Re: Open access: a must for Wellcome Trust researchers [response to comments from ALPSP]

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

Well, it appears I owe Sally Morris an apology.  In an earlier post I
indicated that she must have been mistaken in asserting that the Wellcome
Trust was forcing authors to breach their contracts.  From Mr. Kiley's
post it's clear that she was not mistaken.  I hope no tort lawyers are on
this list.  
As for being "duty bound," I would have thought that duty called for
floating the policy by the recipients of the grants to see if they had any
questions prior to promulgation.  Or duty could have been construed as
grandfathering authors who had already signed contracts.  Or duty could be
simply to acknowledge that a mistake had been made and to take steps to
correct it.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kiley ,Mr Robert" <r.kiley@wellcome.ac.uk>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:14 PM
Subject: RE: Open access: a must for Wellcome Trust researchers [response to 
comments from ALPSP]

> The problem with taking a single sentence out of context, as you have
> done, is that it can lead to misinterpretation:  all the Trust's
> policies and supporting documents should be read in their entirety and
> not quoted out of context.  We would stress again, as we have done in
> all communications with our researchers, that they should make
> themselves fully aware of the policy as a whole before taking any
> action.  The Grant Conditions themselves make it abundantly clear that
> they must be read in conjunction with the Policies and Positions:  the
> Grant Conditions are intended as a high level document; the Policies and
> Positions underpin the Grant Conditions with more operational detail.  
> We keep all our policies under review and we will update and change our
> guidance based on the feedback we receive directly.
>
> Further, the policy does not **only** apply to grants awarded from 1
> October 2005 - it will also affect existing grant holders whose grants
> are still current on 1 October 2006.  Consequently, we were duty bound
> to alert current grant holders that papers in preparation now may well
> come under the new policy.  Our communication strategy was to alert
> everyone who might be affected, and back this up with the detail on our
> web site.
>
> In the first week of taking our policy live 55 manuscripts were
> deposited via the NIHMS system; 11 of these are now available for free
> in PMC, in a format that can be archived and integrated with other
> online database resources.
>
> Additionally, from our perspective as a funder, these papers are now
> linked to the original grant awarded, enabling a link between the
> application process and the outputs - a process which facilitates
> evaluation and can greatly improve the research process which, as a
> research organisation, has been our motivating force from the outset.
>
> Robert Kiley
>
> Head of Systems Strategy & Acting Librarian
> Wellcome Library.
> Library Web site: http://library.wellcome.ac.uk