NIH report to Congress on the development of Public Access Policy
The number of articles deposited in PubMed Central under the policy from its launch on May 2, 2005, to December 31, 2005 (namely, 1,636), the total number of articles covered by the policy that should have been deposited in the same period (43,000), and the embargo periods requested by authors (60% authorized release immediately upon publication, 23% requested embargoes of 10-12 months, and 17% requested something in between). The compliance rate is a miserable 3.8%. "Lack of awareness does not appear to be the primary reason for the low submission rate."
PMC usage increases as its size increases.
NIH sees no evidence that its public-access policy "has had any impact on peer review".
The cost of handling submissions and administering the policy was $1 million for fiscal 2005. If the compliance rate grows to 50%, the cost would grow to $2 million/year. If the compliance rate were 100% (65,000 articles/year), the cost would be $3.5 million/year.
The report describes the NIH's outreach efforts to educate stakeholders about the policy: NIH staff, grantees, grantee institutions, and the journals where grantees publish their work.
Finally, the report describes the November 15, 2005, decision of the Public Access Working group (PAWG). Ten out of 11 members wanted grantees to deposit the final, published versions of their articles. Nine of 11 voted to mandate deposit and public access. Eight of 11 voted to shorten the permissible delay to six months, with some flexibility for rare exceptions. (The minutes of the PAWG meeting are also online.) The report says nothing about the PAWG recommendations except that "[t]he NLM Board of Regents will consider the opinions of the Working Group at its next meeting."


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