Transitions

November 2007
Issue 4.07

Welcome to the November issue of Transitions.

The purpose of this irregular electronic newsletter is to bring to readers’ attention some of the many new projects and developments affecting the current system of scholarly communication, with emphasis on new products and programs, the open access movement and other alternative publishing models. Scholarly communication refers to the full range of formal and informal means by which scholars and researchers communicate, from email discussion lists to peer-reviewed publication. In general authors are seeking to document and share new discoveries with their colleagues, while readers–researchers, students, librarians and others–want access to all the literature relevant to their work.

While the system of scholarly communication exists for the benefit of the world’s research and educational community and the public at large, it faces a multitude of challenges and is undergoing rapid change brought on by technology. To help interested members of the UI community keep up on these challenges and changes we plan to put out 4-6 issues per year of this newsletter.

This newsletter aims to reflect the interests of its readers so please forward comments, suggestions and entries to include to karen-fischer@uiowa.edu. Also, read the health sciences counterpart to Transitions: Hardin Scholarly Communication News.

Table of Contents:

U of Iowa Faculty Senate Approves Author’s Addendum for Publishing Agreements
So Close, Yet Still so Far? Bill Containing NIH Public Access Provision Is Vetoed
ACS editor makes the case for ACS Author Choice program
Decision to Disclose Information Can Enter Gray Area
First articles from PhysMath Central
Max Planck Society Cancels Licensing Agreement with Springer
Retaining Copyrights to Increase Research Impact: Online Tutorial
Copyright Crash Course
U of Michigan Press Keeps Link to Controversial Publisher
Washington University Revises Author’s Addendum
Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access
Pleiades: Lots of Ancient Geodata Released!

The University of Iowa Faculty Senate Approved the “Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors” at their October 23, 2007 meeting. This addendum is intended for authors to use to help them protect their intellectual property rights when publishing their work.

Excerpt from the “Statement on Publishing Agreements”:

Faculty authors should consider a number of factors when choosing and interacting with publishers for their works. The goal of publication should be to encourage widespread dissemination and impact; the means for accomplishing this will necessarily depend on the nature of the work in question, the author’s circumstances, available suitable outlets, and expectations in the author’s field of inquiry. In general, authors are encouraged to consider publishing strategies that will optimize short- and long-term access to their work, taking into account such factors as affordability, efficient means for distribution, a secure third-party archiving strategy, and flexible management of rights.

To read more of the statement and view the addendum, visit the full Statement and Addendum.

President Bush this week vetoed the recently passed Labor, Health and Human Services (LSSA) domestic spending bill. It contained a mandatory public access policy for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While an override vote has yet to be scheduled, the bill passed in both chambers just shy of the two-thirds majorities needed, making an override highly unlikely.

The veto means publishers opposed to the public access policy are likely to get one more shot to try to remove or amend the policy during negotiations. Although the bill was vetoed for its overall spending, the White House’s “Statement of Administration Policy” (SAP) memo “noted” that any NIH policy “should balance the benefit of public access to taxpayer supported research against the possible impact that grant conditions could have on scientific research publishing, scientific peer review and on the United States’ longstanding leadership in upholding strong standards of protection for intellectual property.” That mention suggests those opposed to the policy could have another, albeit remote, opportunity to revise or slash the policy. Supporters say that heavy bipartisan support for the policy suggest it will survive intact, though advocates for the policy are urging supporters to contact their representatives.

The NIH public access policy, strongly supported by libraries for years, would require researchers to deposit their final articles in the NIH’s PubMed Central database to be made freely available within a year as a condition of grant funding.

Library Journal Academic Newswire, Nov. 15, 2007

Related article:
Bush Vetos Bill that Contains NIH Open Access Mandate - but there is hope it will eventually pass!

President Bush has vetoed the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill, which contained the NIH open access mandate.

Here’s the open access mandate in the bill:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

However, there is still hope for the Bill to pass. Read Peter Suber’s analysis of the President’s veto:

* First, don’t panic. This has been expected for months and the fight is not over. Here’s a reminder from my November newsletter: “There are two reasons not to despair if President Bush vetoes the LHHS appropriations bill later this month. If Congress overrides the veto, then the OA mandate language will become law. Just like that. If Congress fails to override the veto, and modifies the LHHS appropriation instead, then the OA mandate is likely to survive intact.” (See the rest of the newsletter for details on both possibilities.)
* Also expected: Bush vetoed the bill for spending more than he wants to spend, not for its OA provision.
* Second, it’s time for US citizens to contact their Congressional delegations again. This time around, contact your Representative in the House as well as your two Senators. The message is: vote yes on an override of the President’s veto of the LHHS appropriations bill. (Note that the LHHS appropriations bill contains much more than the provision mandating OA at the NIH.)
* The override votes—one in each chamber—haven’t yet been scheduled. They may come this week or they may be delayed until after Thanksgiving. But they will come and it’s not too early to contact your Congressional delegation. For the contact info for your representatives (phone, email, fax, local offices), see CongressMerge.
* Please spread the word!

From:DigitalKoans, Nov. 13, 2007

News Release from October 24th, when the US Senate Approved the Bill

Full U.S. Senate Approves Bill Containing Support for Access To Taxpayer-Funded Research

Washington, D.C. – October 24, 2007 - The U.S. Senate last night approved the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill (S.1710), including a provision that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its Public Access Policy by requiring rather than requesting participation by researchers. The bill will now be reconciled with the House Appropriations Bill, which contains a similar provision, in another step toward support for public access to publicly funded research becoming United States law.

“Last night’s Senate action is a milestone victory for public access to taxpayer-funded research,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a founding member of the ATA). “This policy sets the stage for researchers, patients, and the general public to benefit in new and important ways from our collective investment in the critical biomedical research conducted by the NIH.”

Under a mandatory policy, NIH-funded researchers will be required to deposit copies of eligible manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine’s online database, PubMed Central. Articles will be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The current NIH Public Access Policy, first implemented in 2005, is a voluntary measure and has resulted in a deposit rate of less than 5% by individual investigators. The advance to a mandatory policy is the result of more than two years of monitoring and evaluation by the NIH, Congress, and the community.

“We thank our Senators for taking action on this important issue,” said Pat Furlong, Founding President and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy. “This level of access to NIH-funded research will impact the disease process in novel ways, improving the ability of scientists to advance therapies and enabling patients and their advocates to participate more effectively. The advance is timely, much-needed, and – we anticipate – an indication of increasingly enhanced access in future.”

“American businesses will benefit tremendously from improved access to NIH research,” said William Kovacs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. “The Chamber encourages the free and timely dissemination of scientific knowledge produced by the NIH as it will improve both the public and industry’s ability to become better informed on developments that impact them – and on opportunities for innovation.” The Chamber is the world’s largest business federation, representing more than three million businesses of every size, sector, and region.

“We welcome the NIH policy being made mandatory and thank Congress for backing this important step,” said Gary Ward, Treasurer of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). “Free and timely public access to scientific literature is necessary to ensure that new discoveries are made as quickly as feasible. It’s the right thing to do, given that taxpayers fund this research.” The ASCB represents 11,000 members and publishes the highly ranked peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Joseph added, “On behalf of the taxpayers, patients, researchers, students, libraries, universities, and businesses that pressed this bill forward with their support over the past two years, the ATA thanks Congress for throwing its weight behind the success of taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded research.”

Negotiators from the House and Senate are expected to meet to reconcile their respective bills this fall. The final, consolidated bill will have to pass the House and the Senate before being delivered to the President at the end of the year.

http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/media/release07-1024.html

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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.

Lawrence J. Marnett, AuthorChoice: A Great Way to Get Your Papers Read, Chemical Research in Toxicology, September 17, 2007. An editorial. Excerpt:

The American Chemical Society instituted a new program last fall called ACS AuthorChoice, which enables authors to purchase immediate and permanent Open Access status for their accepted manuscripts in ACS journals. Pricing is on a sliding scale, depending on whether the author is an ACS member and/or is affiliated with an institution that has a site license to ACS journals. The highest price is $3000, and the lowest price is $1000. ACS AuthorChoice is the Society’s response to the Open Access movement, which has been the subject of much sound and fury over the past few years….

The Society is blending its conventional subscription revenue with a small amount of AuthorChoice revenue (at least at the outset) to offset the cost of peer review and publication. The solid institutional subscription base for ACS journal publications has enabled the Society to institute the very reasonable rates noted above ($1000 for an ACS member at a subscribing institution).

So how is the experiment going? It’s a little early to tell, but some very interesting data have already been generated. So far, there aren’t many ACS AuthorChoice logos sprinkled around the tables of contents of ACS journals (all ACS AuthorChoice articles are available [here]). So, at first glance, it looks as though our authors aren’t too committed to Open Access, at least when they have to pay for it. If that is true, it’s too bad, but even if it is true, I think authors should reconsider because they are missing an important point.

Why do authors publish papers? So people will read them, and ACS AuthorChoice is a great way to get them read! I’ve published five articles via ACS AuthorChoice since last October and have been monitoring the downloads in consultation with ACS staff. It’s too early to determine statistical significance, but so far, the trends look very good. In fact, the first article that I published as an ACS AuthorChoice article (in October 2006) ranks as one of the top downloaded articles in CRT for 2007….

I am planning to make all of my publications in ACS journals AuthorChoice —It’s a no-brainer. If my papers are downloaded more, they will be read more and will be cited more….Frankly, the cost of publishing an article as ACS AuthorChoice is a real bargain and a good reason to join the ACS. One-thousand dollars is trivial as compared to the cost of conducting the research that we are reporting….Because ACS doesn’t charge an author ANYTHING to publish in its journals, the ACS AuthorChoice charge is all one has to pay, and one can forget about reprints. That is a deal that is hard to beat.

There is another subtle point about ACS AuthorChoice of which authors need to be aware. Designating an article ACS AuthorChoice means that it is freely downloadable as soon as it is mounted on the web, and with ASAP publishing, this is often several weeks before the print version appears….This suggests that the ACS AuthorChoice model may provide higher “impact value” for authors than the delayed free access that other societies offer. So, I congratulate ACS Publications for listening to its editors and authors and for formulating a realistic policy to Open Access that accomplishes the most fundamental goal of journal publishing —getting articles read!

Edward Lotterman, Decision to disclose information can enter gray area, TwinCities.com, October 24, 2007. Excerpt:

NASA made news this week when it was reported the agency had conducted a major study of aviation safety, interviewing over 20,000 pilots, and then sat on the data. An official defended that decision because the findings could damage the public’s confidence in airlines and affect airline profits, according to an Associated Press story.

Similarly, the Minnesota Department of Health recently sat on information about deaths of mining workers from mesothelioma. Then-Commissioner Dianne Mandernach said the delay in releasing the data was necessary while the department designed a research program to study them.

The question of what information should be available to whom - and when - is a knotty one. Information is valuable to an economy. More information generally lets people and businesses make better decisions. Markets function more efficiently when information is plentiful for buyers and sellers than when it is scarce.

However, personal privacy rights and legitimate needs of business confidentiality dictate that much government information be withheld from the public….

In both the NASA and state Health Department cases, an administrator decided that because the pubic might not interpret information correctly, it should not be released at all. This is patronizing to the public. Mining workers exposed to asbestos can make better decisions about their own health care if they know the full risk of their past exposure. The public can make better decisions about flying if they have more information about safety. If there are serious concerns about data being misleading, that can be addressed when the data are released.

Moreover, public disclosure of data allows others to analyze them. They can announce findings that confirm, refute or alter initial impressions created by the raw data. Open access to data that permits others to replicate research is a key aspect of modern science….

PMC Physics A has published its first articles. It’s the first journal from PhysMath Central, the OA spinoff of BioMed Central. From the announcement:

PhysMath Central, BioMed Central’s open access publishing platform for the fields of physics, mathematics and computer science, today announced that PMC Physics A, the first PhysMath Central journal, has published its first research articles. The articles included a groundbreaking study that could change the way physicists understand dark matter….

PhysMath Central also announces that its second journal, PMC Physics B will be edited jointly by Prof. Peter Hatton, Professor of Physics, Durham University, and Prof. Steve Buckman of Australian National University. The new journal will focus on condensed matter and atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics.

“This is exciting news for us as we continue our aim of bringing new open access journals to all areas of physics,” said Chris Leonard, associate publisher, PhysMath Central….

Launched to meet the increasing need for open access journals from major research institutes (such as CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research) and other funding organizations and government bodies, PhysMath Central seeks to make research in physics, mathematics and computer science more widely available and increase access to this research to all institutes and individuals, free of subscription charges….

from Open Access News by Peter Suber, Oct. 2, 2007

Press Release, October 18, 2007

Following difficult negotiations, the Max Planck Society has cancelled the licensing agreement it has had for many years with Springer Verlag.

The cancellation will take effect as of December 31, 2007. Negotiations failed because no agreement could be reached regarding an adequate ratio between price and long-term services. “Springer held to excessive demands right up until the end of the negotiations; that’s why the MPS has cancelled the agreement,” according to MPS Vice President Kurt Mehlhorn. An evaluation of usage statistics and comparisons with other important publishers made it clear Springer was demanding approximately double the price for the offered journals than the Max Planck Society regards as reasonable.

The current agreement allowed all Max Planck Institutes access to around 1,200 electronic scholarly journals published by Springer Verlag. The failure of the negotiations means Springer’s SpringerLink research interface can no longer be provided centrally for the Society’s Institutes. The Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Digital Library will develop strategies together with the Institute libraries most affected to secure the supply of essential contents on a cost-effective basis.

The failure of negotiations with Springer represents a watershed in the Society’s relationship with various globally-active scientific publishing houses. Extreme price developments in the supply of information, as well as usage restrictions, are prompting scientific organizations around the world to rethink their policies. From as early as 2003, the Max Planck Society initiated the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”, which is intended to promote greater open publication opportunities for publicly financed research.

Springer Verlag’s insistence on maintaining its negotiating position confirmed to the more than 240 scientific organizations around the world that have so far signed the “Berlin Declaration” how important their project is. What is certain is that very few publishing houses can afford to undermine the public’s interest in the broadest possible access to knowledge through excessive price structures. If publishers have the market power to effectively implement such prices and if legislators are unwilling to subject such inappropriate behavior to legal controls, the only way left open to science will be to take matters into their own hands.

Contact:

Dr. Ralf Schimmer
Max Planck Digital Library, Munich
Tel.: +49 89 38 602-255
Fax: +49 89 38 602-290
E-mail: schimmer@mpdl.mpg.de

[The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, operates 80 research institutes with more than 12,000 staff members and 9,000 Ph.D. students, post-docs, guest scientists and researchers, and student assistants. Read more about the organization at: http://www.mpg.de/english/aboutTheSociety/aboutUs/index.html]

A new MIT Libraries’ tutorial “Scholarly Publication and Copyright: Retaining Rights & Increasing the Impact of Research” is now available online, and it applicable to faculty at all universities.

* Part 1 focuses on how copyright law intersects with the publication process.

Download part 1 (5:38 min.)

* Part 2 reviews why you might want to retain rights when you publish and how you can do so.

Download Part 2 (9:47 min.)

* Part 3 provides information on increasing the impact of your research by making it available through open access channels.

Download Part 3 (8:55 min.)

Together, these three parts are intended to explain how copyright relates to publication agreements for research articles, and how authors can increase the impact of their work by negotiating to retain rights to post their articles on the web or reuse them in other ways.

This 3-part tutorial is also linked from MIT Libraries’ the scholarly publishing website, where these themes are developed in more depth.

MIT Library News, October 12th, 2007 by Ellen Duranceau

Georgia Harper has recently revised her web site Copyright Crash Course. Learn about copyright’s role in the flow of research and teaching, how to manage your own copyright (see Transitions entry about the CIC Author’s Addendum), your rights as a copyright holder, fair use and more….

The University of Michigan Press has faced intense criticism in the last two months for distributing a book — on behalf of a British publisher whose sales the Michigan press handles in the United States — that is highly critical of Israel. And that controversy led to a review of the relationship with the British publisher. But on Wednesday, Michigan announced that it was keeping its ties to Pluto Press and would continue to distribute its books. The case has been closely watched by academic publishers and others concerned with academic freedom, especially on the sensitive topic of criticism of Israel.

The controversy focused attention on a role played by many university presses in the United States as the American distributors for small European publishers that don’t have worldwide sales networks. Similarly, many American presses work with foreign publishers to act as their distributors abroad. Under these deals, the distributing presses don’t review (or endorse) the works that have been published by another press. And that was a key factor in the way Michigan described its decision to maintain ties to Pluto — that the relationship was one of commerce, not scholarship.

“Distribution agreements are undertaken strictly as business relationships and have historically been a small part of the UM Press’s business,” said a statement announcing the unanimous decision of the press board to maintain its relations with Pluto. “Currently, the press distributes for five publishers. As is the case with all such commercial arrangements, books distributed on behalf of clients are not edited, reviewed, or produced by the UM Press, and they do not bear the imprimatur of the press or of the University of Michigan.”

….Pluto Press is an independent publisher in Britain that publishes many books by and for academics with a leftist perspective. The book that set off the furor is Overcoming Zionism, which argues that the creation of Israel was a mistake and urges adoption of the “one state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Israelis and Palestinians would form a new country, without a Jewish character. The book was written by Joel Kovel, distinguished professor of social studies at Bard College. While the book is not online, an interview with Kovel in the magazine Briarpatch gives a sense of both the depth and tenor of his criticism of Israel.

When pro-Israel groups found out that the Michigan press was distributing Overcoming Zionism, numerous blog postings and letters to Michigan administrators demanded that distribution be halted. Michigan briefly did so, but then resumed distribution, citing issues of academic freedom and First Amendment protections. But at that time, the university press said it would review its relationship with Pluto. The press said that it would not have published the book, and that fact raised questions about the tie to the publisher that did.

Read on: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/25/pluto

Insidehighered.com, Oct. 25, 2007