Category: Legislation and Government Regulation

Public Access to Public Science Act

The Public Access to Public Science Act has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) today introduced the Public Access to Public Science (PAPS) Act. This legislation would ensure public access to published materials concerning scientific research and development activities funded by federal science agencies, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Weather Service (NWS). An embargo period is included to help balance publishers' needs with public access goals. PAPS builds on efforts by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Read more about it at the Harvard Open Access Project's "Notes on the Public Access to Public Science Act."

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"Federal Research Data Requirements Set to Change"

Abigail Goben and Dorothea Salo have published "Federal Research Data Requirements Set to Change" in the latest issue of College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt from:

FERPA, HIPAA, FOIA, and other sunshine laws, National Science Foundation data-management plans—grant-funded research data has had compliance strings attached for some time. Attention to research data is now even more heightened following the responses of the federal agencies in August to the Obama Administration's Office for Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directive from February 2013.2 Research libraries will need to educate and partner with researchers to improve understanding and compliance, promote proper archiving of digital data, and expand discovery and reuse of research datasets

.

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Science-Metrix Releases Three Reports on Open Access

Science-Metrix has released three reports on open access: Proportion of Open Access Peer-Reviewed Papers at the European and World Levels—2004-2011, Open Data Access Policies and Strategies in the European Research Area and Beyond, and Open Access Strategies in the European Research Area.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The first report measures the availability of scholarly publications in 22 fields of knowledge across the European Research Area, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and the United States, between 2004 and 2011. . . .

The second report, focusing on open access policies, showed a growing trend in the adoption of such policies by governments and other funding bodies. . . .

The third report found that open access to scientific data is less developed and more difficult to implement than open access to scholarly publications, both in terms of policies and infrastructure.

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SPARC Call to Action for California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (AB 609)

SPARC has issued a call to action for the California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act (AB 609).

Here's an excerpt:

The California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Legislation (AB 609) was introduced into the California State Legislature in April of 2013 by Assembly Member Brian Nestande. On May 30th, AB 609 was passed by the California State Assembly by a wide, bipartisan 71-7 margin. It will be heard in the California State Senate Committee on Governmental Organization on Tuesday, May 25th at 9:30am PST.

If you are a California resident, visit our Legislative Action Center to write your state representatives in support of AB 609.

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"Expanded Public Access: A New Era with New Challenges"

The Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the Association of Research Libraries have released "Expanded Public Access: A New Era with New Challenges."

Here's an excerpt:

During a short six-month period, agencies will develop draft plans for how this long-term preservation and access will occur ["Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research"]. Research universities have a significant stake in the plans the Director ultimately approves—universities are responsible to federal research funding agencies for compliance with the regulations attendant to the grants received by their researchers. If we are faced with different deposit requirements for manuscripts and data by each of the 15 and possibly more agencies subject to the directive, the compliance bill could be very expensive and might not reflect the interests of the academy. Given that PubMed Central has established a useful model for deposit of and access to research manuscripts, we can hope that the example of good practice established by them will be drawn upon by other funding agencies as they establish their own public access policies, and that the resultant products interconnect across and between agencies and external stakeholders that promote effective, seamless public access.

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Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Bill Introduced

The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research bill has been introduced in the House and the Senate.

Here's an excerpt from Peter Suber's analysis how the bill compares to the Federal Research Public Access Act :

Here's how FASTR differs from FRPAA:

  • FASTR contains a provision on coordinating agency policies (4.a 2): "To the extent practicable, Federal agencies required to develop a policy…shall follow common procedures for the collection and depositing of research papers." This will reduce the burden on universities that need to comply with procedures at all the covered agencies, and should have no detrimental effect on OA. Indeed, it should improve compliance with agency OA policies.
  • FASTR contains three provisions calling for libre OA or open licensing:
    • FASTR includes a new "finding" in its preamble (2.3): "the United States has a substantial interest in maximizing the impact and utility of the research it funds by enabling a wide range of reuses of the peer-reviewed literature that reports the results of such research, including by enabling computational analysis by state-of-the-art technologies."
    • FASTR includes a formatting and licensing provision (4.b.5): the versions deposited in repositories and made OA shall be distributed "in formats and under terms that enable productive reuse, including computational analysis by state-of-the-art technologies."
    • FASTR requires that the annual report from each covered agency include a statement from the agency on "whether the terms of use applicable to such research papers are effective in enabling productive reuse and computational analysis by state-of-the-art technologies" (4.f.2.B.i) and the results of the agency's "examination of whether such research papers should include a royalty-free copyright license that is available to the public and that permits the reuse of those research papers, on the condition that attribution is given to the author or authors of the research and any others designated by the copyright owner" (4.f.2.B.ii).

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a call to action to support the bill.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography (paperback, PDF file, and XHTML website; over 1,100 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

"The U.S. Proposal for an Intellectual Property Chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement"

Sean M. Flynn et al. have self-archived "The U.S. Proposal for an Intellectual Property Chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Our ultimate conclusion is that the U.S. proposal, if adopted, would upset the current international framework balancing the interests of rights holders and the public. It would heighten standards of protection for rights holders well beyond that which the best available evidence or inclusive democratic processes support. It contains insufficient balancing provisions for users, consumers, and the public interest.

| Digital Scholarship's 2012 Publications | Digital Scholarship |

"Green or Gold? Open Access after Finch"

Martin Hall has published "Green or Gold? Open Access after Finch" in the latest issue of Insights.

Here's an excerpt:

he Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings reported to the UK's Minister of Universities and Science in mid-2012. This was followed by a new policy for open access (OA) publishing by Research Councils UK (RCUK) as well as a commitment from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to require that research submitted to future research evaluation exercises—after the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF)—be open access. These initiatives build on a broad consensus, that includes for-profit publishers, that open access is the way of the future. Here, I give a perspective on these issues, both as the head of an institution with particular interests in the future of scholarly publication and also as a member of the Working Group on Expanding Access. The continuing development of informed debate will be critical for the future of the scholarly publishing system.

Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography Cover

| Digital Scholarship |

Open Access: "The Rapid Rout of RWA"

Walt Crawford has published "The Rapid Rout of RWA" in the latest issue of Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt:

Seven weeks—from January 5, 2012 to February 27, 2012. That's all it took to get from AAP/PSP endorsing HR 3699, the Research Works Act, to Elsevier withdrawing its support and the bill disappearing. By today's legislative standards, it was all over before it started and scarcely worthy of a story here (except maybe a paragraph in The Back).

But it's not that simple, and I'd like to believe it's not really over—that this rapid rout is one in a series of events that will eventually change the landscape of scholarly publishing for the better. That makes the story worth telling. Well, that and my personal sense that it leads into a story that's not directly related but has similar resonances.

Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals Cover

| Digital Scholarship |

Research Councils UK Announces Open Access Funding Plan

The Research Councils UK has announced its open access funding plan.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Research Councils UK has today, 8th November, announced the details of the block grant funding mechanism that it is introducing to aid implementation of its policy on Open Access that was announced in July and is due to come into effect in April 2013. . . .

In the first year (2013/14), RCUK will provide funding to enable around 45% of Research Council funded research papers to be published using Gold Open Access growing to over 50% in the second year. By the fifth year (2017/18) funding is expected to be provided to enable approximately 75% of Research Council funded research papers to be published using Gold Open Access. The remaining 25% of Research Council funded papers, it is expected will be delivered via the Green Open Access model. The same compliance expectation applies to Research Council institutes, and separate funding arrangements are being put in place to facilitate this.

Universities will receive APC publication funding in proportion to the amount of direct labour costs awarded on grants that they have received over the three years from April 2009 to March 2012. Direct labour costs have been used as a proxy of research effort leading to the generation of publications.

Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography Cover

| Digital Scholarship |

Report of the ARL Joint Task Force on Services to Patrons with Print Disabilities

The Association of Research Libraries has released the Report of the ARL Joint Task Force on Services to Patrons with Print Disabilities.

Here's an excerpt from:

This ARL task force report highlights emerging and promising strategies to better align research libraries with other institutional and related partners in ensuring accessibility to research resources while fully meeting legal requirements. The report addresses the technological, service, and legal factors relating to a variety of information resources with respect to print disability. These factors resonate closely with the existing research library agenda to make scholarly communication more open, to foster independence among its user base by teaching information literacy, to honor and invest in diversity, as well as to focus on the growing trend toward universal design in instruction.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

European Parliament Passes Orphan Works Bill

The European Parliament has passed an orphan works bill.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Under the new rules, a work would be deemed to be "orphan" if a "diligent" search made in good faith failed to identify or locate the copyright holder. The legislation lays down criteria for carrying out such searches.

Works granted orphan status would be then be made public, for non-profit purposes only, through digitisation. A work deemed to be "orphan" in any one Member State would then qualify as "orphan" throughout the EU. This would apply to any audiovisual or printed material, including a photograph or an illustration embedded in a book, published or broadcast in any EU country.

MEPs agreed that the right holder should be entitled to put an end to the orphan status of a work at any time and claim appropriate compensation for the use made of it.

They nonetheless inserted a provision to protect public institutions from the risk of having to pay large sums to authors who show up later.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

DOJ Settlement with Sacramento Public Library about Alleged ADA Violations in Its E-Reader Loan Program

The Justice Department and the National Federation of the Blind have reached a settlement with the Sacramento Public Library about alleged ADA violations in its e-reader loan program.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Justice Department announced today that it and the National Federation of the Blind have reached a settlement with the Sacramento Public Library Authority in Sacramento, Calif., to remedy alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The agreement resolves allegations that the library violated the ADA by using inaccessible Barnes & Noble NOOK electronic reader devices in a patron lending program.

Under the settlement agreement, the library will not acquire any additional e-readers for patron use that exclude persons who are blind or others with disabilities who need accessible features such as text-to-speech functions or the ability to access menus through audio or tactile options. The library has also agreed to acquire at least 18 e-readers that are accessible to persons with disabilities. The settlement agreement also requires the library to train its staff on the requirements of the ADA.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Five Research Councils in Denmark Adopt Open Access Policy

Five research councils in Denmark (the Danish Council for Technology and Innovation, the Danish Council for Independent Research, the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, the The Danish National Research Foundation, and the Danish Council for Strategic Research) have adopted an open access policy.

Peter Suber has provided a Google translation of the policy.

Read more about it at "Researchers' Results to Be Free for All."

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Network Neutrality and Quality of Service: What a Non-Discrimination Rule Should Look Like

The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School has released Network Neutrality and Quality of Service: What a Non-Discrimination Rule Should Look Like.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This paper proposes a framework that policy makers and others can use to choose among different options for network neutrality rules and uses this framework to evaluate existing proposals for non-discrimination rules and the non-discrimination rule adopted by the FCC in its Open Internet Order. In the process, it explains how the different non-discrimination rules affect network providers' ability to offer Quality of Service and which forms of Quality of Service, if any, a non-discrimination rule should allow.

| Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications | Digital Scholarship |

ALA Action Alert: Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act of 2011

The American Library Association has issued an action alert regarding the Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act of 2011.

Here's an excerpt:

Please call and ask your U.S. Representative to OPPOSE H.R. 3523, The Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 or CISPA, one of several bills to be considered in the U.S. House of Representatives during "Cybersecurity Week" starting April 23, 2012.

ALA is concerned that essentially all private electronic communications could be obtained by the government and used for many purposes—and not just for cybersecurity activities. H.R. 3523 would permit, even require ISPs and other entities to monitor all electronic communications and share personal information with the government without effective oversight just by claiming the sharing is for "cybersecurity purposes"

| Digital Scholarship |

"FPRAA Takes Center Stage at Congressional Hearing"

In "FPRAA Takes Center Stage at Congressional Hearing, Andrea Higginbotham summarizes the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight’s recent hearing on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests.

The hearing also featured testimonies from two members of scholarly societies—Fred Dylla (the American Institute of Physics), and Crispin Taylor (the American Society of Plant Biologists) who expressed concerns with various components of FRPAA. They argued that the current system is working well, and worried that their societies—which are currently funded almost entirely from revenue from subscription based publications—would see a significant decrease in revenue if FRPAA were to be enacted. . . .

Dr. Stuart Shieber, Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication at Harvard University, argued that open access to research is an intrinsic public good. He quoted Thomas Jefferson, noting "the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people."

Shieber suggested that traditional publishing market is a dysfunctional one—library budgets for serials continue to shrink while journal profit margins increase. He spoke to the growing body of research demonstrating the economic growth occurs from increased innovations from openly accessible research. He discussed several forward-thinking open access publishing models, and focused on the need for policies that facilitate full utility of digital information in order to enable scholarship and research.

Read more about it at the previous DigitalKoans post, "House Hearing on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests" (lists testimony and other documents from the hearing).

Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This bibliography is recommended for everyone interested in open access publishing." — M. Blobaum, Journal of the Medical Library Association 100, no. 1 (2012): 73.

House Hearing on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests

The House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight held a hearing today on Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests.

Here are the documents that have been released for this hearing:

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |

Federal Research Public Access Act Gains 24 New Co-sponsors

The Federal Research Public Access Act has gained 24 new bipartisan co-sponsors.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The new co-sponsors. . . join the bill's original sponsors, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO) and Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS). These new supporters reflect the consistently broad and bi-partisan appeal of this policy, which would ensure that taxpayers are guaranteed free, online access to articles reporting on the results research that their tax dollars have funded.

This issue was explored in depth at a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday, hosted by the office of Rep. Mike Doyle. The briefing featured two expert speakers. First, Dr. Neil Thakur, Special Assistant to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Deputy Director for Extramural Research and Program Manager for the NIH Public Access Policy, presented a thorough view of that agency's experience with their landmark Public Access policy. He noted that the NIH considers public access as central to their mission, and as a critical component in ensuring that the public's investment in NIH-funded research is leveraged to its fullest.

He was followed by Elliot Maxwell, Program Director of the Digital Connections Council of the Committee for Economic Development and author of the recent Kaufman Foundation for Entrepreneurship-funded report, "The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?" Maxwell presented a synopsis of the report focusing on the potential impacts of expanding the NIH Policy to other U.S. Federal science agencies. He explored the potential benefits this expansion might have on scientific productivity, economic growth, innovation and national competitiveness.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Fresh from Research Works Act Defeat, Association of American Publishers and Other Publishers Oppose Federal Research Public Access Act

Eighty-one publishers have sent a letter to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Senator Susan M. Collins, and other legislators opposing the Federal Research Public Access Act.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The 81 signatories' main points of opposition to FRPAA are:

  • It requires that final manuscripts of researchers' journal articles that explain, interpret and extensively report the results of federally-funded research—manuscripts which have undergone publishers' validation, digital enhancement, production, interoperability and distribution processes—be publicly available online, worldwide, no more than six months after publication.
  • The one-size-fits-all six-month deadline for every federal agency that funds research ignores well-known significant differences in how each research discipline discovers and uses individual articles, periods that can last several years before costs are recovered.
  • It limits where government-funded researchers may publish their work.
  • It undermines publishers' investments in new business models that currently provide unprecedented access for the public to such works for free or at modest cost.
  • At a time when Congress is looking to cut unnecessary expenses in federal government and focus budgets on priorities, FRPAA imposes additional costs on all federal agencies by requiring them to divert critical research funding to the creation and management of new databases, archives and infrastructure to handle dissemination of these articles—functions already being performed by private-sector publishers.

The signatories are:

  • AACC International
  • Acoustical Society of America
  • American Association for Cancer Research
  • American Association for Clinical Chemistry
  • American Association of Anatomists
  • American Association of Immunologists
  • American Association of Physicists in Medicine
  • American Association of Physics Teachers
  • American Astronomical Society
  • The American Ceramic Society
  • American Chemical Society
  • American College of Chest Physicians
  • American College of Physicians
  • American Dental Association
  • American Fisheries Society
  • American Geophysical Union
  • American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
  • American Institute of Biological Sciences
  • American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
  • American Institute of Physics Publishing
  • American Mathematical Society
  • American Meteorological Society
  • American Physiological Society
  • American Phytopathological Society
  • American Psychiatric Publishing
  • American Psychological Association
  • American Public Health Association
  • American Roentgen Ray Society
  • American Society for Investigative Pathology
  • American Society for Nutrition
  • American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
  • American Society of Agronomy
  • American Society of Animal Science
  • American Society of Clinical Oncology
  • American Society of Hematology
  • American Society of Plant Biologists
  • APMI International
  • ARVO—Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
  • ASQ—American Society for Quality
  • Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP)
  • AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing
  • Biophysical Society
  • Cambridge University Press
  • Crop Science Society of America
  • Ecological Society of America
  • Elsevier
  • The Endocrine Society
  • Entomological Society of America
  • F.A. Davis Company
  • GeoScienceWorld
  • Gival Press LLC
  • The Histochemical Society
  • Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
  • IEEE
  • Institute of Food Technologists
  • International and American Associations for Dental Research
  • International Association for the Study of Pain
  • John Wiley & Sons
  • Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.
  • The McGraw-Hill Companies
  • Mycological Society of America
  • National Ground Water Association
  • The Optical Society
  • The Ornithological Council
  • The Physiological Society
  • Poultry Science Association
  • The Professional Animal Scientist
  • The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA)
  • SAE International
  • Seismological Society of America
  • SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology
  • Silverchair Science+Communications, Inc.
  • Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine
  • Society for the Study of Reproduction
  • Society of Economic Geologists, Inc.
  • Soil Science Society of America
  • Springer Publishing Company
  • Taylor & Francis
  • Thieme Publishers
  • University of the Basque Country Press
  • Walters Kluwer

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship |

"A Tale of Two Bills: The Research Works Act and Federal Research Public Access Act"

Peter Suber has published "A Tale of Two Bills: The Research Works Act and Federal Research Public Access Act" in the latest issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

Here's an excerpt:

(1) The Research Works Act (RWA)

The RWA is now dead, withdrawn by its Congressional sponsors and chief lobbyist-supporter. But here's a biography and obituary. . . .

(2) The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA)

(2.1) FRPAA would strengthen the OA mandate at the NIH, by reducing the maximum embargo to six months, and then extend the strengthened policy to all the major agencies of the federal government. In that sense, it's the opposite of the RWA. . . .

(2.2) FRPAA uses the term "free online public access" without definition. But for convenience I'll say here that FRPAA requires "OA".

It requires agencies to come up with their own OA policies within the general guidelines laid down in the bill. It's not a one-size-fits-all solution and agencies are free to differ on the details. If the bill passes, they'll have one year to develop their policies (Section 4.a).

But agencies must mandate OA to agency-funded research. The must mandate OA "as soon as practicable" after publication (4.b.4), but no later than six months after publication. The guidelines do not stipulate the timing of deposits, only the timing of OA. For researchers employed and not merely funded by the federal government, FRPAA allows no embargo at all (4.c.2).

Like the NIH policy, FRPAA applies to the authors' peer-reviewed manuscripts (4.b.2), not to the published editions of their articles. Like the NIH policy, it allows consenting publishers to replace the peer-reviewed manuscripts with the published editions (4.b.3). It does not apply to classified research or royalty-producing work such as books (4.d.3). It also exempts patentable discoveries, but only "to the extent necessary to protect a…patent" (4.d.3).

Unlike the NIH policy, FRPAA doesn't specify the OA repository in which authors must deposit their manuscripts, the way the NIH specifies PubMed Central. Agencies could host their own repositories or make use of existing repositories, including the institutional repositories of their researchers. FRPAA only requires that the repositories meet certain conditions of OA, interoperability, and long-term preservation (4.b.6).

FRPAA and the NIH policy differ slightly in how they secure permission for the mandated OA. The NIH requires grantees to retain the non-exclusive right to authorize OA through PubMed Central. If a given publisher is not willing to allow OA on the NIH's terms, then grantees must look for another publisher. FRPAA requires agencies to "make effective use of any law or guidance relating to the creation and reservation of a Government license that provides for the reproduction, publication, release, or other uses of a final manuscript for Federal purposes" (4.c.3). The FRPAA approach gives agencies more flexibility. Agencies may use the battle-tested NIH method if they wish. They may use a federal-purpose license such as that codified in 2 CFR 215.36(a) (January 2005) if they wish. Or they may make use of "any [other] law or guidance" that would be "effective" in steering clear of infringement.

FRPAA does not amend copyright or patent law (4.e).

FRPAA applies to all unclassified research funded in whole or part (4.b.1) by agencies whose budgets for extramural research are $100 million/year or more (4.a). This includes the Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

The House and Senate versions of the bill are identical. FRPAA was introduced twice before (in 2006 and 2009-10), and is essentially identical to both previous versions. . . .

(2.8) Will FRPAA pass?

We don't know, of course. Several factors weigh against it: This is an election year. Congress is as gridlocked and incapacitated as it has ever been, even for legislation with bipartisan support. Many policy issues have a higher priority in Congress than OA.

But several factors boost its chances. This is FRPAA's third time around, and the first two times did a lot of the hard work in educating policy-makers about the issues. The first two times around also gathered some significant endorsements, for example, more than 120 US college and university presidents and provosts, 41 Nobel laureates, major library and public-interest organizations, and at least two non-academic, business-oriented organizations, NetCoalition and the Committee for Economic Development. The White House RFI responses are generally stronger than FRPAA; they're already public and may soon appear in Interagency Working Group reports and White House action.

Finally we can't overlook the RWA shipwreck and the rising tide that beached it. The same forces that brought down RWA are now refocusing on raising up FRPAA. The same forces that protect the NIH policy from repeal now want to see it strengthened and extended to other agencies. The Congressional offices which have begun to understand the issues are heartily tired of publisher misrepresentations.

The RWA, COMPETES Act, FRPAA, and the White House RFI can be put in roughly this order: anti, weak, strong, and stronger. Subtract anti and what do you have? Unambiguous good news. Only time will tell how good it is. And that's where you come in.

| Digital Scholarship |

The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?

The Committee for Economic Development has released The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?.

Here's an excerpt:

This report builds upon that earlier work and delves deeper into the relationship between the traditional means of providing access to federally funded scientific research and the benefits that can be derived from providing greater public access to it. As with virtually any public policy, the benefits and costs of providing public access to federally funded research fall unevenly on different members of society. We find, however, that because public-access policies that make research more open result in accelerated progress in science and faster economic growth, the net societal benefits far outweigh their limited costs.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Call to Action: Support the Federal Research Public Access Act (H.R. 4004 and S. 2096)

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access, whose numerous members include the American Library Association and the Association of College & Research Libraries, has issued a call to action for support of the Federal Research Public Access Act (H.R. 4004 and S. 2096).

Here's an excerpt:

Today (February 9, 2012), Senators Cornyn (R-TX), Wyden (D-OR), and Hutchison (R-TX) and Representatives Doyle (D-PA), Yoder (R-KS), and Clay (D-MO) introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act, a bill that would ensure free, timely, online access to the published results of research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies.

We currently have a unique opportunity to create change. The Research Works Act, a piece of legislation introduced in December that would ban the government from providing the public access to publicly funded research, has galvanized the research community into acting against practices that restrict access to research articles—reaching the pages of the Economist, the New York Times, Wired, the Guardian, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and many other outlets. . . .

Let Congress know you support FRPAA

With reinvigorated support from the research community and attention from the mainstream media, now is the time to push for this groundbreaking legislation and let Congress know that students—and the rest of the public—deserve access to the research which they paid for and upon which their education depends. . . .

Raise awareness of and build support for FRPAA

  • Sign the ATA Petition in support of FRPAA. Click here to view signatories of the petition. . . .
  • Tweet at or post of the Facebook wall of your legislators to ask them to support and co-sponsor FRPAA; or, if they're already a sponsor, thank them for their leadership. . . .

Background. . . .

Now before both the House of Representatives and the Senate, FRPAA would require those agencies with annual extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with online access to research manuscripts stemming from such funding no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The bill gives individual agencies flexibility in choosing the location of the digital repository to house this content, as long as the repositories meet conditions for interoperability and public accessibility, and have provisions for long-term archiving.

The bill specifically covers unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

Further information: "SPARC FAQ for University Administrators and Faculty FRPAA 2012" and "Support FRPAA Banners."

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Open Access: Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012

Representative Mike Doyle (D-PA) and others have introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012 in the House. The bill has also been introduced in the Senate.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Federal Research Public Access Act would require federal agencies with an extramural research budget of $100 million or more to make federally-funded research available for free online access by the general public, no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The Federal Research Public Access Act would:

  • Require federal departments and agencies with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million or more, whether funded totally or partially by a government department or agency, to submit an electronic copy of the final manuscript that has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Ensure that the manuscript is preserved in a stable digital repository maintained by that agency or in another suitable repository that permits free public access, interoperability, and long-term preservation.
  • Require that each taxpayer-funded manuscript be made available to the public online and without cost, no later than six months after the article has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"The Influence of the National Institutes of Health Public-Access Policy on the Publishing Habits of Principal Investigators"

Nancy Pontika has released her doctoral dissertation, "The Influence of the National Institutes of Health Public-Access Policy on the Publishing Habits of Principal Investigators."

Here's an excerpt:

The NIH public-access policy did not cause either an increase in the PIs' open-access awareness or a change in their publishing habits. The open-access advocates were supporters of the immediate free access to scientific information before the policy and provided their manuscripts free-of-cost before the policy’s mandate. The non-open-access advocates choose their publications based on quality criteria such as the journal’s prestige, impact factor, speed of publication and the attracted audience, while the article’s open-access availability is considered to be a plus. Furthermore, since a large number of journals comply with the NIH-policy, the participants did not have to change their publishing habits.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |