SUMMARY: Contrary to the recent suggestion of NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, the primary and urgent purpose of open access to NIH research is definitely not so that "scientists have access to [NIH's] portfolio of research so they can see what [NIH] has funded." It is so that scientists can use and apply the research findings, immediately, for the benefit of the public that funded it for that very purpose ("CURES"). Dr. Zerhouni is right that it "is also important that at some point the public, which pays for 99.5% of this research, is not prevented from having access to it" -- but the primary purpose of open access is immediate scientific usage and applications, for the benefit of the public (which pays for 99.5% of it). NIH can have its portfolio by requiring immediate deposit without even necessarily requiring that the articles be made publicly accessible immediately. Individual scientists who need to know and use the deposited findings immediately could have immediate access through the simple expedient of the EMAIL-EPRINT-REQUEST button that is now being implemented in researchers' own institutional repositories -- if, that is, the immediate deposit of the full text is systematically mandated. (Otherwise email eprint requests are a hopelessly time-consuming, uncertain and low-yield strategy.) Hence the "happy medium" is to require immediate deposit in the researchers' own institutional repositories and to harvest the deposits into PubMed Central after whatever embargo period NIH judges necessary (a priori) to insure that this is not "done at the expense [of the] viability of peer-reviewed scientific publishing."
NIH Director Elias Zerhouni was
interviewed by Susan Morissey in
Chemical and Engineering News: July 3, 2006 Volume 84, Number 27 pp. 12-17
Zerhouni: "What I've found with [the open access] issue is paralysis [emphasis added]. You have the zealots on one side who are hammering for open access right away. And then on the other side, you have the zealots who say that open access is absolutely not right. In the middle is the taxpayers' interest.
"I'm not driven by what the popular thing to do is; I'm driven by what's right. I believe that, number one, NIH needs a database of the research it funds so that it can have accountability and the ability to analyze its own portfolio. Our scientists must also have access to our portfolio of research so they can see what we've funded. So there's an internal need and an external need for accountability.
"It is also important that at some point the public, which pays for 99.5% of this research, is not prevented from having access to it. But this access should not be done at the expense and viability of peer-reviewed scientific publishing -- whether it be nonprofit or for profit.
"I believe very strongly that a happy medium can be found. But if the happy medium causes a loss of viability in being able to produce good articles and good journals, it won't work."
(1) It is hard to see (1a) why it is zealotry to insist that researchers (sic) need
immediate rather than
delayed access to publicly funded research findings -- or (1b) how the tax-paying public's interest is in the middle!
Public research is not funded to have its uptake, usage and applications (for the benefit of the public that funds it) embargoed from all those
researchers who cannot afford access to the journal in which it happens to be published. Open access has now been
repeatedly demonstrated to both increase and
accelerate research usage and impact. Immediate access is the growth tip for rapidly progressing fields of research.
Needlessly delaying access at the growth tip produces a counterproductive and unjustifiable bottleneck in research that is in the interests of neither research progress nor the public that funded it.
Nor is there as yet any
evidence whatsoever that immediate access "causes a loss of viability in being able to produce good articles and good journals": This is being assumed, a priori, instead of being tested objectively, by
requiring immediate access, monitoring the outcome annually, and making suitable adjustments only if and when there is ever any evidence that they are needed.
What induces
paralysis is making these adjustments a priori, as NIH has done,
requesting instead of
requiring open access, and allowing it to be
delayed instead of
immediate. The
failure of the NIH "request" policy is already apparent after the needless loss of two more years of potential research impact and progress since its first needlessly
flawed NIH implementation two years ago. Those losses in research usage and impact owing to needless access embargos will themselves become directly measurable with time. In the meanwhile, the maximization of research access and progress are kept in a needless state of paralysis that is anything but a "middle ground."
(2) The primary and urgent purpose of open access is certainly not so that "scientists have access to [NIH's] portfolio of research so they can see what [NIH] has funded"! It is so scientists can use and apply the research findings, immediately, for the benefit of the public that funded it for that very purpose ("
CURES").
(3) It is true that "It is also important that at some point the public, which pays for 99.5% of this research, is not prevented from having access to it" -- but that is
not the primary purpose of open access! Its purpose is immediate scientific usage and applications, for the
benefit of the public.
(4) Even though it is certainly not the primary reason for open access that "NIH needs a database of the research it funds so that it can have accountability and the ability to analyze its own portfolio," NIH
can have that portfolio by requiring immediate deposit without even necessarily requiring that the articles be made publicly accessible immediately! Individual scientists who need to know and use the findings immediately, however, could have immediate access through the simple expedient of the
EMAIL-EPRINT-REQUEST button that is now being implemented in researchers' own institutional repositories -- if, that is, the immediate deposit of the full text is systematically mandated. (Otherwise email eprint requests are a hopelessly time-consuming, uncertain and low-yield strategy.)
Hence the "
happy medium" is to require
immediate deposit in the researchers' own institutional repositories and to
harvest the deposits into
PubMed Central after whatever embargo period NIH judges necessary (a priori) to insure that this is not "done at the expense [of the] viability of peer-reviewed scientific publishing."
To instead allow an a-priori
deposit embargo is to guarantee continued paralysis -- an outcome happy for no one (except perhaps some publishers).
Zerhouni: "I'm not driven by what the popular thing to do is; I'm driven by what's right... I believe... a happy medium can be found. But if the happy medium causes a loss of viability in being able to produce good articles and good journals, it won't work."
Requesting delayed deposit in PubMed Central instead of requiring immediate deposit is not a happy medium, and it has already been shown to be
nonviable. And the way the viability of an adaptation is determined in biological evolution is through its adaptive consequences. There is an element of "intelligent design" in this, in
requiring research self-archiving at all; and we already know that self-archiving's consequences for research and researchers are positive. We don't yet know what effect mandated self-archiving will have on publishing, except that to date -- after 15 years of spontaneous self-archiving, which has in some fields reached 100% -- self-archiving itself has had no negative effect at all.
The happy medium is to require immediate deposit and allow delayed access-setting. And the way to find out whether or not it will work is to
do it, and thereby test objectively whether it causes any "loss of viability in being able to produce good articles and good journals."
That's not what's popular; it's what's right: for research and researchers -- and for the tax-paying public that funds them, and for whose benefit the research is conducted. Journals need to adapt to what is best for research, researchers and the public. Otherwise it's the happy tail wagging the unhappy dog.
"A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy" (Oct 2004)
"How to Counter All Opposition to the FRPAA Self-Archiving Mandate" (June 2006)
Harnad, S. (2006) Opening Access by Overcoming Zeno's Paralysis, in Jacobs, N., Eds. Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects, chapter 8. Chandos.
Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
