OPEN ACCESS NEWS 2005

Doping Journal 'Open Access' section alerts readers about the latest non-profit development on Open Access (OA), that is the online access to scientific scholar journal literature, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.

Doping Journal (DJ) concept is that OA can benefit the Society as a non-profit model for cost-effective independent scholar journals with no publication charge. DJ takes the advantage of an irreversible Internet and desktop publishing technology development and their end user availability at almost no cost.

While wider adoption of Open Access depends on educating the scientific community about its benefits, the wider dissemination of independent publishing in a DJ way depends on still missing academic education about the technology and its' end-user friendly capabilities. The commercial publishers (both traditional and Open Access) are not interested in educating the academic world about the ease of the modern electronic publishing.

To facilitate the deveopment of new independent Open Access scholar publications Doping Journal provides related Open Access development news (at length of this page) and necessary advisory for quality editorial groups willing to establish and independently run OA scientific journals.

The reference to each news story may be accompanied by the referee name (a member of the Doping Journal editorial board or a journal reader), the authors' key note comments, the date of the news alert, and links to related articles (if any).

Please note that 'Open Access' section of the Doping Journal does not make a claim to being most comprehensive and does not aim to substitute other news collections on Open Access (such as Open Access News Blog, for example). We may inadvertently omit certain articles due to a lack of information. If you notice an omission, please contribute your own selection.

We welcome readers to actively participate in the discussion of any article about OA by publishing in DJ letters to editor. To submit letter click here.

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Neurobiology of Lipids welcomes the new National Institutes of Health Public Access policy
Alexei Koudinov, Editor
Neurobiology of Lipids Global Newsstand and Letter to Subscribers (7 February 2005)
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [Author contact]

Representative text: "Neurobiology of Lipids (NoL) welcomes the announcement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) new "Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research" effective May 2, 2005. The NIH requests the Agency grant recipients to deposit resulting publications in the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central (PMC, a free governmental archive of the life sciences literature) within 12 months since originally published in a peer-reviewed journal. The article deposition in NIH archive will no doubt benefit the scholars themselves. This is because deposition in PMC archive will ensure the publication is preserved for future generations and gets maximum and barrier-free exposure to both peers and the public. For the Policy wording on these and other issues (such as reliability of article access at PMC site and their integration with other NIH Databases) please see original NIH document. While the new Policy calls for the voluntary submission of final author manuscripts and does not affect the ability to copyright, all NIH grantees now have a new issue to consider when selecting the journal to publish at. To fulfill the NIH request, authors publishing in the majority of the traditional journals (i.e. those where authors transfer copyright to the publisher) will have to go through a process of resubmitting their papers to the PubMed Central archive. Moreover, the authors will often need to select for PMC archive the manuscript version with the changes introduced during the publication procedure, because many publishers (ex. Elsevier) allow archiving of the author's version of the manuscript only. It is my pleasure to let you know that Neurobiology of Lipids has met the National Library of Medicine quality requirement  for PubMed Central archiving. The journal is presently successfully working on bringing its' prior publications' collection into the Extensible Markup Language (XML) files' format (suitable for deposition in PMC) using just released latest version 2.0 of the National Library of Medicine XML Document Type Definition (DTD) for journal publishing. While taking the advantage of an irreversible Internet and desktop publishing technology development and their end user availability at almost no cost, Neurobiology of Lipids is also originating the research project aiming to develop the software tool that will make direct publishing (to an appropriate XML file compliant with NIH DTD) as simple, as web form submission (that any of you use while performing on-line bank transaction, interlibrary loan request, an Institution internal services operation or thousand other purposes). Such tool will be essential for independent journals (encouraged by Neurobiology of Lipids and similarly built on a concept of a non-profit model for cost-effective independent scholar journals), their authors, Academic Institutions setting their own archives, and individual scientists, willing to deposit their articles in a modern XML file format. NoL is open for partnership by any interested party and has open opportunities for Graduate students to participate in this and other projects. Therefore, when Neurobiology of Lipids archiving in PMC is implemented, any article published in the journal will meet the NIH new Policy, immediately and without any need for additional archiving works by authors. Starting this week XML files for NoL articles will be also available at NoL (as an additional link at articles' web pages) and offered for syndication (as it was earlier implemented for NoL Global Newsstand, indexing NoL articles' abstracts and NoL noteworthy articles published in other journals). Our authors will thus save the time and effort of going through the deposition process themselves. The other benefits of publishing in NoL include the rapid, fair and quality peer review, fast publication and high visibility of Neurobiology of Lipids among those working in the filed (as verified by NoL readership of about 1/3-1/4 of the readership of the major Journal of Lipid Research published since 1959) and wide geographical distribution of NoL readers (Neurobiol Lipids World Reader's Map can be viewed by clicking on a map logo at the bottom of the journal home page). Another opportunity offered by NIH PMC archiving is to link an article to any other publication via related article feature of the DTD. This feature creates an important technical background for NoL call for commentaries and letters to the editor on related/noteworthy articles appeared in other journals. The NIH DTD feature will make sure such communication arising matters when published in NoL are linked in NIH databases to original publications in other journals. Surely, Neurobiology of Lipids welcomes researchers in the field of neuroscience of fats to consider publishing in the Neurobiology of Lipids all types of articles, and to consider for publication other journals depositing full text articles (not just abstracts!) in PubMed Central. Neurobiology of Lipids also urges funding bodies worldwide to follow the pioneering NIH policy, and welcomes industry members to consider establishing funds to support authors publishing in NoL."

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The Public Library of Science urges researchers to comply with the new National Institutes of Health's Public Access Policy
PLoS Press Release (3 February 2005)
[FullText and contact] [NIH New Policy on Public Access]

Representative text: "San Francisco, CA:-The Public Library of Science (PLoS) applauds the US National Institutes of Health [NIH] for today's announcement that it expects all of its grantees to make articles arising from their NIH-funded research freely available online in the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central. While NIH's Public Access Policy could, and PLoS believes should, have been stronger in several respects, it sets an important precedent for all sponsors of scientific research. "The US government has now endorsed the principle that the results of federally funded research should be freely available to the public," said Michael B. Eisen, Ph.D., co-founder of PLoS. "Scientists and the scientific community now have an historic opportunity make this principle a reality." PLoS urges all other funding agencies, in the US and abroad, to adopt the progressive components of the NIH policy, and to accompany them with stronger incentives for compliance and shorter periods of allowable delay prior to public access. PLoS urges all scientists to seize this opportunity to ensure that their works are made freely available to their colleagues and the public. A significant aspect of the plan is its unambiguous stipulation that the authors of NIH-funded research articles are empowered to determine when their papers will be made available to the public, regardless of the policies of the journals in which their works are published. NIH grantees now have an added incentive to publish their work in open-access journals that deposit their full contents in PubMed Central immediately upon publication. PLoS commends NIH's commitment to establish a Public Access Advisory Working Group, also announced today, which will serve to monitor the implementation and effects of the new policy over the coming months and years. PLoS, itself, will be collaborating with other interested organizations to design and provide tools to make it as easy as possible for authors to exercise their vested authority to make their works freely available online as soon after publication as they see fit, as NIH has urged them to. PLoS thanks NIH Director Elias Zerhouni for his leadership on this important issue, and looks forward to an ongoing dialogue on the imperatives for timely public access to the products of publicly funded scientific and medical research."

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BioMed Central welcomes the new National Institutes of Health Public Access policy
BioMed Central (BMC) Press Release (4 February 2005)
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [Author contact]

Representative text: "BioMed Central welcomes the announcement of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) new public access policy. The NIH calls on all of its grantees to deposit articles resulting from their NIH-funded research in the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central and make them freely available within 12 months. BioMed Central anticipates that many other funding bodies worldwide will now follow the example set by NIH. All NIH grantees now have a new factor to take into account when choosing where they wish to publish their research. To fulfil the NIH request, authors publishing with most of the traditional subscription publishers will be expected to go through a process of resubmitting their papers to the PubMed Central repository. In addition, they will often need to update their manuscript version with the changes introduced in the publication process, as many publishers specify that only the author's version of the manuscript can be submitted to archives. Those who choose to publish in any of BioMed Central's Open Access journals, which cover all areas of biology and medicine, are assured that the published version of their paper will be placed in PubMed Central for them, immediately and without any need for additional work from them. Researchers are thus saved the time and effort of going through the deposition process themselves. This significant benefit is in addition to the rapid and high quality peer review, fast publication and high visibility of BioMed Central's Open Access journals. BioMed Central urges all researchers in the life and medical sciences to fulfil the NIH request and to submit their future manuscripts to one of the 130 Open Access journals published by BioMed Central. The NIH announcement can be found in full at: [http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2005/od-03.htm]."

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NIH Asks for Internet Access to Studies
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
Reuters (3 February 2005)
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [OA News Blog citation] [Author contact]

Leading text: "The U.S. National Institutes of Health, which spent nearly $20 billion last year funding research, urged scientists on Thursday to let the agency publish their studies on the Internet. Researchers receiving NIH grants should send their manuscripts to a free, Web-based archive managed by the National Library of Medicine as soon as they can, after first submitting them to medical or scientific journals, NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni said. "With the rapid growth in the public's use of the Internet, NIH must take a leadership role in making available to the public the research that we support," Zerhouni said. "Scientists have a right to see the results of their work disseminated as quickly and broadly as possible, and NIH is committed to helping our scientists exercise this right." The policy is a challenge to scientific journals that usually publish such research. Journals such as Science, Nature and The New England Journal of Medicine sometimes charge thousands of dollars for annual subscriptions but in return subject the studies they publish to an often lengthy process of review and critique. The NIH, which spent $19.3 billion in 2004 to pay for work done by 212,000 researchers around the world, said taxpayers have a right to see the research they have paid for. Scientists can ask for a delay of up to one year to protect the profitability of journals, Zerhouni said. "My goal is to change the landscape of scientific publishing, which is paid for by the public," he told reporters in a telephone briefing. The NIH estimates that the results of research it supported were described in more than 60,000 published papers in 2003. The database will be available on the PubMed Central Web site at http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/ ..."

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Public to get online access to studies
Jamie Talan, Staff writer
New York News Day (3 February 2005)
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [Author contact]

Excerpt: "Ordinary Americans will have access to some of the latest research findings within a year of their publication in scientific journals, the government announced yesterday. Under the voluntary plan, the National Institutes of Health will make peer-reviewed scientific studies funded by the health agency available to the public online starting in May on the searchable archive PubMed Central, at www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov. "With the rapid growth in the public's use of the Internet, NIH must take a leadership role in making available to the public the research that we support," said Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the agency. NIH supports research published in 60,000 peer-reviewed papers a year. The program is voluntary, but Zerhouni said he thinks many scientists will participate. The plan is that federally funded scientists will release their published manuscripts as soon as possible, and within a year of actual publication. The initial draft of the proposal was open for public comment, and the agency received more than 6,000 comments, many from scientific journals worried about the impact on their circulation. The final plan extended the online deadline to one year... The NIH said talks of making scientific studies available to the public were triggered by a complaint from a cancer patient in Kansas who heard a news report about a hopeful finding and tried to get a copy of a study. The journal told her she could obtain the paper with a $900 yearly subscription. NIH dollars are gleaned from federal taxes, and the agency felt the public should have ready access to the findings from the funded research. "This will forever change the way the public gains access to scientific information," Zerhouni said. The program will cost the government agency $2 million to $4 million a year..."

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NIH Grant Recipients Are 'Asked' to Post Data. New Policy on 'Public Access' Draws Criticism
Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post (4 February 2005) Page A15
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [Author contact]

Leading text: "Researchers who receive grant money from the National Institutes of Health will be "asked" to submit their results to a public Web site within a year after they are published in a scientific journal, under a new and controversial NIH policy announced yesterday. The highly anticipated "public access" policy -- which aims to make it easier for Americans to see the results of resarch they paid for with their tax dollars -- represents a compromise between competing forces that had lobbied the agency intensely during the past year. On one side were the publishers of highly profitable scientific journals who feared that free access -- even months after paper publication -- would undermine their subscription base. They were joined by some not-for-profit scientific societies that count on revenue from their print journals to support their research and training programs. On the other side were patient advocacy groups and others who argued that taxpayers should not have to pay subscription or per-article fees to see the results of federally supported medical research. They argue that journals would not be significantly harmed because the policy applies to only the 10 percent or so of published biomedical articles that result from NIH-funded research. Individuals and libraries would still subscribe, they say, to read the other 90 percent of the contents..."

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Health: Government-Financed Medical Research to Go Online
Amanda Gardner, HealthDay Reporter
Forbes.com 4 February 4 2005.
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [Author contact]

Leading text: "The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced a new policy that should give the public speedier access to thousands of published medical studies. The policy, the first of its kind for the NIH, calls on scientists whose research was financed by the federal agency to release their manuscripts to the public "as soon as possible and within 12 months of final publication." The policy is described as voluntary, and starts May 2. Articles will eventually be available in a Web-based archive managed by the National Library of Medicine, part of the NIH. "What we're really trying to do is create a momentum towards earlier publication while maximizing participation," Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the NIH, said at a news conference. "We want to accomplish a change in the landscape of how scientific information is made available to the public while preserving the viability of the peer-review process which guarantees the integrity of that research." The issue of public access to scientific studies has been debated. Many feel the NIH should not be a conduit to the public for scientific research, but the agency's leadership felt the public had the right to see how its tax money was being spent. "We felt very strongly that change was needed," Zerhouni said. "Over 93 million Americans visit the Internet for medical information, and we strongly felt that it was not sufficient for us to maintain the status quo. Research is supported by the public, and it is essential in improving public health and public access to these publications." The policy will achieve three main goals, including providing electronic access to NIH-funded research to patients, families, doctors and other members of the public; building a searchable, central archive of research; and advancing science. A draft policy released for public comment in September called for a six-month time window. This is twice as long "to provide more flexibility," Zerhouni stated. Starting in May, NIH grantees are being asked to submit an electronic version of their final manuscript as soon as it has been accepted for publication by a peer-reviewed journal and has completed the peer review process. Zerhouni stated the new policy would not preempt scientific and medical journals. "We do not propose that we will be putting something to the public before the publication data," he said. "What we're asking is that between zero months and 12 months of the publication date by the publisher that we will post the author's copy for public access." Representatives from two major medical research journals welcomed the change, and said it wouldn't affect their operations..."

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NIH-funded research to be available free
Alex Barnum
San Francisco Chronicle 4 February 4 2005.
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [OA News Blog citation] [Author contact]

Excerpt: "...The policy, although watered down from a draft version, represents a major victory for a growing "public access" movement whose proponents argue that it isn't fair that consumers and libraries must pay high costs for access to results of medical research that has been paid for with their taxes....In announcing the new policy, NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni said the goal is to "change the landscape" of scientific publishing....The NIH scaled back its policy from an earlier version that had called for research results to be posted within six months of publication. The scientific publishing industry had criticized the policy, arguing that it would hurt profits and undercut the peer-review system that they support....Publishers argue that producing scientific journals is expensive. Journals play an important role in editing manuscripts and assembling panels of scientists to "peer-review" articles before they're published. If the contents of their publications are made available for free, some people will stop subscribing, they argue. Advocates of open access say the industry is over-dramatizing. Even though 60,000 articles are published each year as a result of NIH funding, they make up only about a third of all the biomedical literature appearing in journals. A number of factors are driving the move toward open access of scientific literature: the low cost of publishing on the Internet; the ease of accessing information online, both by patients and by researchers; and the rising costs of scientific journals....Michael Eisen, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of genetics and a co- founder of PLoS, praised the NIH's announcement Thursday. "It has the potential to be a transformative event," he said. "The federal government is the world's biggest sponsor of scientific research. It has the singular potential to change the way scientific information is made accessible." He said much depended on whether NIH grantees perceived the policy not just as a suggestion but as an expectation. It also depends, he said, on how the publishing industry responds, and whether it puts restrictions on scientists' ability to post their edited manuscripts to a public Web site. "The publishers would be doing a disservice to the public," he said, "if they actively work to impede this system."

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NIH announces 'open-access' rules
Ted Agres
The Scientist News 4 February 2005.
[FullText] [NIH New Policy on Public Access] [OA News Blog citation] [Author contact]

OANews Excerpt: "...The new policy, effective May 2, 2005, "requests" that scientists voluntarily deposit electronic copies of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts with NIH's PubMed Central database "as soon as possible" after acceptance for publication. Authors can specify when their manuscripts would be publicly released, anywhere from immediately to 12 months after publication. The policy also places the burden on scientists to resolve any copyright disputes with journal publishers. "Scientists have a right to see the results of their work disseminated as quickly and broadly as possible," NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni said yesterday. "We urge publishers to work closely with authors in implementing this policy." Reaction from nonprofit medical and scientific publishers yesterday was sharp. The new rule "is wasteful of federal research dollars and a missed opportunity" to use existing Internet search technologies, representatives of six scientific societies representing nearly 30 nonprofit journals said in a statement....Supporters of open access were also critical of the new rule, calling it a "retreat" from NIH's earlier draft version, issued September, 3, 2004, that had specified public access within 6 months. "This policy is a step backward," stated Peter Suber, director of Public Knowledge's Open Access Project. "The policy is better than nothing, but it is a lot less than taxpayers deserved..."

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Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Notice Number: NOT-OD-05-022 (Release Date: February 3, 2005; Effective Date: May 2, 2005).
[FullText] [NIH implementation plan] [Submit a response to NIH via e.mail]

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