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Bethesda statement on open access publishing
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Peter Suber
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Jun 22, 2003 17:44 PDT
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[I'm forwarding an important statement on open access publishing from an
April meeting of foundations, scientists, editors, publishers, and open
access proponents. It was released on June 20. I will make sure that
comments to the FOS Forum are known to the conference organizers. I
participated in the conference and signed the document. I wish it went
further on a few points, but it makes significant headway e.g. in asking
foundations to pay the processing fees charged by open-access
journals. The public and private funding agencies in the room agreed that
this was something they could and should do to promote open access. --Peter.]
Summary of the April 11, 2003, Meeting on Open Access Publishing
The following statements of principle were drafted during a one-day meeting
held on April 11, 2003 at the headquarters of the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The purpose of this document is to
stimulate discussion within the biomedical research community on how to
proceed, as rapidly as possible, to the widely held goal of providing open
access to the primary scientific literature. Our goal was to agree on
significant, concrete steps that all relevant parties --the organizations
that foster and support scientific research, the scientists that generate
the research results, the publishers who facilitate the peer-review and
distribution of results of the research, and the scientists, librarians and
other who depend on access to this knowledge-- can take to promote the
rapid and efficient transition to open access publishing.
A list of the attendees is given following the statements of principle;
they participated as individuals and not necessarily as representatives of
their institutions. Thus, this statement, while reflecting the group
consensus, should not be interpreted as carrying the unqualified
endorsement of each participant or any position by their institutions.
Our intention is to reconvene an expanded group in a few months to draft a
final set of principles that we will then seek to have formally endorsed by
funding agencies, scientific societies, publishers, librarians, research
institutions and individual scientists as the accepted standard for
publication of peer-reviewed reports of original research in the biomedical
sciences.
The document is divided into four sections: The first is a working
definition of open access publication. This is followed by the reports of
three working groups.
---
Definition of Open Access Publication
An Open Access Publication[1] is one that meets the following two conditions:
1. The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free,
irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to
copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make
and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible
purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship[2], as well as the
right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
2. A complete version of the work and all supplemental materials,
including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard
electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at
least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution,
scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established
organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution,
interoperability, and long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences,
PubMed Central is such a repository).
Notes:
1. Open access is a property of individual works, not necessarily journals
or publishers.
2. Community standards, rather than copyright law, will continue to
provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible
use of the published work, as they do now.
---
Statement of the Institutions and Funding Agencies working group
Our organizations sponsor and nurture scientific research to promote the
creation and dissemination of new ideas and knowledge for the public
benefit. We recognize that publication of results is an essential part of
scientific research and the costs of publication are part of the cost of
doing research. We already expect that our faculty and grantees share their
ideas and discoveries through publication. This mission is only
half-completed if the work is not made as widely available and as useful to
society as possible. The Internet has fundamentally changed the practical
and economic realities of distributing published scientific knowledge and
makes possible substantially increased access.
To realize the benefits of this change requires a corresponding fundamental
change in our policies regarding publication by our grantees and faculty:
1. We encourage our faculty/grant recipients to publish their work
according to the principles of the open access model, to maximize the
access and benefit to scientists, scholars and the public throughout the world.
2. We realize that moving to open and free access, though probably
decreasing total costs, may displace some costs to the individual
researcher through page charges, or to publishers through decreased
revenues, and we pledge to help defray these costs. To this end we agree
to help fund the necessary expenses of publication under the open access
model of individual papers in peer-reviewed journals (subject to reasonable
limits based on market conditions and services provided).
3. We reaffirm the principle that only the intrinsic merit of the work,
and not the title of the journal in which a candidate’s work is published,
will be considered in appointments, promotions, merit awards or grants.
4. We will regard a record of open access publication as evidence of
service to the community, in evaluation of applications for faculty
appointments, promotions and grants.
We adopt these policies in the expectation that the publishers of
scientific works share our desire to maximize public benefit from
scientific knowledge and will view these new policies as they are intended
--an opportunity to work together for the benefit of the scientific
community and the public.
---
Statement of the Libraries & Publishers Working Group
We believe that open access will be an essential component of scientific
publishing in the future and that works reporting the results of current
scientific research should be as openly accessible and freely useable as
possible. Libraries and publishers should make every effort to hasten this
transition in a fashion that does not disrupt the orderly dissemination of
scientific information.
Libraries propose to:
1. Develop and support mechanisms to make the transition to open access
publishing and to provide examples of these mechanisms to the community.
2. In our education and outreach activities, give high priority to
teaching our users about the benefits of open access publishing and open
access journals.
3. List and highlight open access journals in our catalogs and other
relevant databases.
Journal publishers propose to:
1. Commit to providing an open access option for any research article
published in any of the journals they publish.
2. Declare a specific timetable for transition of journals to open access
models.
3. Work with other publishers of open access works and interested parties
to develop tools for authors and publishers to facilitate publication of
manuscripts in standard electronic formats suitable for archival storage
and efficient searching.
4. Ensure that open access models requiring author fees lower barriers to
researchers at demonstrated financial disadvantage, particularly those from
developing countries.
---
Statement of Scientists and Scientific Societies Working Group
Scientific research is an interdependent process whereby each experiment is
informed by the results of others. The scientists who perform research and
the professional societies that represent them have a great interest in
ensuring that research results are disseminated as immediately, broadly and
effectively as possible. Electronic publication of research results offers
the opportunity and the obligation to share research results, ideas and
discoveries freely with the scientific community and the public.
Therefore:
1. We endorse the principles of the open access model.
2. We recognize that publishing is a fundamental part of the research
process, and the costs of publishing are a fundamental cost of doing research.
3. Scientific societies agree to affirm their strong support for the open
access model and their commitment to ultimately achieve open access for all
the works they publish. They will share information on the steps they are
taking to achieve open access with the community they serve and with others
who might benefit from their experience.
4. Scientists agree to manifest their support for open access by
selectively publishing in, reviewing for and editing for open access
journals and journals that are effectively making the transition to open
access.
5. Scientists agree to advocate changes in promotion and tenure
evaluation in order to recognize the community contribution of open access
publishing and to recognize the intrinsic merit of individual articles
without regard to the titles of the journals in which they appear.
6. Scientists and societies agree that education is an indispensable part
of achieving open access, and commit to educate their colleagues, members
and the public about the importance of open access and why they support it.
---
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Dr. Patrick O. Brown
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Stanford University School of Medicine, and
Public Library of Science
Ms. Diane Cabell
Associate Director
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
Dr. Aravinda Chakravarti
Director, McKusick-Nathans Institute of
Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins
University, and
Editor, Genome Research
Ms. Barbara Cohen
Executive Editor
Journal of Clinical Investigation
Dr. Tony Delamothe
BMJ Publishing Group
United Kingdom
Dr. Michael Eisen
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
University of California Berkeley, and
Public Library of Science
Dr. Les Grivell
Programme Manager
European Molecular Biology Organization
Germany
Prof. Jean-Claude Guédon
Professor of Comparative Literature,
University of Montreal, and
Member of the Information Sub-Board,
Open Society Institute
Dr. R. Scott Hawley
Genetics Society of America
Mr. Richard K. Johnson
Enterprise Director
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)
Dr. Marc W. Kirschner
Harvard Medical School
Dr. David Lipman
Director, NCBI
National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Mr. Arnold P. Lutzker
Lutzker & Lutzker, LLP
Outside Counsel for Open Society Institute
Ms. Elizabeth Marincola
Executive Director
The American Society for Cell Biology
Dr. Richard J. Roberts
New England Biolabs
Dr. Gerald M. Rubin
Vice President and Director, Janelia Farm
Research Campus
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Prof. Robert Schloegl
Chair, Task Force on Electronic Publishing
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Germany
Dr. Vivian Siegel
Executive Editor
Public Library of Science
Dr. Anthony D. So
Health Equity Division
The Rockefeller Foundation
Dr. Peter Suber
Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College
Open Access Project Director, Public
Knowledge
Senior Researcher, SPARC
Dr. Harold E. Varmus
President, Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center
Chair, Board of Directors, Public
Library of Science
Mr. Jan Velterop
Publisher
BioMed Central
United Kingdom
Dr. Mark J. Walport
Director Designate
The Wellcome Trust
United Kingdom
Ms. Linda Watson
Director
Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
University of Virginia Health System
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Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
<html>
[I'm forwarding an important statement on open access publishing from an
April meeting of foundations, scientists, editors, publishers, and open
access proponents. It was released on June 20. I will make
sure that comments to the FOS Forum are known to the conference
organizers. I participated in the conference and signed the
document. I wish it went further on a few points, but it makes
significant headway e.g. in asking foundations to pay the processing fees
charged by open-access journals. The public and private funding
agencies in the room agreed that this was something they could and should
do to promote open access. --Peter.]<br><br>
<br>
<b><u>Summary of the April 11, 2003, Meeting on Open Access
Publishing<br><br>
</u></b>The following statements of principle were drafted during a
one-day meeting held on April 11, 2003 at the headquarters of the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The purpose of
this document is to stimulate discussion within the biomedical research
community on how to proceed, as rapidly as possible, to the widely held
goal of providing open access to the primary scientific literature. Our
goal was to agree on significant, concrete steps that all relevant
parties --the organizations that foster and support scientific research,
the scientists that generate the research results, the publishers who
facilitate the peer-review and distribution of results of the research,
and the scientists, librarians and other who depend on access to this
knowledge-- can take to promote the rapid and efficient transition to
open access publishing.<br><br>
A list of the attendees is given following the statements of principle;
they participated as individuals and not necessarily as representatives
of their institutions. Thus, this statement, while reflecting the group
consensus, should not be interpreted as carrying the unqualified
endorsement of each participant or any position by their
institutions.<br><br>
Our intention is to reconvene an expanded group in a few months to draft
a final set of principles that we will then seek to have formally
endorsed by funding agencies, scientific societies, publishers,
librarians, research institutions and individual scientists as the
accepted standard for publication of peer-reviewed reports of original
research in the biomedical sciences.<br><br>
The document is divided into four sections: The first is a working
definition of open access publication. This is followed by the reports of
three working groups.<br><br>
---<br>
<b><u>Definition of Open Access Publication</b> <br><br>
</u>An Open Access Publication[1] is one that meets the following two
conditions:<br>
<dl>
<dd>1.<x-tab> </x-tab> The author(s) and copyright
holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual
right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and
display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in
any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper
attribution of authorship[2], as well as the right to make small numbers
of printed copies for their personal use.<br><br>
<dd>2.<x-tab> </x-tab> A complete version of the
work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission
as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited
immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository
that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society,
government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to
enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and
long-term archiving (for the biomedical sciences, PubMed Central is such
a repository). <br><br>
</dl><u>Notes: <br><br>
</u>1. Open access is a property of individual works, not necessarily
journals or publishers.<br><br>
2. Community standards, rather than copyright law, will
continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution
and responsible use of the published work, as they do now.<br><br>
---<br>
<b><u>Statement of the Institutions and Funding Agencies working
group<br><br>
</u></b>Our organizations sponsor and nurture scientific research to
promote the creation and dissemination of new ideas and knowledge for the
public benefit. We recognize that publication of results is an
essential part of scientific research and the costs of publication are
part of the cost of doing research. We already expect that our faculty
and grantees share their ideas and discoveries through publication. This
mission is only half-completed if the work is not made as widely
available and as useful to society as possible. The Internet has
fundamentally changed the practical and economic realities of
distributing published scientific knowledge and makes possible
substantially increased access. <br><br>
To realize the benefits of this change requires a corresponding
fundamental change in our policies regarding publication by our grantees
and faculty: <br>
<dl>
<dd>1. We encourage our faculty/grant recipients to publish their
work according to the principles of the open access model, to maximize
the access and benefit to scientists, scholars and the public throughout
the world.<br><br>
<dd>2. We realize that moving to open and free access, though
probably decreasing total costs, may displace some costs to the
individual researcher through page charges, or to publishers through
decreased revenues, and we pledge to help defray these costs.<b>
</b>To this end we agree to help fund the necessary expenses of
publication under the open access model of individual papers in
peer-reviewed journals (subject to reasonable limits based on market
conditions and services provided). <br><br>
<dd>3. We reaffirm the principle that only the intrinsic merit of
the work, and not the title of the journal in which a candidate’s work is
published, will be considered in appointments, promotions, merit awards
or grants.<br><br>
<dd>4. We will regard a record of open access publication as
evidence of service to the community, in evaluation of applications for
faculty appointments, promotions and grants. <br><br>
</dl>We adopt these policies in the expectation that the publishers of
scientific works share our desire to maximize public benefit from
scientific knowledge and will view these new policies as they are
intended --an opportunity to work together for the benefit of the
scientific community and the public.<br><br>
---<br>
<b><u>Statement of the Libraries & Publishers Working Group<br><br>
</u></b>We believe that open access will be an essential component of
scientific publishing in the future and that works reporting the results
of current scientific research should be as openly accessible and freely
useable as possible. Libraries and publishers should make every
effort to hasten this transition in a fashion that does not disrupt the
orderly dissemination of scientific information.<br><br>
Libraries propose to:<br>
<dl>
<dd>1.<x-tab> </x-tab>Develop and support mechanisms to
make the transition to open access publishing and to provide examples of
these mechanisms to the community.<br><br>
<dd>2.<x-tab> </x-tab>In our education and outreach
activities, give high priority to teaching our users about the benefits
of open access publishing and open access journals.<br><br>
<dd>3.<x-tab> </x-tab>List and highlight open access
journals in our catalogs and other relevant databases.<br><br>
<br><br>
</dl>Journal publishers propose to:<br>
<dl>
<dd>1.<x-tab> </x-tab>Commit to providing an open access
option for any research article published in any of the journals they
publish.<br><br>
<dd>2.<x-tab> </x-tab>Declare a specific timetable for
transition of journals to open access models.<br><br>
<dd>3.<x-tab> </x-tab>Work with other publishers of open
access works and interested parties to develop tools for authors and
publishers to facilitate publication of manuscripts in standard
electronic formats suitable for archival storage and efficient
searching.<br><br>
<dd>4.<x-tab> </x-tab>Ensure that open access models
requiring author fees lower barriers to researchers at demonstrated
financial disadvantage, particularly those from developing
countries.<br><br>
</dl>---<br>
<b><u>Statement of Scientists and Scientific Societies Working
Group<br><br>
</u></b>Scientific research is an interdependent process whereby each
experiment is informed by the results of others. The scientists who
perform research and the professional societies that represent them have
a great interest in ensuring that research results are disseminated as
immediately, broadly and effectively as possible. Electronic publication
of research results offers the opportunity and the obligation to share
research results, ideas and discoveries freely with the scientific
community and the public. <br><br>
Therefore:<br>
<dl>
<dd>1.<x-tab> </x-tab>We endorse the principles of the
open access model.<br><br>
<dd>2.<x-tab> </x-tab>We recognize that publishing is a
fundamental part of the research process, and the costs of publishing are
a fundamental cost of doing research.<br><br>
<dd>3.<x-tab> </x-tab>Scientific societies agree to
affirm their strong support for the open access model and their
commitment to ultimately achieve open access for all the works they
publish. They will share information on the steps they are taking to
achieve open access with the community they serve and with others who
might benefit from their experience.<br><br>
<dd>4.<x-tab> </x-tab>Scientists agree to manifest their
support for open access by selectively publishing in, reviewing for and
editing for open access journals and journals that are effectively making
the transition to open access.<br><br>
<dd>5.<x-tab> </x-tab>Scientists agree to advocate
changes in promotion and tenure evaluation in order to recognize the
community contribution of open access publishing and to recognize the
intrinsic merit of individual articles without regard to the titles of
the journals in which they appear.<br><br>
<dd>6.<x-tab> </x-tab>Scientists and societies agree
that education is an indispensable part of achieving open access, and
commit to educate their colleagues, members and the public about the
importance of open access and why they support it.<br><br>
</dl>---<br><br>
<b><u>LIST OF PARTICIPANTS<br><br>
</u></b>Dr. Patrick O. Brown<br>
Howard Hughes Medical Institute<br>
Stanford University School of Medicine, and<br>
Public Library of Science<br><br>
Ms. Diane Cabell<br>
Associate Director<br>
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law
School<br><br>
Dr. Aravinda Chakravarti<br>
Director, McKusick-Nathans Institute of<br>
Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins<br>
University, and<br>
Editor, Genome Research<br><br>
Ms. Barbara Cohen<br>
Executive Editor<br>
Journal of Clinical Investigation<br><br>
Dr. Tony Delamothe<br>
BMJ Publishing Group<br>
United Kingdom<br><br>
Dr. Michael Eisen<br>
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab<br>
University of California Berkeley, and<br>
Public Library of Science<br><br>
Dr. Les Grivell<br>
Programme Manager<br>
European Molecular Biology Organization<br>
Germany<br><br>
Prof. Jean-Claude Guédon<br>
Professor of Comparative Literature,<br>
University of Montreal, and<br>
Member of the Information Sub-Board,<br>
Open Society Institute<br><br>
Dr. R. Scott Hawley<br>
Genetics Society of America<br><br>
Mr. Richard K. Johnson<br>
Enterprise Director<br>
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)<br><br>
Dr. Marc W. Kirschner<br>
Harvard Medical School<br><br>
Dr. David Lipman<br>
Director, NCBI<br>
National Library of Medicine<br>
National Institutes of Health<br><br>
Mr. Arnold P. Lutzker<br>
Lutzker & Lutzker, LLP<br>
Outside Counsel for Open Society Institute<br><br>
Ms. Elizabeth Marincola<br>
Executive Director<br>
The American Society for Cell Biology<br><br>
Dr. Richard J. Roberts<br>
New England Biolabs<br><br>
Dr. Gerald M. Rubin<br>
Vice President and Director, Janelia Farm<br>
Research Campus<br>
Howard Hughes Medical Institute<br><br>
Prof. Robert Schloegl<br>
Chair, Task Force on Electronic Publishing<br>
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Germany<br><br>
Dr. Vivian Siegel<br>
Executive Editor<br>
Public Library of Science<br><br>
Dr. Anthony D. So<br>
Health Equity Division<br>
The Rockefeller Foundation<br><br>
Dr. Peter Suber<br>
Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College<br>
Open Access Project Director, Public<br>
Knowledge<br>
Senior Researcher, SPARC<br><br>
Dr. Harold E. Varmus<br>
President, Memorial Sloan-Kettering<br>
Cancer Center<br>
Chair, Board of Directors, Public<br>
Library of Science<br><br>
Mr. Jan Velterop<br>
Publisher<br>
BioMed Central<br>
United Kingdom<br><br>
Dr. Mark J. Walport<br>
Director Designate<br>
The Wellcome Trust<br>
United Kingdom<br><br>
Ms. Linda Watson<br>
Director<br>
Claude Moore Health Sciences Library<br>
University of Virginia Health System<br><br>
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