Stevan-
First, I don't think there's a serious chance that the Conyers Bill
will pass. But if it does, think about what it means. First, it means
that Congress is willing to modify the U.S. Copyright Act to prevent
open access. Do you seriously think a) the the publishers -
emboldened by their success in getting Congress to implement their
will at the expense of the public - will let your alternative stand?
Of course they won't. They will figure out a way to make what you
propose illegal as well. And b) if the NIH is rebuked by Congress in
this manner, they will not be willing to go against them.
-Mike
On Sep 13, 2008, at 2:48 PM, Stevan Harnad wrote:
[Apologies for Cross-Posting]
Re: "Bill Would Block NIH Public Access Policy" (Science, 11
September)
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/911/1
Conyers Bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h6845:
Plan B for NIH Public Access Mandate (And It's Stronger Than
Plan A!):
A Deposit Mandate
I hope the Conyers Bill, resulting from the publisher lobby's
attempt to overturn the NIH Public Access Mandate, will not
succeed.
But in case it does, I would like to recommend making a small
but far-reaching modification in the NIH mandate and its
implementation that will effectively immunize it against any
further publisher attempts to overturn it on legal grounds. And
this Plan B will actually help hasten universal OA more
effectively than the current mandate:
(1) NIH should mandate deposit of the refereed
final draft of all NIH-funded research, immediately
upon acceptance for publication.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html
(2) But access to that deposited draft need only be
made Open Access when there is no publisher embargo
on making it Open Access; otherwise it may be made
Closed Access.
(3) Open Access means that the full text of the
deposited draft is freely accessible to anyone,
webwide, immediately.
(4) Closed Access means that the full text of the
deposited draft is visible and accessible only to
the depositor and the depositor's employer and
funder, for internal record-keeping and
grant-fulfillment purposes. (Publishers have no say
whatsoever in institutional and funder internal
record-keeping.)
(5) For all deposits, however, both Open Access and
Closed Access, the deposited article's metadata
(author, title, journal, date. etc.) are Open
Access, hence visible and accessible to anyone,
webwide.
(6) Now the essence of this strategy: NIH should
also implement the "Email Eprint Request" Button,
so that any would-be user, webwide, who reaches a
link to a Closed Access article, can insert their
email address in a box, indicate that a single copy
of the postprint is being requested for research or
health purposes, and click.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/274-guid.html
(7) The eprint request is then automatically
transmitted immediately by the repository software
to the author of the article, who receives an email
with a URL that can then be clicked if the author
wishes to have the repository software
automatically email one individual copy of that
eprint to that individual requester.
(8) This is not Open Access (OA). But functionally,
it is almost-OA.
(9) Many journals (63%) already endorse immediate
OA.
http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php
(10) Closed Access plus the Button will provide
almost-OA for the remaining 37%.
(11) That means an NIH Deposit Mandate guarantees
either immediate OA (63%) or almost-OA (37%) for
100% of NIH-funded research.
(12) In addition, an NIH Deposit Mandate will
encourage universities in the US and worldwide to
adopt Deposit Mandates too, for all of their
research article output, not just NIH-funded
biomedical research output.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/369-guid.html
(13) The spread of such Deposit Mandates across
institutions and funders worldwide will inevitably
lead to universal OA for all research output
eventually, once the mandates ensure the universal
practice of immediate deposit.
(14) In addition, because it makes the almost-OA
Button even more powerful and easier to implement
-- NIH should stipulate that the preferred locus of
deposit is the author's own Institutional
Repository, which can then export the deposit to
PubMed Central using the automatized SWORD
protocol.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/SWORD
The fact is (and everyone will see this clearly in hindsight)
that, all along, the online medium itself has made OA a
foregone conclusion for research publications. There is no way
to stop it legally.
It is only technological short-sightedness that is making
publishers and OA advocates alike imagine that the outcome is a
somehow a matter of law and legislation. It is not, and never
has been.
It is only because we have been taking an obsolete, paper-based
view of it all that we have not realized that when authors wish
it to be so, the Web itself has made it no longer possible to
prevent authors from freely distributing their own writings,
one way or the other. There is no law against an author giving
away individual copies of his own writing.
And NIH need only mandate that authors deposit their (published
research journal) writings: giving them away for free can be
left to the individual author. The eventual outcome is obvious,
optimal and inevitable.
I strongly urge OA advocates to united under this back-up
strategy. It will allow us to snatch victory from the jaws of
defeat.
Stevan Harnad
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/
Michael Eisen, Ph.D. (MBEISEN_at_BERKELEY.EDU)
Investigator
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
&
Associate Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
UC Berkeley
Received on Sun Sep 14 2008 - 03:16:50 BST