NIH Access Plan Watered Down

Seven months after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed an ambitious policy to offer free access to medical research (News, LJ 8/04, p. 17), the final policy, released February 3, leaves the issue pretty much where it started. The draft policy would have required authors to deposit their final papers in the NIH's PubMed Central database for access within six months; now, the process is merely voluntary.

The policy "requests" that NIH-funded scientists submit an electronic version of their final manuscripts, defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, in PubMed Central "as soon as possible, and within 12 months of final publication." The policy will go into effect May 2, but the NIH said it would "strongly encourage" scientists to make their articles available as soon as possible.

NIH director Elias Zerhouni, who staunchly defended the original draft of the policy, called the final plan "a concerted effort to balance the importance of this archive to NIH's public health mission, with the need to provide flexibility for authors, their institutions, and publishers…. Only in limited cases will authors deem it necessary to select the longest delay period." SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) director Rick Johnson said, "We've got the ball rolling, even if we're not pleased with the speed at this point."