RE: Roundtable Press Release (Access to Federally Funded Research Results)

[T Scott Plutchak <tscott@uab.edu>]

A bit more info on this -- the report is from the independent ad 
hoc Scholarly Publishing Roundtable.  John Vaughn, from AAU, 
served as our chair, and has graciously enabled the use of the 
AAU website for the posting of documents related to the 
Roundtable.

This link will take you to the section of the AAU website that 
pulls all of the relevant documents together: 
http://www.aau.edu/policy/scholarly_publishing_roundtable.aspx?id=6894

This link takes you directly to the report:
http://www.aau.edu/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=10044

T. Scott Plutchak

Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
tscott@uab.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Okerson, Ann
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:08 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Roundtable Press Release (Access to Federally Funded Research Results)


************************************

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS CONTACTS:
January 12, 2010

EXPERT PANEL CALLS ON U.S. RESEARCH AGENCIES TO DEVELOP POLICIES 
FOR PROVIDING FREE PUBLIC ACCESS TO FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH 
RESULTS

Policies Should Protect Peer-Reviewed Publications While Ensuring
Rapid Access

An expert panel of librarians, library scientists, publishers,
and university academic leaders today called on federal agencies
that fund research to develop and implement policies that ensure
free public access to the results of the research they fund 'as
soon as possible after those results have been published in a
peer-reviewed journal.'

The Scholarly Publishing Roundtable was convened last summer by
the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology, in
collaboration with the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy (OSTP).  Policymakers asked the group to
examine the current state of scholarly publishing and seek
consensus recommendations for expanding public access to
scholarly journal articles.

The various communities represented in the Roundtable have been
working to develop recommendations that would improve public
access without curtailing the ability of the scientific
publishing industry to publish peer-reviewed scientific articles.

The Roundtable's recommendations, endorsed in full by the
overwhelming majority of the panel (12 out of 14 members), 'seek
to balance the need for and potential of increased access to
scholarly articles with the need to preserve the essential
functions of the scholarly publishing enterprise,' according to
the report.

'I want to commend the members of the Roundtable for reaching
broad agreement on some very difficult issues,' said John Vaughn,
executive vice president of the Association of American
Universities, who chaired the group. 'Our system of scientific
publishing is an indispensible part of the scientific enterprise
here and internationally. These recommendations ensure that we
can maintain that system as it evolves and also ensure full and
free public access to the results of research paid for by the
American taxpayer.'

The Roundtable identified a set of principles viewed as essential
to a robust scholarly publishing system, including the need to
preserve peer review, the necessity of adaptable publishing
business models, the benefits of broader public access, the
importance of archiving, and the interoperability of online
content.

In addition, the group affirmed the high value of the 'version of
record' for published articles and of all stakeholders'
contributions to sustaining the best possible system of scholarly
publishing during a time of tremendous change and innovation.

To implement its core recommendation for public access, the
Roundtable recommended the following:

*Agencies should work in full and open consultation with all
stakeholders, as well as with OSTP, to develop their public
access policies.

*Agencies should establish specific embargo periods between
publication and public access.

*Policies should be guided by the need to foster
interoperability.

*Every effort should be made to have the Version of Record as the
version to which free access is provided.

*Government agencies should extend the reach of their public
access policies through voluntary collaborations with
non-governmental stakeholders.

*Policies should foster innovation in the research and
educational use of scholarly publications.

*Government public access policies should address the need to
resolve the challenges of long-term digital preservation.

*OSTP should establish a public access advisory committee to
facilitate communication among government and nongovernment
stakeholders.

In issuing its report, the Roundtable urged all interested
parties to move forward, beyond 'the too-often acrimonious' past
debate over access issues towards a collaborative framework
wherein federal funding agencies can build 'an interdependent
system of scholarly publishing that expands public access and
enhances the broad, intelligent use of the results of federally
funded research.'

The report, as well as a list of Roundtable members, member
biographies, and the House Science and Technology Committee's
charge to the group, can be found at

http://www.aau.edu/policy/scholarly_publishing_roundtable.aspx?id=6894

[SNIP]

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