From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2014 09:26:24 -0400

A peer-reviewed journal article is either accessible to all its
potential users or it is not accessible to all its potential users —
only to those at subscribing institutions.

Open Access (OA) is intended to make articles accessible (online) to
all their potential users, not just to subscribers, so all potential
users can read, use, apply and build upon the findings.

OA comes in two forms:

* Gratis OA means an article is accessible online to all its potential users.

* Libre OA means an article is accessible online to all its potential
users and all users also have certain re-use rights, such as
text-mining by machine, and re-publication.

For individual researchers and for the general public the most
important and urgent form of OA is Gratis OA.

The reason Gratis OA is so important is that otherwise the research is
inaccessible except to subscribers: OA maximizes research uptake,
usage, applications, impact and progress.

[SNIP]

DOE and OSTI have been directed by OSTP to adopt a policy that ensures
that OA is provided to federally funded research —by 12 months after
the date of publication at the very latest.

This is not a mandate to adopt a policy that ensures that OA is
provided "at the very latest possible date."

Yet that is what DOE has done — no doubt under the influence of the
publishing industry lobby.

The interests of research and researchers -- and hence of the public
that funds the research -- are that the research should be made OA as
soon as possible.

The interests of (some of) the publishing industry are that it should
be made OA as late as possible.

The DOA has adopted a policy that serves the interests of the
publishing industry rather than those of research, researchers and the
tax-paying public.

The simplest remedy for this is not necessarily that the permissible
OA embargo length needs to be reduced (though that would be extremely
welcome and beneficial too!).  Even within the constraints of a
permissible OA embargo of 12 months at the very latest, there is a
simple way to make the DOE policy much more powerful and effective,
guaranteeing much more and earlier access.  All that has to be done is
to make immediate deposit of the author’s final, peer-reviewed draft,
in the author’s institutional repository, mandatory immediately upon
acceptance.  Not just the metadata: the full final draft.

If the author wishes to comply with a publisher OA embargo, the
deposit need not be made OA immediately.

Institutional repositories have an automated copy-request Button with
which a user can request a single copy for research purposes, and the
author can comply with the request, with just one click each.  This is
not OA, but it is almost-OA, and it is all that is needed to maximize
research access, usage and progress during any permissible OA embargo.

And besides maximizing access during any permissible OA embargo,
requiring immediate institutional deposit also mobilizes institutions
to monitor and ensure timely compliance with the funding agency’s
requirement.  The metadata for the deposit can be exported from each
institutional repository to the DOE PAGES portal immediately, and then
the portal, too (like google and google scholar), can immediately
begin referring users back to the Button at the institution so the
author can provide almost-OA with a single click until the end of any
embargo.

There is no need whatsoever to wait either for the publisher’s VOR, or
for the end of the publisher’s embargo, or for Libre OA re-use rights:
those can come when they come.  But immediate institutional deposit
needs to be mandated immediately.

Otherwise the DOE is needlessly squandering months and months of
potential research uptake, usage and progress for federally funded
research.

Please harmonize the DOE OA policy with the corresponding EU OA
policy, as well as the HEFCE OA policy in the UK, the FRS OA policy in
Belgium, and a growing number of institutional OA policies the world
over.

Stevan Harnad