[Skip to Content]
Visit us on Facebook Visit us on FacebookVisit us on Linked In Visit us on Linked InVisit us on Twitter Visit us on TwitterVisit us on Facebook Visit us on InstagramVisit our RSS Feed View our RSS Feed
Region 5 Blog November 5th, 2024
CategoriesCategoriesCategories Contact UsContact Us ArchivesArchives Region/OfficeRegion SearchSearch

Mar

09

Date prong graphic

Update on the NIH Public Access Policy

Posted by on March 9th, 2006 Posted in: News from NLM


* On November 15, 2005, the Public Access Working Group (PAWG), appointed by the agency to advise it on implementing and improving the policy, recommended that the request for public access be upgraded to a requirement and that the permissible delay be shortened from 12 months to 6 months. PAWG was responding to NIH data showing that fewer than 5% of NIH grantees were complying with the request for public access.

* In early February 2006, the NIH sent a progress report to Congress (dated January 2006). Among other things it reported that the rate of compliance with its request for public-access was below 4%, that handling existing submissions under the policy cost the agency $1 million/year, and that handling submissions under a 100% compliance rate would cost the agency $3.5 million/year.

See: The NIH progress report to Congress, January 2006

Also: Dorothea Salo, Spaghetti that didn’t stick, Caveat Lector, February 16, 2006. A blog posting on the NIH progress report to Congress, focusing on the low compliance rate.

* On February 8, 2006, the NLM Board of Regents endorsed the November 2005 PAWG recommendations in a letter to NIH Director Elias Zerhouni (scroll down to first posting on Thursday February 16).

From Peter Suber:

What’s important here is the momentum. Congress asked for a strong policy and NIH delivered a weak one. As evidence mounted that the NIH policy was not meeting its goals, one authoritative body after another asked NIH to strengthen the policy and live up to the original request from Congress. First the Public Access Working Group recommended a stronger policy. Then the NIH acknowledged the miserable compliance rate in a report to Congress. Then the NLM Board of Regents recommended a stronger policy. If the NIH is waiting for Congress to weigh in, then it’s forgetting that Congress has already weighed in. Moreover, Congress is now considering Joe Lieberman’s CURES bill, which would give the NIH an OA mandate, shorten the access embargo to six months, and extend this strong policy to other funding agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services.

*The above is excerpted from the 3/2/2006 SPARC Open Access Newsletter.

*The latest from the Washington Post, 3/10/06: Government Health Research Pressed to Share Data at No Charge, Rick Weiss

Image of the author ABOUT Andrea Ryce


Email author View all posts by
Developed resources reported in this program are supported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH) under cooperative agreement number UG4LM012343 with the University of Washington.

NNLM and NETWORK OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE are service marks of the US Department of Health and Human Services | Copyright | HHS Vulnerability Disclosure | Download PDF Reader