US Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006

The US Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) has gone a long way toward correcting the fundamental flaws of the NIH Public Access Policy.

Let me count the ways:

(1) FRPAA self-archiving is no longer requested but mandated.

(2) The absolute time limit on the FRPAA self-archiving is no longer at most 12 months from publication but at most 6.

(3) FRPAA no longer stipulates that the self-archiving must be central: the deposit can now be in the author's own Institutional Repository (IR).

(4) Self-archiving is no longer just for biomedical sciences, but for the full FRPAA spectrum of major US-funded research, in all funded fields.

Cf: "Model Self-Archiving Policies for Research Funders" (Jan 2006)

"DASER 2 IR Meeting and NIH Public Access Policy" (Dec 2005)

"Please Don't Copy-Cat Clone NIH-12 Non-OA Policy!" (Jan 2005)

"Open Access vs. NIH Back Access and Nature's Back-Sliding" (Jan 2005)

"A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy" (Oct 2004)

And Peter Suber (see item 10 of his list of the top 10 OA stories) pinpoints the exact remedy for the FRPAA's sole remaining flaw (the fact that an embargo of up to 6 months is still allowed):

The remedy is to mandate that all articles must be deposited immediately upon acceptance for publication: the only allowable delay, if any, can only be in the moment when access to the deposit is set to Open Access (not in the moment when it is deposited). This allows authors to use their IRs' new "email eprint" button to provide immediate email access for all would-be users during any delay period: Eprints version; Dspace version.

Bravo to Senators Cornyn and Lieberman (and bravo also to Peter Suber, whose hand is clearly visible in the shape this policy has taken).

Now, the FRPAA is just a Bill, not an implemented policy. There is still time for the RCUK as well as the European Commission to get their acts together and implement their immediate-deposit self-archiving policies before the US does:

And of course nothing is stopping the worldwide network of universities and research institutions from adopting their own immediate-deposit mandates even before the big spenders do!

"Generic Rationale and Model for University Open Access Self-Archiving Mandate" (Mar 2006)

"European Commission recommends Open Access archiving for publicly-funded research" (Apr 2006)

"Wellcome Trust and the 6-month embargo" (Mar 2006)

"Comparing the Wellcome OA Policy and the RCUK (draft) Policy" (May 2005)

"Central versus institutional self-archiving" (Nov 2003)

"PubMed and self-archiving" (Aug 2003)

"Central vs. Distributed Archives" (Jun 1999)

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum