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NIH Public Access

October 13, 2004

Questions & Answers

1. What is the NIH public access policy proposal?
The public access policy proposal requests NIH-supported investigators to provide the agency with electronic copies of scientific publications upon acceptance for publication if the research was supported in whole or in part by NIH funding. The policy will provide the public, who have invested substantially in NIH-supported research, with better access to NIH-funded research publications. This will be accomplished by establishing a comprehensive, searchable electronic archive of NIH-funded research publications, providing publicly available access to all.

2. Is the NIH draft public access policy a requirement?
No. It is a request to NIH funding recipients that will enable them also to meet and fulfill the existing requirement to provide one copy of each publication in the annual or final progress reports. Submission of electronic versions of final manuscripts will be monitored as part of the annual grant progress review and close-out process.

3. What is wrong with the current system?
The current system does not provide NIH with the stable archive of publications that it needs to manage its research portfolio and ensure the permanent preservation of these vital published findings. Nor does it provide the public with the ready access to these records that the draft public access policy is intended to give.

Currently, individuals who are not affiliated with an academic medical library or research hospital generally gain access to the peer-reviewed publications of NIH-funded scientists by visiting a medical library or by paying for a subscription to journals themselves. NIH's proposed public access policy would allow individuals to access the peer-reviewed and published scientific works of NIH-funded scientists through the internet and without a fee.

4. Why should there be a public resource of published peer-reviewed research findings of NIH-funded research?
The proposed NIH public access policy is intended to meet several important goals:

  • Creating a stable archive of peer-reviewed research publications to ensure the permanent preservation of these vital published findings;
  • Securing for NIH a searchable compendium of peer-reviewed research publications that the agency can use to manage its research portfolio and monitor scientific productivity; and
  • Giving the public better access to a time-delayed archive of published results of NIH-funded research.

5. Rather than archive manuscripts in NIH's PubMed Central, why not provide links to an entity such as "HighWire" which contains 650 journals? What about simply linking to another website?
Contrary to private sector databases, PubMed Central (PMC) is a permanent and stable archive of peer-reviewed research publications.

NIH's policy does not state that PMC, NIH's digital repository for biomedical and behavioral research, will be the sole repository for these manuscripts and publications. Others may also choose to post and/or archive them, subject to permission from any copyright holders.

6. How many publications are associated with NIH-supported research each year?
NIH funding contributed to research involved in an estimated 60,000 - 65,000 published papers in 2003. NIH developed this estimate by using information collected through the National Library of Medicine's MeSH-indexing process, a function supported by PubMed. Additional information on MeSH-indexing can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/.

7. What are NIH's Public Access operating costs likely to be?
For fiscal year 2005, NIH expects that operating costs will be about two million dollars and between two to four million dollars per year thereafter.

8. What role does NIH have in the current publishing process?
NIH supports the current publishing process by providing direct costs to its funded investigators for publication costs. In addition, NIH provides funds, through indirect costs, to institutions that use these funds for library journal subscriptions and site licenses. NIH also supports the current process by encouraging publication of NIH-supported original research in scientific journals.

9. Is the NIH mandating changes to science, medical, and technical publishing?
No. NIH is not proposing changes for publishing. The NIH has considered the wide range of issues related to public access to publications, and it is NIH’s intent that the policy will preserve the critical role of journals and publishers in peer review, editing, and scientific quality control processes. The NIH has established and intends to maintain a dialogue with publishers, investigators, representatives from scientific associations, and the public to help ensure that the quality and success of the current peer-review system is preserved.

10. What are the current time-to-access policies for science, medical, and technical journals?
There is a wide range of time-to-access policies within the publishing world. Some of the variables that affect time-to-access include differences among scientific fields (e.g., clinical vs. basic research) and variability in business models determined by a range of issues including number of article submissions, acceptance rate, subscription base, and many other factors. Examples include 7 journals with immediate free access, 23 journals with free access within 6 months, and more than 100 journals providing free access at 12 months.

11. What is the anticipated timeframe for providing the public with access to publications that have been submitted to the NIH by its investigators?
Currently, many journals provide free access to research papers after 6 months. After listening to the views of publishers, patient advocates, and scientists, the NIH draft policy requests that 6 months after an NIH-supported study is published, the publication be made available freely to the public through PubMed Central (PMC).

12. Will NIH’s draft public access policy harm scientific publishing?
At this time, NIH is not aware that there will be a substantial impact. For example, only a portion of articles published in scientific journals result from research funded by the NIH. As such, it is unlikely that scientists and libraries would use the draft public access policy in lieu of their journal subscriptions because they would only receive a fraction of the journal’s published literature through PubMed Central (PMC). An increasing number of journals already provide access to the published article immediately or within one year of the publication. Most of the highly cited journals provide some form of public access within this timeframe. Many publishers have apparently determined that public access after six months is a viable business option.

NIH is currently seeking comments on its draft policy, and we welcome comments on this issue. In addition, NIH is planning to conduct a study to evaluate the effects of this policy.

13. How much does it cost to publish a scientific article?
Publication costs have been reported to range from a few hundred dollars per article to several thousand dollars per article. For example, see the analysis in two reports commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, "An Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing" and "Costs and Business Models in Scientific Research Publishing" which may be found at: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtpubrepcos.html.

14. Can authors and journals continue to assert copyright in scientific publications resulting from NIH funding?
Yes. The proposed policy does not affect the ability to assert copyright. Funding recipients may continue to hold copyright in works resulting from NIH-funded research, and they may assign these rights to journals in accordance with current practice. Copyright holders may enforce these copyrights as before. A member of the public viewing or downloading a copyrighted document from PubMed Central (PMC) is subject to the same rights and restrictions as when copying an article from the library. For example, making a copy of an article for personal use is generally considered to be a "fair use" under copyright law. For uses that fall outside of the fair use principle, permission to reproduce copyrighted materials must be obtained directly from the copyright holders. PMC currently includes a copyright notice alerting the public to the rights of copyright holders and will continue to post this notice as it has done in the past.

15. What steps has NIH taken in order to solicit opinions from its stakeholders regarding this issue and will they have an opportunity to comment on the proposed NIH policy before it is made final?
The NIH Director, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., has held a series of discussion meetings to consider the opinions and concerns of representative groups. These include publishers, scientists, patient advocates, scientific associations, and other organizations. All of the meetings were open and were designed to ensure that in-depth discussions of stakeholder issues could occur. Invitations were extended to a broad base of participants to ensure adequate and balanced representation of opinions. In many cases, participants represented more than one stakeholder group, such as scientists who were also editors and reviewers of prestigious scientific journals.

The NIH intends to maintain this dialogue and encourages public comment
regarding its proposed public access policy. The policy was posted in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts on September 3, 2004, and in the Federal Register on September 17, 2004. Public comments on the draft policy are encouraged and will be accepted for 60 days from the date of publication of the policy in the Federal Register, which is until November 16, 2004. Comments on short term impacts and suggestions for mitigating these are especially welcome. We encourage that all comments be directed to the following NIH website: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/public_access/add.htm. As an alternative, comments may be submitted by email to the following address: PublicAccess@nih.gov or sent by mail to the following address: NIH Public Access Comments, National Institutes of Health, Office of Extramural Research, 6705 Rockledge Drive, Room 350, Bethesda, MD 20892-7963.

16. How is the potential impact on publishers being considered?
Through open meetings with publishers and a public comment period on the proposed policy, the NIH has established, and will continue, a dialogue with publishers to help ensure that their opinions and concerns are considered. The NIH recognizes that the rising global role and importance of the internet has caused many industries, including publishers of peer-reviewed scientific articles, to shift business practices to accommodate a changing world. Currently, a variety of business models exist within the publishing industry — some of which already involve immediate or delayed electronic access to published scientific works.

17. Are other funding organizations considering this issue?
Yes. Many other organizations and countries are considering the public access issue including France, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Wellcome Trust are on the record encouraging and supporting public access for their scientists.

18. Aren't scientific abstracts, which are currently freely available, sufficient? Why does the public need full text articles?
The public encompasses a wide array of individuals, ranging from the lay public and educators to health care providers. Many of these individuals require more information than is provided in an article summary and must gain access to the complete article. In addition, the goal is to establish and maintain a centralized, permanent archive of all scientific publications arising from NIH-funded research.

19. Will this policy be an added burden to NIH-supported investigators and research institutions?
Public access submissions will provide NIH-supported investigators with an alternate means by which they will meet and fulfill the requirement to provide one copy of each publication in their annual progress report. It is anticipated that investigators applying for new and competing renewal support from the NIH will also utilize this resource by providing links in their applications to their PubMed Central (PMC) archived information.

20. Is the NIH draft public access policy related to the public registration of clinical trials?
The policy does not influence whether or not a clinical trial is posted on clinicaltrials.gov. However, if it is an NIH-funded trial to test the effectiveness of a drug to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, it would likely be posted to clinicaltrials.gov, and a link would be provided to the full text of the article for the benefit of the public.

21. Will the draft public access policy apply to NIH-supported investigators in foreign countries? Will these investigators be able to access manuscripts and publications on PubMed Central (PMC)?
Yes. The policy is expected to apply to all NIH-funded investigators, including those in foreign countries

The PMC archive will be available through the Internet, so all investigators can access it in identical manner. NIH appreciates that the scientific community is truly global and interchange among scientists worldwide is essential for professional and scientific advancement. Thus, the policy will encourage the maximum availability of research publications to scientists worldwide.

22. Will the NIH draft public access policy harm the quality of peer review?
No. NIH does not anticipate that its policy will harm or otherwise affect the peer review process for scientific papers. The draft public access policy requests that NIH-funded investigators submit their final manuscripts after acceptance in a peer-reviewed journal.

NIH is aware of the importance of peer review as a hallmark of quality for journals. NIH also knows that publication in peer-reviewed journals is a major factor in determining the professional standing of scientists, and in making hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions. These important corollary benefits of peer review will not be affected by the draft public access policy, as the policy preserves and relies on the peer review process.

 

This page was last reviewed on October 28, 2004 .

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