Clarifying NIH Public Access Policy

Authors have been trying to determine how their current publisher agreements fit with the new NIH Public Access Policy that goes into effect next week. Even copyright scholars are seeking advice from each other regarding the interpretation of the more subtle nuances of the requirements. Fortunately, Kevin Smith at Duke has written a brief guide. He emphasizes that there are three distinct elements:

1. Authors must retain sufficient rights in their articles to give NIH a license to make their work publicly accessible (this requires retaining these rights in copyright transfer agreements with publishers).
2. The article must be submitted to PubMed Central (PMC).
3. The author(s) will need to obtain the PMC reference numbers for the articles to include in subsequent documents for NIH (such as future grant applications, renewal requests, progress reports).
   

He goes on to suggest that universities need to create structures that support compliance and make it easy for authors to complete the steps outlined above. At the very least, it requires significant educational efforts but may indicate a need for an active role in copyright management.

Potential strategies:

• Authors publish in journals that will deposit research in PMC
  
• Universities create a license that gives the institution rights to deposit, educate researchers that such a license exists and may conflict with publisher agreements, and develop short-term compliance strategies
• Universities provide comprehensive assistance to authors and develop a sample submission letter and author's addendum

In my role as a copyright specialist for the libraries, I am happy to assist authors and the greater University community develop local strategies for compliance.