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Dear APS Colleague,
On February 3, 2005, the NIH announced a new policy
(NOT-OD-05-022) to enhance public access to publications resulting from NIH-funded
research. The policy itself and information about it are available at
http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm. I am writing
because some confusion has arisen about the NIH Policy.
The NIH Public Access Policy is a voluntary program
in which funded investigators are asked to submit to the National Library of
Medicine’s PubMed Central (PMC) an electronic copy of the author’s final
manuscript of articles based upon NIH-funded research. When this Policy goes
into effect on May 2, 2005, it will apply only to active research grants and
only to research articles that have been accepted for publication in peer
reviewed journals. The purpose of the policy is to create an archive of NIH-funded
research to improve portfolio management and to make the manuscripts
accessible to the public 12 months after journal issue publication, or
sooner if the author so specifies.
Since the policy was announced, questions have arisen
about whether or not participation is truly voluntary. On the day the policy
was published, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni sent a letter to all extramural
scientists and their research institutions describing the policy and urging
them to participate. Although Dr. Zerhouni stated that the policy is a
request, many researchers as well as university offices of sponsored
programs and even some NIH program officers have interpreted it as a mandate
for grantees. However, in public statements, Zerhouni and other NIH
officials have repeatedly underscored that it is voluntary and there will be
no repercussions for those who choose not to participate. Funded
investigators can still fulfill their progress report requirements by
providing print copies of their publications with their annual progress
reports.
While the APS does not support the NIH Plan, we do
recognize that it does put you, our members, in a difficult position. Do
you abide by a request issued by the granting agency or do you abide by the
copyright statement that you signed when you submitted your manuscript to
the journal? The APS does not want to see you placed in that position.
Therefore, we will modify our copyright statement to help you fulfill the
voluntary requirement of the NIH Plan.
In doing so, we ask that you recognize that the
Society has been at the forefront of online publishing, putting content
online as early as 1994, providing authors with one of the first online
manuscript submission and review systems, and underwriting the scanning of
APS journal content back to 1898. We were one of the first publishers to
change our access policies so that all content is free to all 12 months
after publication. These efforts have cost the Society millions of dollars
and subscriptions are one of the few ways available for us to recover those
costs. Now that the online environment is mature, the Federal government is
seeking to take-over the venture by mandating access policies for the
Society’s journals.
With over 50% of articles published in our journals
funded by NIH, the release of manuscripts by PMC that is out of sync with
the Society’s access policies could lead to losses of subscription revenues
that would interfere with the journals’ ability to meet the needs of the
Society and its members. Moreover, NIH is seen as a leader among biomedical
funding agencies. If others such as the NSF, NASA, the Wellcome Trust, and
funding agencies in other countries follow suit, we may end up in a
situation where the vast majority of content is subject to mandates
requiring public release prior to the journal release date. Should this
occur, the APS and other scholarly publishers may be forced to increase
author fees to compensate. Ultimately it would be detrimental to science if
the APS had to charge authors the full cost of publication, which is
currently about $3,000 an article.
Given the importance of subscription revenue to the
Society’s ability to provide our members with high quality and innovative
publications, the APS asks that if you choose to deposit your manuscript
into PMC, you will specify that it should not be made available to the
public until 12 months after publication in the Society’s journals. The
Society intends to modify its copyright agreement so that NIH-funded authors
are granted permission to deposit their accepted manuscript into PMC for
release to the public 12 months after publication. By abiding by the
Society’s modified copyright agreement, you will be able to participate in
the NIH public access program while still protecting the ability of the APS
to recover the costs associated with its publication program.
Thank you in advance for your support of the Society
and its efforts to provide the scientific community with programs that
support their needs, from publications, to meetings, to education outreach.
These efforts have served our discipline well since the Society’s founding
in 1887. We will be able to continue to meet the needs of our membership
with the recognition that the NIH Public Access Plan is a voluntary plan
that seeks release at 12 months, a time period consistent with the Society’s
current access period.
Sincerely yours,
D. Neil Granger, Ph.D.
President
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