{"id":858,"date":"2011-06-07T11:05:40","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T15:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/?p=858"},"modified":"2011-06-07T11:05:40","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T15:05:40","slug":"the-nih-responds-to-my-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2011\/06\/07\/the-nih-responds-to-my-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"The NIH responds to my letter"},"content":{"rendered":"<table width=\"200\" align=\"right\" bgcolor=\"#F7EFE5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"http:\/\/www.media.nih.gov\/imagebank\/display.aspx?ID=645\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-866\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/files\/2011\/06\/nlm-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Front steps of National Library of Medicine, 2008, photo courtesy of NIH Image Bank\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/files\/2011\/06\/nlm-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/files\/2011\/06\/nlm-694x1024.jpg 694w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/files\/2011\/06\/nlm.jpg 1981w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"center\"><span style=\"color: #999999\">Front steps of National Library of Medicine, 2008, photo courtesy of NIH Image Bank<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Imagine my surprise when I actually received a <em>response<\/em> to <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/gtYOlU\">my letters in recognition<\/a> of the <a href=\"http:\/\/publicaccess.nih.gov\/\">NIH public access policy<\/a>, a form letter undoubtedly, but nonetheless gratefully received. And as a side effect, it allows us to gauge the understanding of the issues in the pertinent offices.<\/p>\n<p>The letter, which I&#8217;ve <a href=\"#letter\">duplicated below<\/a> in its entirety, addresses two of the issues that I raised in my letter, the expansion of the policy to other agencies and the desirability for a reduction in the embargo period.<\/p>\n<p>With regard to expanding the NIH policy to other funding agencies, the response merely notes the <a href=\"http:\/\/thomas.loc.gov\/cgi-bin\/bdquery\/z?d111:HR05116:|\/home\/LegislativeData.php?n=BSS;c=111|\">America COMPETES Act<\/a>&#8216;s\u00a0charge to establish a working group to study the matter \u2014 fine as far as it goes, but not an indication of support for expansion itself.<\/p>\n<p>With regard to the embargo issue, the response seems a bit confused as to how things work in the real world. Let&#8217;s look at some sentences from the pertinent paragraph:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;As you may know, the 12-month delay period specified by law (<a href=\"http:\/\/publicaccess.nih.gov\/policy.htm\">Division G, Title II, Section 218 of P.L. 110-161<\/a>) is an upper limit. Rights holders (sometimes the author, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cliffsnotes.com\/Section\/What-is-parallel-structure-in-writing-.id-305408,articleId-27144.html\">and<\/a> sometimes they transfer some or all of these rights to publishers) are free to select a shorter delay period, and many do.&#8221; This is of course true. My hope, and that of many others, is to decrease this maximum.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The length of the delay period is determined through negotiation between authors and publishers as part of the copyright transfer process.&#8221; Well, not so much. Authors don&#8217;t so much negotiate with publishers as just sign whatever publishers put in their path. When one actually attempts to engage in negotiation, sadly rare among academic authors, things often go smoothly, but <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/erz3x\">sometimes take a turn for the odd<\/a>, and authors in the thrall of <em>publish or perish<\/em> are short on negotiating leverage.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;These negotiations can be challenging for authors, and our guidance (<a href=\"http:\/\/publicaccess.nih.gov\/FAQ.htm#778\">http:\/\/publicaccess.nih.gov\/FAQ.htm#778<\/a>) encourages authors to consult with their institutions when they have questions about copyright transfer agreements.&#8221; I have a feeling that the word <em>challenging<\/em> is a euphemism for something else, but I&#8217;m not sure what. The cited FAQ doesn&#8217;t in fact provide guidance on negotiation, but just language to incorporate into a publisher agreement to make it consistent with the 12-month embargo. No advice on what to do if the publisher refuses, much less how to negotiate shorter embargoes. As for the excellent advice to &#8220;consult with their institutions&#8221;, in the case of Harvard, that kind of means to talk with <a href=\"http:\/\/osc.hul.harvard.edu\/\">my office<\/a>, doesn&#8217;t it? Which, I suppose, is a vote of confidence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So there is some room for improvement in understanding the dynamic at play in author-publisher relations, but overall, I&#8217;m gratified that NIH folks are on top of this issue and making a good faith effort to bring the fruits of research to the scholarly community and the public at large, and reiterate <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/gtYOlU\">my strong support of NIH&#8217;s policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the full text of the letter:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><a name=\"letter\"><\/a>DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH &amp; HUMAN SERVICES<br \/>\nPublic Health Service<br \/>\nNational Institutes of Health<br \/>\nBethesda, Maryland 20892<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">May 27 2011<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Stuart M. Shieber, Ph.D.<br \/>\nWelch Professor of Computer Science, and<br \/>\nDirector, Office for Scholarly Communication<br \/>\n1341 Massachusetts Avenue<br \/>\nCambridge, Massachusetts 02138<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Dear Dr. Shieber:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Thank you for your letters to Secretary Sebelius and Dr. Collins regarding the NIH Public Access Policy. I am the program manager for the Policy, and have been asked to respond to you directly.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">We view the policy as an important tool for ensuring that as many Americans as possible benefit from the public&#8217;s investment in research through NIH.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">I appreciate your suggestions about reducing the delay period between publication and availability of a paper on PubMed Central. As you may know, the 12-month delay period specified by law (Division G, Title II, Section 218 of P.L. 110-161) is an upper limit. Rights holders (sometimes the author, and sometimes they transfer some or all of these rights to publishers) are free to select a shorter delay period, and many do. The length of the delay period is determined through negotiation between authors and publishers as part of the copyright transfer process. These negotiations can be challenging for authors, and our guidance (<a href=\"http:\/\/publicaccess.nih.gov\/FAQ.htm#778\">http:\/\/publicaccess.nih.gov\/FAQ.htm#778<\/a>) encourages authors to consult with their institutions when they have questions about copyright transfer agreements.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">I also appreciate your suggestion to expand this Policy to other Federal science funders, and the confidence it implies in our approach. The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) has been charged by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-358) to establish a working group to explore the dissemination and stewardship of peer reviewed papers arising from Federal research funding. I am copying Dr. Celeste Rohlfing at the Office of Science and Technology Policy on this correspondence, as she is coordinating the NSTC efforts on Public Access.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Neil M. Thakur, Ph.D.<br \/>\nSpecial Assistant to the NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">cc: Ms. Celeste M. Rohlfing<br \/>\nAssistant Director for Physical Sciences<br \/>\nOffice of Science and Technology Policy<br \/>\nExecutive Office of the President<br \/>\n725 17th Street, Room 5228<br \/>\nWashington, DC 20502<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Front steps of National Library of Medicine, 2008, photo courtesy of NIH Image Bank Imagine my surprise when I actually received a response to my letters in recognition of the NIH public access policy, a form letter undoubtedly, but nonetheless gratefully received. And as a side effect, it allows us to gauge the understanding of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[618,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-access","category-scholarly-communication"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pLfN-dQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":797,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2011\/04\/13\/letters-in-recognition-of-the-nih-public-access-policy-anniversary\/","url_meta":{"origin":858,"position":0},"title":"Letters in recognition of the NIH Public Access Policy anniversary","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Wednesday, April 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In recognition of the third anniversary of the establishment of the NIH Public Access Policy on April 7, 2008, I've sent letters to John Holdren, Director of the\u00a0Office of Science and Technology Policy;\u00a0Francis Collins., Director of the National Institutes of Health; and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;open access&quot;","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":373,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2010\/01\/22\/373\/","url_meta":{"origin":858,"position":1},"title":"Harvard response to White House RFI on public access policies","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Friday, January 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Harvard's provost Steven Hyman has submitted a response on behalf of the university to the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy's RFI on public access policies. It should appear on the OSTP blog within a day or so, and is duplicated here as well. I am in strong\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;open access&quot;","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1691,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2013\/02\/28\/open-letter-on-the-white-house-public-access-directive\/","url_meta":{"origin":858,"position":2},"title":"Open letter on the White House public access directive","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Thursday, February 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"...White House... \"White House\" image by flickr user Trevor McGoldrick. As has been widely reported, this past Friday the White House directed essentially all federal funding agencies to develop open access policies over the next few months. I wrote the letter below to be forwarded to faculty at the Harvard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;open access&quot;","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1533,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/10\/08\/open-access-week-2012-at-harvard\/","url_meta":{"origin":858,"position":3},"title":"Open Access Week 2012 at Harvard","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Monday, October 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"...set the default... Here's what's on deck at Harvard for Open Access Week 2012 (reproduced from the OSC announcement). From October 22 through October 28, Harvard University is joining hundreds of other institutions of higher learning\u00a0to celebrate\u00a0Open Access Week, a global event for the promotion of free, immediate online access\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;open access&quot;","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1284,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/03\/30\/statement-before-the-house-science-committee\/","url_meta":{"origin":858,"position":4},"title":"Statement before the House Science Committee","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Friday, March 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cMajesty of Law\u201d Statue in front of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., photo by flickr user NCinDC, used by permission (CC-by-nd) Here is my written testimony filed in association with my appearance yesterday at the\u00a0hearing on \"Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests\" before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;open access&quot;","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":206,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2009\/06\/24\/206\/","url_meta":{"origin":858,"position":5},"title":"Institute of Education Sciences has an open access policy","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Wednesday, June 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't seen it discussed anywhere, but it seems that the Institute of Education Sciences in the Department of Education is now requiring its funded research be made openly available through the ERIC repository. The policy looks analogous to that of the NIH.\u00a0 The pertinent clause from the current IES\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;open access&quot;","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":890,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions\/890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}