Scholarly Communications News

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has formally requested input from the community regarding the Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting From NIH-Funded Research (NIH Public Access Policy). The Policy requires that all peer-reviewed articles arising from NIH funding be deposited into PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's public digital archive. The mandate takes effect April 7, 2008 and applies to articles based on work directly funded by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 (Oct. 1, 2007 - Sept. 30, 2008). The notice asks for comments from all stakeholders regarding the implementation, monitoring and training for compliance with the Policy. Comments are due by May 31, 2008.

For additional information, see the VCU Libraries guide to Navigating the New NIH Mandatory Public Access Policy or the VCU Office of Research page on compliance.

Submit a Comment to NIH
View Comments Received
Federal Register Notice

VCU Libraries will host a webcast on Friday, Mar. 7 from 1-2 pm on the institutional issues involved with compliance with the new NIH Public Access Policy. This webcast will explore the legal aspects of author rights management within the context of the new policy that will be effective April 7, 2008. The policy will have many benefits for research institutions, including better documentation of publications resulting from funded research. However, institutions confront a key set of issues raised by the need to ensure that authors maintain the legal rights required to allow compliance with the new policy.

The intended audience for this webcast is vice presidents of research, administrators and staff in funded research and grants offices, campus compliance officers, and others who will be responsible for fulfilling their organizations' compliance obligations as NIH grantees. The webcast is sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries and the National Association of State University and Land-Grant Colleges. For more information, visit the web site at http://www.arl.org/sc/implement/nih/webcast/

VCU Libraries will present the webcast on both campuses. No registration is necessary.
MCV Campus: Tompkins-McCaw Library, Rm. 2010
Monroe Park Campus: Cabell Library, Rm. 320
Contact Lynne Turman, 828-0638, luturman@vcu.edu, for special accommodations or additional information.

From their web site at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/brii/ the University of California has announced a pilot project co-sponsored by UC Berkeley's Vice Chancellor for Research and the University Librarian. The brief announcement reads as follows...

"The Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) supports faculty members who want to make their journal articles free to all readers immediately upon publication.

An 18-month pilot program, BRII will subsidize, in various degrees, fees charged to authors who select open access or paid access publication. The pilot will also yield data that can be used to gauge faculty interest in, as well as the budgetary impacts of, these new modes of scholarly communication on the Berkeley campus."

Additionally offered is a new program announcement, a program description, frequently asked questions and instructions for application and reimbursement.

The Chronicle of Higher Education's Wired Campus e-newsletter reports that the University of California's eScholarship Repository has recently exceeded five million full-text downloads, according to the university.

The eScholarship Repository, a service of the California Digital Library, allows scholars in the University of California system to submit their work to a central location where any users may easily access it free of charge. Catherine Mitchell, acting director of the CDL publishing group, says the number shows that both content seekers and creators have embraced the service, allaying concerns that researchers wouldn't contribute to the repository.

With the signing of the omnibus appropriations bill, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is directed to make mandatory its policy for funded investigators to submit final versions of their manuscripts to PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine's digital archive. Previously, researchers were encouraged to make submissions to the publicly accessible database but the new provision will require all NIH grantees to deposit their research papers within 12 months after publication. The legislation comes after many years of lobbying by advocacy groups for such open access language and just as many years of opposition by publishers.

The NIH maintains a website with information and tutorials on the Manuscript Submission System and the Public Access Policy at http://www.nihms.nih.gov/

For additional information, see the news release from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, Dec. 26, 2007

From the press release dated Dec. 12, 2007 .....

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released a white paper, "Educational Fair Use Today," by Jonathan Band, JD. Band discusses three recent appellate decisions concerning fair use that should give educators and librarians greater confidence and guidance for asserting this important privilege.

In all three decisions discussed in the paper, the courts permitted extensive copying and display in the commercial context because the uses involved repurposing and recontextualization. The reasoning of these opinions could have far-reaching implications in the educational environment.

The paper is freely available for download from the ARL Web site at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/educationalfairusetoday.pdf.

An open access article on dietary supplements published in BioMed Central's Nutrition Journal has been downloaded more than 16,000 times since it was published on the journal's website on Oct. 24, 2007. Matthew Cockerill, publisher of BioMed Central, comments on the significance of this fact in his blog post. For examples of other BioMed Central articles that have received a wide readership, see the publisher's Most Viewed page.

VCU Tech Transfer is hosting a seminar on Intellectual Property Strategy, "What is Right for You?," presented by John Calvert, administrator for the Inventor Assistance Program, United States Patent and Trademark Office, on Wednesday, Oct. 10, in Sanger Hall, Auditorium 2-020, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Open to VCU faculty, postdocs, graduate students and staff. For more information, visit the VCU Office of Research.

The Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland has announced its 2007-08 schedule of asynchronous online workshops. The first workshop, Copyright and Academic Culture: New Issues and Developments, will be held from Oct. 1-12 and will be moderated by Siva Vaidhyanathan, PhD, Associate Professor of Media Studies and Law, University of Virginia. The deadline for registration is Sept. 28. For a complete list of upcoming workshops along with registration information, visit the Center’s web site.

A coalition of publishers has announced the formation of PRISM, The Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine, to lobby against perceived threats to science and scholarly publishing. The PRISM website states that PRISM was "established by The Executive Council of the Professional & Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) to educate policy makers and the American people about the risks posed by government intervention in scholarly publishing."

The initiative has drawn fire from researchers and other publishers. And at least one academic has resigned in protest from the editorial board of a journal published by PRISM supporters.

The Association of Research Libraries has prepared an Issue Brief on the PRISM coalition and open access advocate Peter Suber has reported extensively on the topic in his blog.