Scholarly Communication at Texas A&M

In 2008, the US National Institutes of Health established their Public Access Policy to ensure public access to the published results of NIH-funded research. The “NIH Mandate” requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central.

Now the Obama Administration is initiating a process to consider broadening public access to *all* federally funded research. The President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has just launched a “Public Forum on How Best to Make Federally Funded Research Results Available For Free”. According to the OSTP announcement, the aim of this interactive, online discussion forum is:

to invite public participation in thinking through what the Federal government’s policy should be with regard to public access to published federally-funded research results.

The managed online discussion will take place in three phases, organized by topic/issue.

1. The first phase (Dec. 10 to 20), is focused on “Implementation” and will consider such questions as “Which Federal agencies are good candidates to adopt Public Access policies?” “What is a reasonable time period to allow between publication of research results and its free online availability to the public?”
2. The second phase (Dec. 21 to Dec 31) will focus on “Features and Technology” will consider the mechanical aspects of making federal research data available (Librarians, data managers and other information professionals, take note!). Discussion is expected to center on such topics as which information formats will best facilitate search and retrieval by the public, and allow others to link to it? Are there existing digital standards for archiving and interoperability to maximize public benefit?
3. The third phase of the forum process (Jan. 1 to Jan. 7) will address “Management” will address such policy and social questions as: What are the best mechanisms to ensure compliance? What would be the best metrics of success? Should those who access papers be given the opportunity to comment or provide feedback?

Making all US publicly funded research freely accessible online has numerous benefits, not just for the higher education and research communities, but for society as a whole. Free public access to federally funded research ensures that all citizens, not just those who can afford to subscribe to the scientific and scholalry literature, will be able to learn from and apply the knowledge created with the support of public tax dollars. It also ensures that all scientists and scholars, regardless of institutional or national resources, will be able to read, evaluate, apply, adapt and improve upon the results of federally funded US research, fueling yet more discoveries and advances that can benefit the public that funded them.

Additional information about the OSTP Forum on “How Best to Make Federally Funded Research Results Available For Free” can be found at their blog.

Harvard, Yale, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, Oregon Health & Science University, and Boston University will release a statement today that will guide how drugs developed by scientists at the schools are licensed to companies. The six schools committed to a statement that calls on the institutions to “make ‘vigorous efforts’ to promote global access to drugs through licensing strategies.” An international student group called Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, supported by the New York-based Ford Foundation, has been asking schools for about seven years to help broaden access to drugs. Students at Harvard organized protests and gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition urging Harvard to adopt licensing measures which would increase access to medicines in poor countries. (more…)