US Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 06:03:36 +0100

The US Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) has gone a long
way toward correcting the flaws of the NIH Public Access Policy.
    http://cornyn.senate.gov/doc_archive/05-02-2006_COE06461_xml.pdf

Let me count the ways:

    (1) FRPAA self-archiving is no longer requested but mandated.

    (2) The absolute time limit on the FRPAA self-archiving is no longer
    12 months but 6 from publication.

    (3) FRPAA no longer stipulates that the self-archiving must
    be central: the deposit can now be in the author's own IR.

    (4) Self-archiving is no longer just for biomedical sciences, but
    for the full FRPAA spectrum of major US-funded research

Cf:

    "Model Self-Archiving Policies for Research Funders" (Jan 2006)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5045.html

    "DASER 2 IR Meeting and NIH Public Access Policy" (Dec 2005)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4963.html

    "Please Don't Copy-Cat Clone NIH-12 Non-OA Policy!" (Jan 2005)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4308.html

    "Open Access vs. NIH Back Access and Nature's Back-Sliding" (Jan 2005)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4313.html

    "A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy" (Oct 2004)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4092.html

And Peter Suber, at the end of his list of the top 10 OA stories, in item
10, lists the exact remedy for the FRPAA's sole remaining flaw (the fact
that an embargo of up to 6 months is still allowed):

The remedy is to mandate immediate deposit, upon acceptance
for publication, and to allow a delay (of no more than 6
months) only for when access to the deposit is set to Open
Access. In the meantime, IRs' new "email eprint" deposit can
provide access for all would-be users during any embargo period:
    http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/05-02-06.htm#topstories
    https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/2922.html
    https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/2931.html

Bravo to Senators Cornyn and Lieberman (and bravo also to Peter Suber).

Now, the FRPAA is just an Bill, not an implemented policy. There is still
time for the RCUK as well as the European Commission to get their acts
together and implement their immediate-deposit self-archiving policies
before the US does:
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/81-guid.html
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/78-guid.html

And of course nothing is stopping the worldwide network of universities
and research institutions from adopting their own immediate-deposit
mandates even before the big spenders do!
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html

    "Generic Rationale and Model for University Open Access Self-Archiving
    Mandate" (Mar 2006)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5216.html

    "European Commission recommends Open Access archiving for publicly-funded
    research" (Apr 2006)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5274.html

    "Wellcome Trust and the 6-month embargo" (Mar 2006)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5217.html

    "Comparing the Wellcome OA Policy and the RCUK (draft) Policy" (May 2005)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4549.html

    "Central versus institutional self-archiving" (Nov 2003)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3206.html

    "PubMed and self-archiving" (Aug 2003)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2974.html

    "Central vs. Distributed Archives" (Jun 1999)
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0294.html

Stevan Harnad
Received on Wed May 03 2006 - 12:29:25 BST