New rule affects access to research

Washington鈥擡ffective as of April 7, peer-reviewed manuscripts that report on research funded in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health and accepted for publication in a journal like JADA must be submitted for public dissemination to NIH’s online repository, PubMed Central.

The new requirement comes from a law enacted late last year as a congressional response to public pressures鈥攆rom taxpayers wanting to learn more about the research they finance, and in recognition that the Internet could provide wider and faster access to such research. The new policy has been controversial among journal publishers.

The NIH mandatory manuscript submission policy replaces a voluntary policy in effect for nearly three years. NIH judged the voluntary policy ineffective because of the low rate of grantee submissions.

The new policy requires NIH grantees to furnish the agency with an electronic copy of their final pre-edited peer-reviewed manuscript “upon acceptance for publication.” NIH will then embargo the pre-edited manuscript until 12 months after the final version is published.

Articles published in JADA are already made freely available to the public one year after publication. The ADA’s concern with the new mandatory policy is that articles submitted and posted by NIH may not be identical to the final JADA published version. Having two different versions available online will create confusion.

“It is not clear how the NIH will track the same manuscript, if at all, to ensure that multiple versions of the manuscript are not being disseminated to the public,” the ADA Publishing Division said in a public comment filed with the NIH.

The NIH implemented the new policy Jan. 11, 2008, before seeking public input or involvement in the process. Controversial with the publishing industry, the new policy has stirred author and publisher confusion about copyright, manuscript preparation and other provisions. Mounting pressure from journal publishers compelled the NIH to solicit public comments on the new policy in March.

“It is the ADA’s strong belief that the lack of open rulemaking to guide the implementation of this policy, combined with the impossibly tight deadline, has created numerous unresolved problems that we have identified and that require further clarification,” said the ADA statement submitted by Laura A. Kosden, managing vice president and publisher.

In its comments, the ADA raised concerns about the effect the policy will have on professional journals. “A publisher’s costs for establishing an effective, peer-review editing and publication process far exceed those of an author’s grant. Therefore, the NIH should be subsidizing these costs to create an environment in which the publisher and author may continue to ‘publish, or otherwise perish.’ Furthermore, if not enforced properly, the NIH policy as briefly stated (in a notice posted at the NIH Web site) will have a measurable and adverse impact on a publisher’s subscription income that helps to subsidize publication.”

After receiving and posting the comments subsequently filed, including those of the ADA, the International Association for Dental Research and other publishers, the NIH said it will “consider all comments and suggestions regarding the public access policy.”

The ADA’s and other responses to this new government policy may be viewed online at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/comments/comments_via_email.htm .

Revised guidelines for JADA authors reflecting the new policy can be found at www.ada.org/goto/authorguidelines.聽