<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left"><b><font size="1">* Apologies for cross-posting*</font></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><font size="1"><br></font></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left">
<b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">======</font></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">The Influence of the National
Institutes of Health Public-Access Policy on the Publishing Habits of Principal
Investigators</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Athanasia
(Nancy) Pontika</font></span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.5pt;padding:0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;border:none;padding:0cm"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, Boston, MA, USA</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;border:none;padding:0cm"><b style="font-size:x-small">(Full text available <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B3M8WbWcGihpODQ5OThjM2QtNDdkZi00MjEyLWFjYmEtZWRiMWY5ZWRkOThm&hl=en_US&pli=1">here</a>; poster presented at the Berlin9 conference available <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B3M8WbWcGihpNGRmYTU0ZDUtZTI1OC00MDFkLTlmZmMtNjRhYWVmY2YwOTcz&hl=en_US">here</a>)</b></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Introduction</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">The mandatory National Institutes of Health
(NIH) public-access policy requires that the NIH-funded principal investigators
(PIs) submit to PubMed Central (PMC) immediately upon publication the
peer-reviewed copy of their article, which will then become available for
public access through PMC no later than after a twelve-month embargo period.
The policy has been effective since April 7th, 2008 (Division G, Title II,
Section 218 of PL 110-161 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008). </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Purpose</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">This dissertation investigated the effect
of the NIH public-access policy on the NIH-funded principal investigators’
publishing decisions. Four questions were examined: </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:18.0pt"><font size="1"><span lang="EN-US">1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><span lang="EN-US">Which factors motivate the
NIH-funded PIs to publish in the PLoS open-access journals?</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:18.0pt"><font size="1"><span lang="EN-US">2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><span lang="EN-US">How do NIH-funded PIs perceive
the NIH public-access policy?</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:18.0pt"><font size="1"><span lang="EN-US">3.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><span lang="EN-US">How does the NIH public-access
policy influence the PIs’ publishing behavior?</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:18.0pt"><font size="1"><span lang="EN-US">4.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span><span lang="EN-US">How does the NIH public-access
policy influence the PIs’ decision to publish in open-access journals?</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Methodology</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">During the period March-May 2011, forty-two
PIs were interviewed using Skype<sup>TM</sup> software, and a semi-structured
open-ended interview protocol was followed. The participants were divided into
two groups: the pre-mandate PIs, who had published in one of the seven PLoS
journals during the period 2005-2007 and the post-mandate PIs, who had
published in the PLoS journals during the period 2008-2009.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Results</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1"><b><span lang="EN-US">PLoS
Publication Drive: </span></b><span lang="EN-US">There are four quality criteria
that motivate the participants to publish in the PLoS journals: (a) impact
factor, (b) publication speed, (c) peer-review and (d) articles’ citation
advantage.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1"><b><span lang="EN-US">Copyrights:
</span></b><span lang="EN-US">The participants do not actively manage their
copyrights for four reasons. They (a) have limited knowledge on the topic, (b)
publish in toll-access journals that comply with the policy, (c) publish in
open-access journals with limited copyright restrictions (libre open access), or
(d) ignore the journal publishers’ copyright restrictions and proceed with the
manuscripts’ submission to PubMed Central.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1"><b><span lang="EN-US">Publication
fees: </span></b><span lang="EN-US">The PIs pay the publication fees using the
NIH-funding. Providing that every year all articles will be published in
open-access journals, the NIH-funding does not cover adequately the whole
amount of the publication fees.<b></b></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1"><b><span lang="EN-US">Comprehending
the policy: </span></b><span lang="EN-US">Three groups were formulated:<b> </b>(a) NIH public-access policy is easy
to understand and comply with (<i>n</i>=13,
31%)<b>, </b>(b) PIs have assistants who
are responsible for the submission and could not express an opinion (<i>n</i>=14, 33%), and (c) NIH public-access
policy is difficult to understand and comply with (<i>n</i>=15, 36%). The complicated parts of the policy are (a) the policy’s
wording, (b) journals’ licensing agreements, and (c) manuscript submission.<b></b></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1"><b><span lang="EN-US">Seeking
help: </span></b><span lang="EN-US">The participants do not ask for help mainly
due to lack of time. They give their own interpretation of the policy’s wording
and perform all the steps hoping that they managed the submission process
correctly. At an institutional level help was provided through workshops,
organized mainly by the grants department and occasionally in cooperation with
the library.<b></b></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Policy
& open-access awareness: </font></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Non-increased
OA awareness for OA Advocates (N=42, <i>n</i>=15,
36%)<b></b></font></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Non-increased
OA awareness for Non-OA Advocates (N=42, <i>n</i>=20, 48%)<b></b></font></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Increased
OA awareness for Non-OA Advocates (N=42, <i>n</i>=7, 16%)</font></span></li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Policy
& publishing habits:<a name="_GoBack"></a></font></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">The policy
did not cause a change in publishing habits (N=42, <i>n</i>=31, 74%)</font></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">The
policy caused a change in publishing habits (N=42, <i>n</i>=11, 26%)<b></b></font></span></li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Conclusions</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">The NIH public-access policy caused only a limited
change in the PIs’ open-access awareness and their publishing habits. The OA Advocates
support immediate access to information and have been providing their
manuscripts in open-access formats before the implementation of the policy. The non-OA Advocates publish their articles
based on quality and prestige criteria and the journals they use to publish
comply with the policy, so there is no need for change. </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">The PIs have chosen to publish with one of
the PLoS journals because of their high-impact factor, publication speed, fair
peer-review system and the articles’ open accessibility.<b> </b></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Although the participants validate the
proposition that publicly funded research should be distributed free of cost,
some dislike the extra effort of submitting the manuscripts to PubMed Central.
The submission process may be considered to be an administrative burden. The
PIs who have administrators assisting them with the policy’s steps have a more
positive attitude towards the policy.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Dissertation Committee
Members:</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1"><b><span lang="EN-US">Chair:
</span></b><span lang="EN-US">Robin Peek, Professor (Graduate School of Library
and Information Science, Simmons College)</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Peter Suber, Faculty Fellow (Berkman
Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University)</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Lisa Hussey, Professor (Graduate School
of Library and Information Science, Simmons College)</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"><br></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"><br></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"><br></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">======</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1">Athanasia (Nancy) Pontika, PhD</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1">Twitter: nancypontika</font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="1">web: </font><a href="https://plus.google.com/103916734759737834769/about?hl=en">https://plus.google.com/103916734759737834769/about?hl=en</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="1"><br></font></span></p>
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