I just posted this news to my blog.
https://plus.google.com/109377556796183035206/posts/FZFvDhBLTzE
A new bill mandating OA to federally-funded research was just introduced
into both houses of Congress. It's called the Fair Access to Science and
Technology Research, or FASTR. It was introduced in the Senate by John
Cornyn (R-TX) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and in the House by Mike Doyle (D-PA),
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Kevin Yoder (R-KS).
The quickest possible introduction is to say that FASTR is a strengthened
version of FRPAA.
FRPAA was introduced in three earlier sessions of Congress (May 2006, April
2009, and February 2012), with growing momentum each time. But it never
came up for a vote. In the new session, Congressional supporters of OA
decided to up the game and introduce a strengthened version of the bill
rather than the same language. Both FRPAA and FASTR would essentially
strengthen the OA mandate at the NIH, by shortening the maximum embargo to
six months, and then extend the strengthened policy across the federal
government. FASTR goes one step further by requiring libre OA, not merely
gratis OA.
Because FRPAA is generally well-known among OA supporters, let me introduce
FASTR by comparing it to FRPAA.
Here's how FASTR and FRPAA are alike. (Section numbers in parentheses refer
to FASTR, not FRPAA.)
* Both cover the same set of agencies, namely, all those spending at least
$100 million/year to fund extramural research (Section 4.a).
* Both give agencies one year from the passage of the bill (4.a) to develop
their policies in conformity with the guidelines laid down in the bill.
* Both mandate "public access" (4.a.1, 4.b, 4.f.2.A), "free online public
access" (4.b.4), and "free public access" (4.b.7.B,4.f.2.A) without
defining these terms. I'll call this kind of access "open access" ("OA")
here for convenience.
* Both mandate green OA (through repositories) (4.b.7.A), and are silent on
gold OA (through journals).
* Both require deposit of the final version of the author's peer-reviewed
manuscript (4.b.1). Both allow consenting publishers to replace that
version with the published version (4.b.3).
* Both give agencies freedom to designate a suitable repository for the
mandatory deposits, when suitability includes "free public access,
interoperability, and long-term preservation" (4.b.7). Agencies may host
their own repositories, the way NIH hosts PubMed Central, or ask grantees
to deposit in suitable institutional or disciplinary repositories.
* Both apply to research funded "in whole or in part" (4.b.1) by one of the
covered federal agencies.
* Both ask for OA "as soon as practicable" after publication in a
peer-reviewed journal, and both require it "no later than 6 months" after
publication (4.b.4). Both require immediate OA (unembargoed OA) for works
by government-employed researchers (4.c).
* Both avoid copyright problems by requiring agency policies to "make
effective use of any law or guidance relating to the creation and
reservation of a Government license that provides for the reproduction,
publication, release, or other uses of a final manuscript for Federal
purposes" (4.c.3). In writing about FRPAA, I've pointed out that this
allows agencies to use the NIH method for avoiding copyright problems, or
other methods not chosen by the NIH, including the use of certain, codified
government-purpose licenses.
* Both exempt classified research, unpublished research, royalty-producing
research such as books, and patentable discoveries (4.d.3).
* Both are explicit in not amending copyright law or patent law (4.e).
Here's how FASTR differs from FRPAA:
* FASTR contains a provision on coordinating agency policies (4.a 2): "To
the extent practicable, Federal agencies required to develop a
policy...shall follow common procedures for the collection and depositing
of research papers." This will reduce the burden on universities that need
to comply with procedures at all the covered agencies, and should have no
detrimental effect on OA. Indeed, it should improve compliance with agency
OA policies.
* FASTR contains three provisions calling for libre OA or open licensing:
--FASTR includes a new "finding" in its preamble (2.3): "the United States
has a substantial interest in maximizing the impact and utility of the
researchit funds by enabling a wide range of reuses of the peer-reviewed
literature that reports the results of such research, including by enabling
computationalanalysis by state-of-the-art technologies."
--FASTR includes a formatting and licensing provision (4.b.5): the versions
deposited in repositories and made OA shall be distributed "in formats and
under terms that enable productive reuse, including computational analysis
by state-of-the-art technologies."
--FASTR requires that the annual report from each covered agency include a
statement from the agency on "whether the terms of use applicable to such
research papers are effective in enabling productive reuse and
computational analysis by state-of-the-art technologies" (4.f.2.B.i) and
the results of the agency's "examination of whether such research papers
should include a royalty-free copyright license that is available to the
public and that permits the reuse of those research papers, on the
condition that attribution is given to the author or authors of the
research and any others designated by the copyright owner" (4.f.2.B.ii).
The Senate and House versions of FASTR are identical.
FASTR would apply to the Department of Health and Human Services, among
other agencies. Because HHS subsumes the NIH, FASTER would strengthen the
NIH policy both by shortening the embargo to six months and by requiring
open licenses. The NIH is already, by far, the world's largest funder of
non-classified research, with a research budget larger than the GDP of 140
nations. Because FASTR applies to more than a dozen other federal
departments as well, I can reaffirm my assessment from August 2009: "FRPAA
[and now FASTR] would mandate OA for more research literature than any
other policy ever adopted or ever proposed. It would significantly increase
both the corpus of OA literature and the worldwide momentum for funder OA
mandates. It would come as close as any single step could to changing the
default for the way we disseminate new scientific work, especially
publicly-funded work."
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-09.htm#frpaa
The NIH budget alone is more than six times larger than the budgets of all
seven of the UK research councils put together. Hence, it's significant
that FASTR disregards or repudiates the gold-oriented RCUK/Finch policy in
the UK, and sticks to the FRPAA model of a pure green mandate. For some of
the reasons why I think OA mandates should be green and not gold, or green
first, see my critique of the RCUK/Finch policy from September 2012.
http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/9723075
Note that the bill was introduced not only on Valentine's Day, but on the
11th anniversary of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. It's fitting that
FASTR recommends libre OA, essentially CC-BY, and the ten-year anniversary
statement from the BOAI did the same in Recommendation 2.1: "We recommend
CC-BY or an equivalent license as the optimal license for the publication,
distribution, use, and reuse of scholarly work."
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/openaccess/boai-10-recommendations
I wrote a "reference page" on FRPAA <http://bit.ly/hoap-frpaa> and have
started a similar one on FASTR <http://bit.ly/hoap-fastr>. So far it's got
little more than the summary of the bill I've written here. But I'll
enlarge the page over time with the bill's co-sponsors, major statements of
support and opposition, ways to help. Take a look and share the URL.
This is Part 1 in a series of blog posts on FASTR and other federal actions
to support OA to federally-funded research. I'll pull the series of posts
together for an article in the March issue of the SPARC Open Access
Newsletter.
Happy Valentines-BOAI day!
Peter
Peter Suber
Director, Harvard Open Access Project
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Senior Researcher, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
(SPARC)
bit.ly/suber-gplus
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