ASPB’s Response to NIH’s Public Access Policy

The National Institutes of Health recently requested that authors whose research is supported in whole or in part by NIH deposit their peer-reviewed, accepted manuscripts in PubMed Central, NIH’s central repository. NIH intends this manuscript repository to (1) provide an alternative means through which NIH grantees can partially fulfill progress reporting requirements and (2) be part of a central resource through which the public may view research funded by U.S. taxpayers. The full policy can be viewed at http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html.

ASPB and Free Access

Before addressing how ASPB is responding to the NIH policy, it may be helpful to point out the actual cost of publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed papers online. Online publishing is expensive, and ASPB pays for it by charging libraries for access to the most recently published material and assessing author fees. Proponents of the Open Access movement, such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS), would have us believe that modest author charges can easily cover the full cost of publication, but PLoS actually operates under benefit of multi-million dollar grants. Most societies, including ASPB, are not in that situation. The actual cost to publish an article in Plant Physiology Online is about $2,500, and in The Plant Cell Online $3,500. To shift the full cost of publication entirely to the authors would create undue hardship for many of our contributors, in the United States and abroad, and a financially unreliable situation for ASPB. The present combination of subscriptions and author charges has allowed the Society to make the content free in numerous ways. For example, all research content is made free after 12 months from the date of publication, both via the journal websites at HighWire Press and via PubMed Central. The Society has digitized the full content of The Plant Cell in searchable PDF format back to volume 1, January 1989, and the full content of Plant Physiology back to volume 101, January 1993. We are also working closely with the National Library of Medicine and PubMed Central to digitize the rest of Plant Physiology back to 1926, volume 1. That project is nearly complete, and these historical articles are available to all at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=69&action=archive. Further, ASPB participates in AGORA (http://www.aginternetwork.org/en/), which allows more than 70 participating nations immediate free access to the research content of both journals. As you can see, ASPB has a long history of making its research content as widely and freely available as possible within the bounds of fiscal prudence.

How ASPB Is Responding to the NIH Policy

The NIH policy is a request, not a requirement, for NIH-funded authors, and the agency has stated that awardee compliance with the policy will not influence future funding decisions. Even so, ASPB recognizes that some of our authors may choose to comply with the policy and wants to accommodate them in a manner that does not jeopardize ASPB’s legitimate interests and long-standing practices. Therefore, both journals’ copyright statements have been amended for articles accepted as of May 2, 2005, to include the following statement: “[Plant Physiology/The Plant Cell] allows authors whose research was funded in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health to deposit their peer-reviewed, accepted manuscript to NIH for release in PubMed Central 12 months after the date of final publication by the journal.” NIH advises that “authors and/or their institutions should ensure that their final manuscript submissions to PMC are consistent with any other agreements, including copyright assignments that they may have, or enter into, with publishers or other third parties.”

At this time, PMC cannot accept articles submitted by third parties, e.g., publishers, although there are plans to implement third-party submission later this year. Therefore, authors will be responsible for submitting their accepted, peer-reviewed manuscripts to PubMed Central, if they choose to do so. NIH’s instructions for submission are available via http://nihms.nih.gov. Please note that ASPB requires that authors submit the identical version of the paper that was accepted for publication. This version will be different from the final, copyedited article that ASPB will publish, and the journals will provide authors with language to append to their manuscript to indicate that it is has not been copyedited and may therefore differ in important ways from the authoritative version of the article published in Plant Physiology or The Plant Cell. NIH would prefer that the published article eventually replace the author’s accepted manuscript, provided that the publisher concurs. ASPB has for five years been depositing final published articles in PubMed Central for release after 12 months, and we will continue to do so.

What’s Next at ASPB?

ASPB fully recognizes the value to the scientific community of making the journals’ research content freely accessible as soon as possible. On the other hand, with the full cost to publish an article in Plant Physiology Online averaging around $2,500, and in The Plant Cell Online about $3,500, we are seeking a middle ground. Thus, we will be launching in the next couple of months an Open Access “experiment,” whereby any author who desires to provide free access from the moment of publication to a research article that he or she has authored can do so for a modest surcharge of $1,000—and just $500 if the author works at an institution with a subscription to the journals. Authors who elect this Open Access option can instruct NIH to release the peer-reviewed manuscript as soon as the published article appears on the journal site.

Roger P. Hangarter
rhangart@indiana.edu