no-cost online scientific
journals -- said, "The publishers would be doing a disservice to
the public if they actively work to impede this system (Barnum,
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/04/MNG8TB5L3A1.DTL 

San Francisco Chronicle, 2/4).


--
Leela McCullough, Ed.D.
Director of Information Services
SATELLIFE
30 California Street, Watertown, MA 02472, USA
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Fax: +1-617-926-1212
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