Scholarly Communication at Texas A&M

Texas Senator John Cornyn is leading the Open Access movement all the way up to Capitol Hill. As a co-sponsor of the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), the Senator vigorously advocates for public access to the results of federally funded research.

In a letter this week to the University of North Texas, which just concluded a two-day Open Access Symposium, Senator Cornyn explained his rationale for sponsoring FRPAA:

Senator Cornyn adds that his proposed legislation “would require that 11 U.S. government agencies with annual extramural research expenditures over $100 million make manuscripts of journal articles stemming from research funded by that agency publicly available via the Internet.” The agencies that would be subject to open access requirements under the Federal Research Public Access Act include: 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 National Science Foundation.

Under FRPAA, each of these agencies would make the final manuscript of articles generated through the research they fund publicly available on the Internet. The manuscripts would be maintained and preserved in a digital archive, ensuring that taxpayer-funded research is readily available to the public.

Further information about the proposed legislation is available on the Web from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. Senator Cornyn’s website can be found at http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/.

A coalition of President, Provosts, and research Vice Presidents of 27 of US research universities and colleges has issued an open letter calling for greatly increased public access to the results of research funded by major federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The letter has been issued in support of the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), which is currently working its way through Congress. The letter notes that FRPAA “builds upon the success of the first U.S. policy for public access to publicly funded research — implemented in 2008 through the National Institutes of Health — and mirrors the intent of campus-based policies for research access that are being adopted by a growing number of public and private institutions across the nation. (more…)

EXPERT PANEL CALLS ON U.S. RESEARCH AGENCIES TO DEVELOP POLICIES FOR PROVIDING FREE PUBLIC ACCESS TO FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH RESULTS

Policies Should Protect Peer-Reviewed Publications While Ensuring Rapid Access

An expert panel of librarians, library scientists, publishers, and university academic leaders today called on federal agencies that fund research to develop and implement policies that ensure free public access to the results of the research they fund “as soon as possible after those results have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.”

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable was convened last summer by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Policymakers asked the group to examine the current state of scholarly publishing and seek consensus recommendations for expanding public access to scholarly journal articles.

The various communities represented in the Roundtable have been working to develop recommendations that would improve public access without curtailing the ability of the scientific publishing industry to publish peer-reviewed scientific articles. (more…)

Nobel Prize-winning scientists urge Congress to act to ensure free
online access to federally funded research results

Washington, DC – “For America to obtain an optimal return on our
investment in science, publicly funded research must be shared as
broadly as possible,” is the message that forty one Nobel Prize-
winning scientists in medicine, physics, and chemistry gave to
Congress in an open letter delivered yesterday. The letter marks the
fourth time in five years that leading scientists have called on
Congress to ensure free, timely access to the results of federally
funded research – this time asking leaders to support the Federal
Research Public Access Act of 2009 (S.1373). (more…)

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) uses taxpayer dollars to produce excellent reports on public policy issues ranging from foreign affairs, to agriculture, to health care. These reports are made accessible to Members of Congress and their staff through an internal system, and are never released to the public directly from the Congressional Research Service.  Bills to provide free online public access to CRS Reports have been introduced in the House (H.R. 3762) and the Senate (S. Res. 118). The House bill is currently pending before the Committee on House Administration; the Senate bill is awaiting action by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. (more…)