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NIH Calls on Scientists to Speed Public Release of Research PublicationsThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced a new policy designed to accelerate the public's open access publishing to published articles resulting from NIH-funded research. The policy calls on scientists to release to the public manuscripts from research supported by NIH as soon as possible, and within 12 months of final publication. These peer-reviewed, NIH-funded research publications will be available in a Web-based archive managed by the National Library of Medicine, a component of NIH. 
Beginning May 2, 2005, the policy requests that NIH-funded scientists submit an electronic version of the author's final manuscript, upon acceptance for publication, resulting from research supported in whole or in part by NIH. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the publishing peer review process. Articles will be available through NLM's PubMed Central, a digital repository of full-text, peer-reviewed research journals. It is a publicly accessible, stable, permanent, and searchable electronic archive. Though authors are strongly encouraged to make their articles available as soon as possible, they have the flexibility to designate a specific time frame for public release--ranging from immediate public access after final publication to a 12-month delay--when they submit their manuscripts to NIH. The release of this policy follows months of intensive deliberations with representatives of patient and scientific organizations, researchers, and publishers. After the draft policy was posted for public comment in September 2004, NIH received and reviewed over 6,000 responses. Additional information on the new policy, implementation procedures, and related documents, including a "Questions and Answers" fact sheet, can be found at www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm The information in this article is from www.nih.gov/news/pr/feb2005/od-03.htm |
