NIH FLOODED WITH COMMENTS ON PUBLIC ACCESS PROPOSAL
Prodded by Congress, the National Institutes of Health this fall solicited the public’s views on a plan that would require NIH-funded investigators’ papers to be posted on the Internet 6 months after a journal publishes them. And the public took notice. NIH received about 6000 comments by the 16 November deadline. A brief review of the first batch of 800 or so–the only ones NIH made available by press time–indicates support from librarians, patient advocates, teachers, and individual scientists. But although some major research organizations back NIH’s proposal, many scientific societies and commercial publishers have called for NIH to delay or scrap it.
NIH has tallied a preliminary count based on 95% of the responses submitted on a Web form. NIH officials caution against drawing conclusions because large organizations only got a single vote, and some people didn’t answer all the questions. Of those who did, however, four of five clicked "agree" to the concept that research results should be freely available (see table). Two-thirds of commenters said they liked NIH’s implementation plan, which would require that NIH-funded investigators submit their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts to PubMedCentral, NIH’s free online full-text archive, for posting 6 months after publication. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, which represents libraries, urged NIH to resist pressure to extend the 6-month delay, arguing that taxpayers actually need "immediate access."
Some major scientific groups also offered a qualified endorsement. These include the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Association of American Universities. All three advised, however, that NIH make sure it replaces the accepted manuscript with the published version to avoid confusion. Other scientific societies, worried about the potential loss of income to sustain their activities, asked NIH to reconsider. AAAS, which publishes Science, urged NIH to "delay implementing any policy," while the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) said the plans were "unacceptable" and should be withdrawn. Three large patient organizations that also publish journals, the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and American Heart Association, said they support the "goal" but that NIH needs to "conduct an analysis" before moving forward. These groups and others question the need for the archive when many journals already make full text articles free after a delay. They also note that NIH has not explained its estimate that it would cost only $2 million to $4 million a year to post 60,000 to 65,000 papers. FASEB fears that the project "will reduce funding available for research."
AAAS and some other societies, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, are also worried about how PubMedCentral will deal with corrections, which are sometimes published months after the paper. And AAAS wonders how NIH would ensure that government officials or Congress don’t interfere with the posting of controversial papers.
Several societies and the Association of American Publishers, which has been lobbying Congress to stop the NIH plan, argue that tools for searching publishers’ own archives–such as Google–could accomplish the same goals. The proposal also raises legal issues such as copyright, argues the American Physiological Society.
Congress asked NIH to settle on a policy by 1 December. But NIH officials say they may need more time.
Science, Vol 306, Issue 5701, 1451, 26 November 2004
