What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each criterion?

The current Broader Impacts merit review criterion includes the consideration, “Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding?” NSF should retain and strengthen this consideration of the merit review.

Broad dissemination must be a high priority for NSF-funded research. As a federal agency operating with taxpayer funding, NSF has a responsibility to maximize return on investment by removing barriers to access for the scientific community, as well as to ensure access for taxpayers. In addition, broad and equitable dissemination of scientific information advances the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that “everyone has the right freely to … share in scientific advancement and its benefits,” and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in which governments agree to take the steps “necessary for the conservation, the development and the diffusion of science;” the United States is a signatory to both documents.

Under the current criteria, which are more than a decade old, proposals may be inadequately reviewed with regard to the dissemination consideration. During that time, the landscape of scholarly publishing and information has undergone significant changes. In particular, the exceptional opportunities created by the Internet behoove NSF to ensure that its funded research takes full advantage of the new technology to maximize cost-effective dissemination.

At present, broad dissemination of results is promoted through two avenues at NSF: the merit review criteria, which investigators must address in their proposals, and the Award and Administration Guide (AAG), which governs projects after an award is issued. This dual approach is beneficial and should be maintained and strengthened.

NSF establishes minimum requirements for dissemination in Chapter VI.D.4 of the AAG. In particular:

• “Investigators are expected to promptly prepare and submit for publication … all significant findings from work conducted under NSF grants;” and
• “Investigators are expected to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF grants.”

This policy is underpinned by Sec. 7011 of the America COMPETES Act of 2007, which requires NSF to enforce the standards by making any researcher who fails to comply ineligible for future funding.

Additionally, Sec. 7010 of the 2007 COMPETES Act requires NSF to make project reports freely available to the public online, along with citations to any publications resulting from NSF funding. This provision of the law is implemented by Chapter II.E.3 of the AAG, which requires grantees to submit a report describing the project outcomes, written specifically for the public, to be made freely available via Research.gov.

In addition to the baseline standards of the AAG, investigators are required to address the dissemination consideration of the Broader Impacts merit review criterion. This dual approach is beneficial because it encourages creative approaches to dissemination beyond the minimum, as appropriate to the proposed activity. Moreover, by including dissemination in the merit review criteria rather than only in post-award requirements, NSF ensures that investigators plan for dissemination beginning from the proposal stage, a valuable way to keep dissemination in mind throughout the project’s life cycle.

Unfortunately, both aspects of this approach currently are insufficient. Both the dissemination requirements of the AAG and the dissemination consideration of the Broader Impacts criterion should be updated and strengthened.

While NSF is to be recognized for its leadership in recently requiring investigators to develop data management plans, in other regards the AAG is outdated and should be reformed. Most importantly, NSF has not implemented a requirement that its funded investigators provide public access to resulting peer-reviewed manuscripts, rather than merely the citations to those publications. Among federal science agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the current leader in this area, having adopted a mandatory public access policy as required by Sec. 218 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008. Dozens of other public and private research foundations worldwide have successfully adopted similar policies. NSF should incorporate a similar mandatory policy in the AAG. Furthermore, NSF should improve on the NIH policy by reducing the “embargo” period when manuscripts can be withheld from public access from the current maximum of twelve months to a six-month maximum, as several other research funders worldwide have done.

However, as this comment is directed to the Task Force on Merit Review, I will focus on the dissemination consideration of the Broader Impacts criterion, rather than the requirements of the AAG. To be clear, even if the dissemination requirements of the AAG are strengthened, the dissemination consideration of the merit review criteria also should be retained and strengthened.

The first regard in which the dissemination consideration of the merit review criteria is inadequate is its construction. Currently, broad dissemination is a consideration only of the Broader Impacts criterion, not the Intellectual Merit criterion. However, dissemination is properly understood as fundamental to both the intellectual merits of the proposed activity as well as its broader impacts.

The thrust of the current consideration is that maximizing the social value of the funded project requires communicating the project’s results to relevant audiences outside the research community, such as industry and policymakers, and to the public to enhance the public understanding of science. This is useful strategy to increase the broader impact of NSF funding and should be maintained. In particular, it supports the requirements of Sec. 526 of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, which directs NSF’s Broader Impacts criterion to advance the goal of “increased public scientific literacy.”

However, even within the academic community, the broad dissemination of research results cannot be taken for granted. Access barriers imposed by the high and rising cost of serials and monographs can significantly hamper the circulation of knowledge. These barriers can be particularly imposing to researchers and students at smaller institutions and in developing countries. Additionally, reticence to share data or materials with other researchers, or delays in doing so, also hinder the progress of science.

Thankfully, online technologies enable innovative approaches to the broad dissemination of research information which previously was only shared in small circles. These approaches already have begun to bear fruit. For instance, the NIH-supported Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative was recently highlighted by the New York Times for its innovative approach to data sharing which is already being emulated. Given the promise of openness, the Board should ensure that the merit review criteria promote the broadest possible dissemination of results.

What changes, if any, would you like to see made to the merit review criteria?

If the Board retains the current criteria, it should add a consideration for broad dissemination in the Intellectual Merit criterion, in addition to the current consideration in the Broader Impacts criterion. Such a consideration might read, “Will the proposed activity ensure the broadest possible access to its results within its own field or across different fields?”

Alternatively, the Board might adopt a single consideration that addresses broad dissemination both within and beyond the research community.

What role should the institution play to ensure that the intellectual merit and broader impacts in NSF proposals can be realized?

NSF should provide additional guidance to proposers on how best to address the dissemination consideration. The Task Force will be aware of Sec. 526 of the COMPETES Reauthorization Act, which directs NSF to better inform proposers as well as staff and reviewers about the Broader Impacts criterion’s requirements, among other changes. The process of implementing these statutory provisions offers a timely opportunity for NSF to suggest “proven strategies and models” for cost-effective broad dissemination.

Currently, NSF provides a list of examples of representative activities for the dissemination consideration. These examples should be updated to better take advantage of proven strategies. Most critically, NSF should encourage investigators to provide open access to their publications by publishing them in an open access journal or by depositing them in an open access repository immediately upon publication, under an open copyright license. NSF could also encourage investigators to consider the impact of their publishers’ policies and pricing on the broad dissemination of their research. Further, NSF should encourage investigators to post their data online for free public access, and to freely distribute online any software created resulting from NSF funding under a free software license, depositing both in appropriate repositories as applicable.

Beyond mere suggestions of activities, NSF should refer investigators to resources on how to accomplish these activities, such as existing guides prepared by the library community and others. NSF should also encourage institutions to play a more proactive role in supporting investigators in maximizing the dissemination of their research, including collaboratively sharing resources and strategies between institutions.

Additionally, NSF should ensure that these resources and guidance are available to its reviewers and staff, and that they duly take into account these activities in reviewing proposals’ commitment to broad dissemination of research.

What impact, if any, has NSF’s two review criteria had on how you think about developing your research projects?

Any other comments?

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the merit review criteria. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

A footnote in Pamela Samuelson’s objection tipped me off:

Most other signatories [to the brief] … are members of the Author Subclass by virtue of the book-bound copies of their Ph.D. dissertations filed in research libraries of the universities from which they received their degrees.

I hadn’t realized that dissertations were eligible “works” under the terms of the settlement. That means my late mother’s dissertation, for which I now exercise copyright, would be subject to the settlement terms. An email to the class counsel confirmed it.

I’ve claimed the work on the settlement site. It’s not listed as having been digitized. I’ve set the options as permissive as possible, including a zero price for consumer purchase. (The promised option to apply a Creative Commons license isn’t yet offered.)

I don’t intend to opt out of the settlement: I support the further availability of the work (which, on balance, I think the settlement would increase). If participation brings any financial benefits, well, I’ll take them.

However, I’m entertaining the thought of joining an objection to some terms of the settlement. Since I missed the deadline to object to the original proposed settlement, I’ll only be able to object to terms revised in the amended settlement, but there’s still plenty to be wary of. My concerns are primarily competition, users’ rights (open formats, DRM, privacy), and facilitating rightsholder choices more permissive than the settlement defaults (including open access). If you know of an objection which addresses these points and is accepting additional signatories, please let me know, in the comments or by email.

• The revised settlement cuts out a huge swath of international works. There’s no legal reason for this, since the settlement is based in U.S. law, which treats works equally regardless of where they were published. (Moreover, the settlement only provides access to users in the U.S.) Yet I haven’t seen one public interest advocate criticize the loss to access that will be the result of this change.
• The discussion of this change has mostly been summarized as “foreign language works are now excluded”. But that’s a misleading oversimplification. The new settlement includes works published in the U.S., UK, Canada, or Australia, or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. That will certainly include many non-English works (remember Canada is bilingual?). It will also exclude many English works: consider New Zealand, Jamaica, India, or many other English-speaking countries.

• Much criticism has focused on the question of orphan works. This is a bit baffling to me. The settlement would provide an unprecedented access to orphan works. Indeed, to me this is the biggest benefit of the settlement.

  The main criticism of this is that Google would be the only provider of access to these orphan works. Monopoly access is certainly undesirable (particularly given the other flaws of the settlement: the privacy weaknesses, the DRM, the single interface, the overall market position of Google, etc.). But isn’t monopoly access (with antitrust scrutiny) better than no access?

  The only way the answer is “no” is if the settlement holds back progress toward non-monopoly access. For instance, a settlement clause that guaranteed Google competitors the same terms (even if they had to do the scanning themselves) would open competition. Obviously, Google is not interested in such an approach, and since the settlement is a negotiation between Google and the plaintiffs (who I would guess to be agnostic on that question), we shouldn’t expect to see those terms unless the judge or the Department of Justice forces them.

  A legislative solution, such as proposed by the Copyright Office, would be an improvement as well. But orphan works reform has so far stalled in Congress, and I haven’t seen any indication it will be a priority for the current Judiciary Committee. For its part, Google says it will still support orphan works reform if the settlement is approved.

  I’m not sure how to predict what the effect of the settlement would be on the prospects for legislative action. One the one hand, Congress might say, “It looks like Google has solved that problem, so we don’t have to do anything.” Alternatively, Congress might say, “That Google settlement seems to have riled a lot of people up; I’d rather not put my stick in that antpile.” On the other hand, the settlement might give greater impetus to Google’s competitors to tell Congress, “We’re on unequal terms now; we need you to pass orphan works reform to level the playing field.” No matter what happens, I don’t expect this Congress to pass orphan works reform. How long are we willing to wait?

• Speaking of orphan works, the Unclaimed Works Fiduciary is a trustee with one hand tied. As I reported for OAN, the UWF — an independent agent entrusted to manage the works of rightsholders who haven’t claimed their works under the settlement — doesn’t have all the powers of an actual rightsholder. Whereas a rightsholder is guaranteed under the settlement the options to, e.g., set a zero price for her work, to apply a Creative Commons license, or to remove DRM, the UWF isn’t guaranteed those same options. In fact, the UWF can only exercise those options with the approval of the Book Rights Registry, which is run by publisher and author representatives. So if the UWF came to the conclusion that the best fiduciary interest of its absentee rightsholders was represented by making their works freely available, it would not necessarily be able to do so. Given the growing suggestions that making a book freely available often has no discernible negative consequence on sales revenues for that book, and in some cases may even increase sales, the settlement should not exclude that option.

A student wanting a coursepack comes to Excel’s [the copy shop] premises and fills out a form on which the student writes the course the student is enrolled in and for which the student needs the material. The form contains a statement to the effect that: “I am a student in this class and am making a copy for educational purposes.” The student signs and dates the form. The student hands the form over to an Excel staff member who retrieves the “master,” hands it to the student, who then makes a copy using Excel’s copy machines. [...]

Excel does not pay copyright fees to the publishers, which it admits enables it to charge a lower fee than if the students obtained the materials at a traditional “copyshop” [...]

Excel’s position that this is a case of protected student copying is sophistry. [...] Simply put, copyright law should not turn on who presses the start button on a copier. Excel’s actions violate the publishers’ copyrights.

My purpose is not to argue the legal merits of the decision. Rather, I want to highlight this case as an example of the social impacts of closed-access scholarly publishing. I particularly want to address researchers here.

Scholars: You conducted your research for the advancement of knowledge. In many cases, your research was supported by taxpayer dollars, whether in the form of a research grant or a university salary. You entrusted your research to the publisher, for the purpose of disseminating it. In many cases (for scholarly journals, not necessarily for books) you did so for no remuneration from the publisher. The publisher sells access to your work to universities and reaps massive profits: Elsevier alone reported more than $800 million in profits in 2008. When a small business tries to help students get access at a reduced price, the publisher sues to shut it down.

If that’s scholarship, then I want no part of it.

The publisher is wielding the copyright in your work as a legal bludgeon and supposing to act on your behalf. If you know this and you sign a copyright transfer with a publisher, then you are responsible.

There is an alternative.

For reference, the list of infringed works is here. Some are more than 20 years old.

So what’s the point of AcaWiki when almost all articles have abstracts, which are summaries and usually available gratis? Well, AcaWiki summaries are also libre (CC Attribution license), so they invite reuse: mashup, translation, and so on. They’re also editable, so they can evolve and be improved.

Abstracts vary widely, usually shaped by the journal’s format: sometimes they’re several paragraphs, something just a few sentences. They might outline the methodology or they might not. They are usually written at the level of specialists in that field, so they may or may not be much use to other readers.

There’s room for improvement and innovation in the world of summary, in other words. For instance, Emerald launched a program asking authors to provide a summary highlighting potential applications. RNA Biology requires its authors to write up their findings on Wikipedia. BMJ publishes only one-page abridgments in its print edition, with the full article available online.

For a more direct comparison, see WikiSummary, which predates AcaWiki but covers only political science.

Two other points of comparison: journalism / press releases and Wikipedia.

Press releases are gratis; science journalism may or may not be gratis; both are rarely libre. They only cover new studies: good luck finding coverage of an article from 1989. They rarely provide a full citation to the original article. They often discuss only the findings, with little consideration of methodology. They frequently focus on studies with controversies or practical applications, rather than new theories or research methodologies. In reporting the most interesting (a.k.a. most titillating) of the findings, journalism sometimes distorts the impression of the overall study. Meanwhile, press releases try to paint the most positive picture. Since they’re written for a general audience, and often not written by someone with a background in the field, they may be too general.

If we consider research blogging in this category, conversely, the writing may be too technical. It may be more commentary or critique than summary.

Wikipedia is gratis and libre. It’s written for non-specialists (in theory), but can also go into more detail. The main difference from AcaWiki is that most academic papers will not be “notable” enough to merit their own Wikipedia page; even if someone wrote them, they would probably get deleted. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia provides a higher-level overview. There could be some other conflicts with Wikipedia policies, such as those against publishing original research or authors writing about themselves or their work.

All of the aforementioned resources have their uses, but as we can see, AcaWiki has its niche. I hope it thrives there.

In disclosure, I did some paid work for AcaWiki some months ago, but am not actively involved in the project.

Robert B. Townsend, assistant director for research and publications of the American Historical Association, said he was skeptical of the compact, at least based on what was released Monday.

“My ambivalence is the utter lack of clarity, and the tendency in most open access discussions to treat the science journals as normative,” he said. “The lack of recognition of the vast differences between disciplines makes this look like more of the usual one-size-fits-all open access thinking that prompted our efforts on the [National Humanities Alliance] report. I hope that report will have some effect on their thinking, if and when these universities try to turn their words into deeds, but I am not optimistic.”

It’s hard to guess the exact context of Dr. Townsend’s comments, but his comments here seem to be directed against the OA movement in general. He doesn’t criticize any specific aspect of the compact. It’s hard to interpret his intent as anything but obstructionism: “Stop — we haven’t figured out how to make this work for the humanities yet.”

The NHA report is generally a thoughtful look at publishing in the social sciences and humanities, with a particular idea as to how OA might work there. (The biggest flaw of the NHA report, which I mentioned in my comments on OAN, is ironically the biggest flaw of the OA compact: They devote all their energy to publication charges and pay only lip service to any other funding models — despite the fact that fewer than one-third of OA journals use publication charges.) Of course, societies in HSS are justified in trying to manage the transition to OA in the way that least disrupts the journals, but to date they have in general been overly cautious.

One could go farther and say that a little disruption can sometimes be a good thing. The NHA study concluded that the per-article costs in HSS journals are three times that of STM journals. I have yet to see any evidence that HSS journals are three times as valuable to their readers. In another context, those numbers would elicit adjectives like “bloated” and “inefficient”. Of course, in academia every field is exceptional and no one would suggest such a thing here. Each discipline must be allowed to retain its peculiar traditions, regardless of cost, because by God that is just the way things are done. But I digress.

There is indeed one size that fits all when it comes to scholarly knowledge, and that is that scholarly knowledge ought to be free. That certainly does not mean that every journal, publisher, or discipline must use the same revenue model, but they all need to get us to same outcome. The HSS community has not seriously contested that principle, but so far they have shown a lack of vision and creativity in getting us there (a charge I’ve levied against others before). If HSS societies are “not optimistic” about the OA compact or other current OA efforts, I should like to see them undertake more experiments of their own, rather than criticizing without proposing real alternatives. OA works for thousands of journals, hundreds in the social sciences and humanities, for many different types of journals and with many different revenue models. Let’s stop dragging our feet and make it happen.

• The settlement only applies to books which are in copyright as of January 5, 2009. Specifically:
  • It doesn’t apply to periodicals (including scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, etc.). For all the hype about Google Books as the “universal” or “last” library, that’s a gaping hole in coverage.
  • It doesn’t apply to books published after January 5, 2009. (Presumably this is due to the limitations of the instrument of class action lawsuits.) New books are not included in the settlement terms.
  • It doesn’t apply to public domain works, and so has no influence on how those works are treated in Google Books.
• Opting out of the settlement doesn’t mean Google has to remove your books. From the FAQ:
  

  … [By opting out,] the author or publisher is retaining all rights to bring a legal action against Google … [T]he Settlement neither authorizes Google to make certain uses of these books and Inserts nor does it prohibit Google from doing so.

  By checking a box on the opt out page, however, the author or publisher can request that the Settlement Administrator ask Google not to digitize (or, if already digitized, not to display any contents from) the books or Inserts identified in the opt out form, Although Google has no obligation under the Settlement to comply with such request, Google has advised the Settlement Administrator that it is Google’s current policy to voluntarily honor such requests …

  So Google has not (legally, at least) abandoned its claim to fair use absent the settlement. The publishers and authors are willing to let that slide in exchange for the settlement. But that’s not the same thing as a precedent that mass digitization and providing access to snippets is fair use: if you want to do that (let alone providing open access to orphan works), and you’re not Google, you still run the risk of a lawsuit. Google didn’t want to fight the publishers; do you?

• By default, in-print books will not be included in “Display Uses”, i.e. actually viewing the book. (I’m not sure how Google will make the determination of whether a book is currently in print, and whether it yanks the book if it’s reprinted.) The settlement doesn’t do much to increase access to in-print books: access is still solely at the election of the rightsholder. (Rightsholders of out-of-print books can opt-out, but the default will be in.)
• The rightsholders’ percentage of revenues is strikingly similar to the percentage for iTunes (63% in Google Books vs. 65% in iTunes). But I don’t know how much of that share goes to the authors and how much to the publishers. My guess: authors won’t get a bigger share than they used to; publishers will still take the lion’s share.
• This is probably the most important class action suit in copyright in about a decade (since Tasini at least). There probably hasn’t been as much interest in any copyright case since Grokster.
• A lot of criticism from the openness side has been directed at Google. While there’s plenty to criticize here, including Google’s market position, remember (as I’ve dented) that Google is the defendant here. Presumably, Google planned for more liberal use terms prior to the settlement, which is why the Authors Guild and the AAP sued. (More cynically, the publishers and authors sued not because they thought Google’s plans were a threat to their revenue model, but just to get a payout from Google.)

• That payout, by the way, is not an insignificant one. Google will pay at least $45 million to “compensate Rightsholders whose works Google has scanned without permission”, at $60 per book. Then there’s another $35 million to establish the Book Rights Registry. Then there’s 63% of all revenue from the project. Then there are the legal costs…

  If Google hadn’t settled, and if its fair use claim held up, what would it have cost to re-create the settlement? The transaction costs to allow uses beyond fair use (e.g. selling copies) would have been massive. Google still would have remained vulnerable to submarine authors of orphan works showing up later and winning a massive court award. The settlement effectively inoculates Google from this risk: if you don’t opt-out of the settlement class now, you’re in, forever. Given the insane amounts of damages under copyright (even for non-commercial purposes), this has to count as a huge benefit for Google.

[Conyers:] My bill would restore longstanding federal copyright policy in this area. It reverses a provision slipped into an appropriations bill in the middle of the night, with no consultation with the Committee which is actually supposed to write the law in this area, the Judiciary Committee, which I chair. …

My bill lays down a marker indicating that issues this complex, with important values and convincing arguments on both sides, should not be decided by a few lawmakers without relevant jurisdictional expertise in the dark of night with no meaningful public scrutiny or input. …

I do have some sympathy for Conyers’ process concerns. I have minor misgivings about the process in which the NIH policy was written into law, via the appropriations process. By my count, neither open access generally nor the NIH policy specifically were the subject of a hearing before the policy was signed into law. I think that’s unfortunate; public access is a significant public policy issue and it should have had a public hearing. That’s not to say there was no public discussion in Congress: it was raised at least as far back as 2005, in the Senate confirmation hearings for Health and Human Services nominee Michael Levitt, and again in 2006 at a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. But the NIH has now had a public hearing, courtesy of last year’s incarnation of Conyers’ own bill. Even if we would have preferred a hearing ex ante, you can’t change the past.

But here’s the problem with Conyers’ claim: open access is not copyright policy. At least, the NIH Public Access Policy is not copyright policy: it doesn’t amend copyright one whit, and even specifies explicitly that the law be implemented “in a manner consistent with copyright law”.¹

Since the NIH policy is a matter of the disposition of federal money, it’s appropriate for the Appropriations Committee to make policy in this area. It’s also a matter of science and education (and, in the case of the NIH, health): it’d be appropriate to hear from committees in those areas, too. If Conyers wants to ensure the issue is seen by committees with “relevant jurisdictional expertise”, he ought to ask those committees to hold hearings.

Instead, Conyers sees it as a copyright issue, because some publishers rely on a certain method of acquiring and managing copyright for their business model². In other words: according to Rep. Conyers, tangential copyright concerns should come before the efficient and equitable spending of taxpayer dollars, and before health, science, and education!

That’s a crazy approach to public policy. It’s a shame, it’s misguided, and Congress should reject it.

¹ Contrast, for instance, then-Rep. Martin Sabo’s 2003 Public Access to Science Act, which proposed an actual amendment to copyright law, and was in fact referred to the Judiciary Committee.

² Increasingly, even subscription publishers rely on this model less and less, between allowing self-archiving, providing delayed and selected OA, and offering hybrid and even full OA options. Moreover, these publishers also have always published papers by government employees, which are free of any copyright whatsoever.

Public Symposium on Author Deposit Mandates for Federal Research Grantees

First is Martin Frank of the American Physiological Society.

This is not a pro-con discussion.
There hasn’t been full discussion by Congress of PubMed Central. In creating PMC, it superceded the effort of the publishing industry to create digital identifiers, potentially diverting eyeballs and damaging sustainability of publishers.

We provide delayed access after 12 months — it’s a sustainable model, which we adopted without government mandate, but we can change it if we need to. We also have an Author Choice option. Our entire backfiles are in Highwire.

DC Principles Coalition: We believe in free access to science, within the constraints of our business models.

NIH Public Access Plan’s goals could have been addressed if NIH had negotiated in good faith with publishers. PMC competes with publishers. PMC is not a good steward — uses PMCIDs, not DOIs. [How big a problem is this? Isn't this just another publisher attempt to pull a rabbit out of the hat?]

Actions suggest that NIH is trying to become the single source for NIH funded research. Threat of subscription cancellations is real.

If publishers don’t get money from subscription, the other option is author-side funding, which could detract from research funding.

Obama’s transparency memo focuses on access to information in forms the “public” can use. The public doesn’t need access to the full articles. America COMPETES Act is also a better model.

Next is Fred Dylla of the American Institute of Physics.

We invented the Web. [Funny, I didn't know Berners-Lee was an American!]

We’re all for public access to science, but we want to do it in a sensible way. Does the Public Access Policy provide meaningful public access? How will it affect quality control, scientific journals, scientific societies?

Open access does not mean free of cost. There are few sustainable OA business models that have been demonstrated. PLoS has yet to make money. The New Journal of Physics is not a sustainable model either.

Prevalent OA model is a fully author-pays model.

Mandates shifts to OA will negatively affect scholarly publishing: implications for quality control, investments in publishing technology.

Rhetoric on both sides lacks analysis. [What about the massive economic study just released by JISC?] Serials crisis is real — but does switching models solve it?

Are scholarly journals following newspapers over the cliff? The problem is that consumers want everything for free. Phil Davis sees the same problem.

Repositories can do all the functions of journals except quality control, and we don’t want government doing that.

Analyses are mostly cost-neutral [again, see JISC study], but don’t include transition costs or transaction costs (“getting checks from authors” instead of institutional subscribers).

Author survey (by publishers) says journal access is a low priority. NIH policy should return to a voluntary policy. Likes the NSF / America COMPETES Act model better.

Next is Steve Breckler of the American Psychological Association.

Social sciences often left out of discussions about data curation, open access, etc.

Everybody likes open access. Our publications have always been easily accessible in the technology of the era. But there are always costs in producing scientific publications, and the question is who bears those costs. Publishers add a lot of value. Our concern is the uncertainty, risk, and unintended consequences of public access policies. The policy could reduce the number and quality of journals, could increase publication costs, gives control to the federal government, and creates a class system in scientific publishing — concern about who is left out of databases.

One size doesn’t fit all, e.g. embargo period — some journals may be primarily used after 12 months. The Board needs to look very carefully at these issues.

Next is Elizabeth Marincola of the Society for Science and the Public. On the board of PLoS. Used to work for American Society For Cell Biology.

ACSB has a 2-month embargo, with no negative impact on subscriptions and a lot of positive feedback.
NIH has an obligation to provide a return to taxpayers for their investment in research. Before the Public Access Policy was implemented, there was a public comment period with overwhelming support. Interest of authors is largely in having their work made available to other researchers. The opponents are largely publishers who feel their business model is under threat. Societies have an obligation to serve its members and its field first. Putting publishing interests first isn’t effectively serving their members’ interests.

The public needs access to biomedical research — saying that the public can’t understand them is underestimating the intelligence of the lay public. Clinicians report that patients often come to them having reviewed medical research. Public, given the opportunity, does take advantage of open access.

Response to the idea that publishers are already offering these services: It’s only through a consolidated database that research can be integrated with other data. The whole is greater than the sum its part.

We are not being forced into one model: NIH has bent over backwards to accommodate publisher concerns and provide flexibility.

Next is Heather Joseph of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.

Representing academic and research librarians — researchers, students, and the public.

Public access isn’t just logical, it’s imperative. We fund research with the expectation it will contribute to the public good. This can only happen if we maximize the reach of research. Research is cumulative — others need the opportunity to build upon. Communicating research is an integral part of research. Far too often, research results are not widely available to potential users, but only available to those who can pay increasingly steep prices. No library can afford to subscribe to everything it wants to — it’s a 20 year trend of cancellations. The current model is not sustainable. It was maybe understandable in a paper-based environment, but the Internet means we can disseminate at near-zero marginal cost, and enables new and innovative uses of information. The Public Access Policy is a crucial part of this framework and should be expanded to other agencies.

Taxpayers have the right to access the research that they funded. Millions of Americans seek health information online. Other areas, such as environmental information, are also of interest to the public.

Public access is good for science. There’s been an explosion of growth in publications — researchers need to be able to use new technologies to identify the information of interest, but they can’t do this when there are access barriers.

Public access will fuel innovation and economic growth. Expanding access offers the very real potential for downstream stimulus.

We are not alone — many worldwide public access policies. Many of the others are more stringent, e.g. with shorter embargo.

Public access also supports transparency, cf. Obama’s agenda.

Next is David Shulenburger of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

I served as provost of the University of Kansas. I watched research information become more difficult to access. I believed the transition to economic form would eventually remedy this. But prices kept going upwards. I’ve spent much of the last decade trying to make sense of this. Many other institutions had the same problem — this is bad for science. But there’s been an enormous growth of open access.

Earlier speakers said that subscription journals would die and be replaced with author-pays journals. Self-archiving has allowed some users to bypass the journal system but the subscription journal system hasn’t collapsed. Researchers won’t wait — if there’s a delay, subscriptions won’t dry up.

The Public Access Policy should be adopted by other agencies. There must be mandatory deposit for grantees. Embargo period is important — a 6 or 12 month delay works. But place of deposit doesn’t matter — other agencies don’t need their own PMC. Submission of published versions would be helpful. Databases need to be linked, but not necessarily in the same repository.

You’ve heard that refereeing is threatened. I don’t think so. It’s a core function. The last thing a journal will scrimp on is refereeing. Researchers are happy to do it.

If the current model doesn’t work, I have great confidence that we’ll come up with a model that ensures that refereeing continues. What we’re asking for is a system that ensures systematic availability of articles resulting from federally-funded research.

I surveyed the academic officers of NASULGC about implementing the NIH policy. There was a little grumbling about the mechanics, but no expressions of opposition from faculty. But when faculty are mad, the provost knows about it quickly. Faculty understand the need for access.

The good from ensuring public access is potentially immense — not just for researchers, but for students, small business, and independent thinkers.

Q&A:

Frank: I agree with Shulenburger — we told NIH that the policy could work with distributed repositories, but they refused. Also, NIH only funds a small percentage of the literature.

Shulenburger: We need a nudge — if discussions has solved this, we wouldn’t be here. But now we have a nudge that will make stakeholders respond.

Q: The taxpayer access argument was strongly made. We could argue that taxpayers paid for the research in general, not necessarily each publication.

A: Joseph: Taxpayers have paid for the results of research. Publishers do add value. But the Public Access Policy requires the peer-reviewed manuscript, not the one after which the publishers add value. The America COMPETES model, for un-peer-reviewed grant proposals, is almost useless to the public. In health, you want the refereed results, not the grantee’s report to the agency.

A: Dylla: Maybe a compromise is the embargo period — allows publishers to preserve the subscription model.

A: Joseph: It’s not our concern to preserve the subscription model — it doesn’t serve us particularly well — but an embargo is a compromise that allows publishers time to come up with new models.

A: Marincola: Is there any evidence of harm to publishers?

A: Frank: 12 months is sustainable for APS, but maybe not for everybody. Says that prices have gone up with the transition from print to electronic with the transition from multiple subscriptions in paper to one electronic subscription per institution.

Marincola: So, no?

Breckler: We’d rather do experiments before adopting changes that could do irreparable harm. We could look back in 10 years and find we’ve made a big mistake. We want to take a reasoned approach to this. We should try several models — maybe compare NSF and NIH model.

Joseph: We have data from NSF and NIH policy. NSF policy hasn’t made a single article available.

Marincola: Have to weigh theoretical future harm to existing, demonstrated harm. If journals can’t survive, from an economic perspective, that’s not harm — it’s just a failure to adapt.

Q: There has been some impact of people who’ve tried these experiments and it hasn’t worked. BMJ backed off from its OA policy. [But then they went back to OA.] The trouble with a government mandate is that it’s immovable. [Some bizarre comparisons with agricultural subsidies... is there a question here?] What’s the best way to get information out there — what problem will you solve by giving it away? Access isn’t an actual problem.

Shulenburger: No one opposes the subscription model — but there are access problems. There’s tremendous variety in approaches to this question. Public access policies ensure that access exists and prices stay reasonable.

Dylla: Journal growth trends with funding for researchers. As universities want to be more prestigious, they aim to publish more. Trying to have access to everything requires too much money — you have to prioritize.

Q: We need to experiment with models.

A: Some speakers said OA isn’t sustainable. PLoS is well on its way. Springer wouldn’t have bought BMC if it didn’t expect to make money.

Q: Lesk: About 15 years ago, I tried to look at who published articles in Phys Rev Letters vs. who paid for them. Authors were mostly in universities; greater proportion of universities were in corporations and government.

A: Dylla: Corporations basically get a free ride.

Shulenberger: There are many models, not just subscription-side or author-side.

Breckler: There are lots of models, and lots of goals. Our task is to figure out what we want to achieve, then figure out which model will help us achieve it. Some models will work in different situations. If the question is should we apply the NIH model to other funders, that takes a single model and puts it into place everywhere. That’s scary.

Q: Digital also offers new options for vetting and credentialing.

A: Frank: Many of us are experimenting. There are other options.

Joseph: We have cyberinfrastructure that allows us to do new things. These possibilities go beyond access to new and innovative uses. The NIH policy isn’t punitive against the publishing industry, but was carefully crafted to best serve all stakeholders. Public access policies don’t force publishers into one model — we’re only limited by our imagination.