Springer Changes Copyright Transfer to comply with NIH Public Access

Those looking for journals offering a reasonably straightforward route to compliance with the NIH Public Access mandate may want keep Springer journals in mind as a possibility. Their default copyright transfer has been altered to be (minimally) workable with the mandate. From the Springer web site:

"As of 7 April 2008, Springer has adapted its standard Copyright Transfer Statement (CTS) for new articles to ensure compliance with new guidelines from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"An author may self-archive an author-created version of his/her article on his/her own website. He/she may also deposit this version on his/her institution's and funder's (funder-designated) repository at the funder’s requesthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif or as a result of a legal obligation, including his/her final version, provided it is not made publicly available until after 12 months of official publication. He/she may not use the publisher's PDF version which is posted on www.springerlink.com for the purpose of self-archiving or deposit. Furthermore, the author may only post his/her version provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com"."

This policy means that authors will not have to negotiate with Springer to maintain minimal copyrights to submit to PubMed Central. Note though that the author/grantee must still push the manuscript to NIH -- Springer does not do this automatically under this policy. Note also that the release is given only to the final manuscript, not the publication-formatted article.

Alternatively, as an even more hassle-free method, NIH provides a list of journals which automatically deposit the paper in PubMedCentral within the 12 month post-pub window -- there's no further action required on the author's part following acceptance for these titles. See http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm for details.

NIH Public Access Policy Now in Effect

The new NIH Public Access Policy came into effect this week. The revised policy requires authors funded by NIH arrange for public access to their research manuscripts via PubMed Central within a year following publication. For many journal publishers, this requires negotiation away from the default copyright transfer agreement authors enter with the publisher.

The policy and how to comply with it is addressed at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/. If you are NIH-funded and expect to apply for NIH funding in the future, it's well-worth making sure you understand the new demands.

Access to ASM Journals, The Prokaryotes

We now (read: finally...) have stable online access to the American Society for Microbiology journals. BOT and ZOO folks, before you stop reading, this includes the titles "Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews," and "Molecular and Cellular Biology." You should now be able to access online recent articles published in these journals via links from PubMed, the Libraries' catalog, e-journal list, etc.

Somewhat related, I've had a few people recently express interest in the microbiology reference set "The Prokaryotes." We do have access to this work online, via the OhioLINK Electronic Book Center. The EBC is a relatively new project and unfortunately its content is not yet well-reflected in the Libraries' catalog, so access through the EBC works best.

NIH Public Access Policy will go into Force Soon

As many of you know, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced a revision to its Public Access Policy. The policy now *requires* eligible researchers to deposit copies of final manuscripts upon acceptance into a peer-reviewed journal so that they may be made publicly available within 12 months of publication. This policy applies to any journal articles resulting from research supported in whole or in part by direct funds from NIH. The manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication and includes all modifications from the publishing and peer-review process. The policy is set to go into place in April 7 2008.

The NIH access policy is an important step in making taxpayer-funded research literature available to as broad a community as possible.

Please note that there is real potential for conflict between adherence to the NIH policy and the common practice in the review and publication process of signing away all copyright for a journal manuscript to the publisher. It will be crucial for authors to ascertain whether a journal you seek to publish in allows author retention of copyright and permission to post to PubMed Central, or to negotiate this during the publication process. On the other hand, a fair number of journals automatically submit their content to PubMed Central and so require no further action on the authors' part -- see http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm for a list of these titles. The policy has potential to affect eligibility for future research grants from NIH. For more information on the NIH policy please see http://publicaccess.nih.gov/.

Supplementary files in OhioLINK journals

Part of the gradual shift we're seeing towards more data and computation intensive and media-rich science is the greater use of supplementary files as adjuncts to primary research articles. The OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center now displays any accompanying material included in Institute of Physics and Elsevier articles as "Supplementary Files" below the abstract. The available files include videos (.mov, .avi and .mpeg formats), PDFs and PowerPoints. All files sent to OhioLINK by publishers are made available.

Here's a good example:
http://journals.ohiolink.edu/ejc/article.cgi?issn=00144827&issue=v313i0013&article=2766_domgaraamoad

Many Cell articles also contain supplementary files, for example:
http://journals.ohiolink.edu/ejc/article.cgi?issn=00928674&issue=v130i0002&article=323_sbfaotkkbscf