** Cross-Posted **

In Open Access News<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/07/can-apa-policy-be-defended.html>,
Peter Suber commented on my posting -- "In Defense of the American
Psychological Association's Green OA
Policy<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/433-guid.html>"
-- which defended the APA from
criticism<http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=4836&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en>
for
levying a $2500 fee on authors for compliance with the NIH
mandate<http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=National%20Institutes%20of%20Health%20%28NIH%29>
to
deposit in PubMed Central (PMC) <http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/>. I had said
the problem was with NIH's stipulation that the deposit had to be in PMC
rather than in the author's own Institutional Repository
(IR)<http://roar.eprints.org/?action=home&q=&country=&version=&type=institutional&order=name&submit=Filter>,
because the APA has been a Green
publisher<http://romeo.eprints.org/publishers.html> since
2002, endorsing deposit in the author's IR immediately upon acceptance for
publication, with no fee.

*Peter Suber:* "*Stevan is mixing up unrelated issues.  The APA "deposit
fee" had nothing to do with the distinction between disciplinary
repositories (like PMC) and institutional repositories.  If the NIH mandated
deposit in IRs instead of PMC, then the APA would demand a $2,500 fee for
deposit in IRs, and the fee would be equally noxious and indefensible.  Even
if the NIH's preference for PMC were as foolish as Stevan says it is (a
criticism I do not share), it would not justify the APA fee."*

Peter seems to be replying with a hypothetical conditional, regarding what
the APA would have done. But the APA has already been formally endorsing
immediate Open Access self-archiving in the author's own IR for six years
now. Moreover (see below), the publisher, Gary Vandenbos, has confirmed that
APA has not changed that policy, nor are there plans to change it.

What needs to be changed is one small detail of NIH's policy: the
requirement to deposit directly in PMC. The locus of deposit should be the
author's own IR. PMC can harvest the metadata and link to the full-text in
the IR. This will cost NIH authors nothing. And APA has no plans to change
its Green OA self-archiving policy. (It would certainly have put APA in a
very bad light if, having given its authors the green light to self-archive
in their own IRs, APA then decided to slap a $2500 traffic ticket on them
for going ahead and doing so!)

------------------------------

*Date:* 15 Jul 2008 23:28:40 -0400
*To:* Gary Vandenbos<http://www7.nationalacademies.org/core/Gary_VandenBos_Bio.html>
 (Publisher, American Psychological Association
Journals<http://www.apa.org/journals/>
)
*Cc:* Alan Kazdin <http://www.apa.org/about/president/bio.html>
(President, American
Psychological Association <http://www.apa.org/>)
*Subject:* In Defense of the American Psychological Association's Green OA
Policy

Hi Gary (and Alan),

As long as APA does not dream of back-sliding on its 6-year green OA
policy<http://www.apa.org/journals/authors/posting.html> on
institutional self-archiving, you can count on my firm support in the
forthcoming onslaught from OA advocates worldwide, and you will weather the
storm and come out looking good.

But please do reply to reassure me that
back-sliding<http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4265.html>
is
not an option!

Best wishes, Stevan

*Date:* 16 Jul 2008 2:05:49 AM EDT (CA),
*From:* Gary VandenBos

Steven, *I expect no change in the existing policy. Have not ever heard
anyone suggest it.*
Gary

*Date:* 16 Jul 2008 13:22:08 +0100 (BST)
*To:* Gary VandenBos

Splendid. Expect a spirited (and successful) defense that will leave APA
looking benign and responsible (as it indeed is). The problem is in the
well-meaning juggernauts (in this case, NIH OA policy-makers) that simply do
not think things through.

Best wishes, Stevan

------------------------------

*Peter Suber:* "*Stevan points to a 2002 APA policy
statement<http://www.apa.org/journals/authors/posting.html>,
still online, which allows self-archiving in IRs.  But he doesn't point out
that the APA's newer policy
statement<http://www.apa.org/journals/authors/pubmed-deposit.html>
describing
the "deposit fee" effectively negates the older green policy, at least for
NIH-funded authors.  The new policy prohibits NIH-funded authors from
depositing their postprints in any OA repository, disciplinary or
institutional."*

The 2002 APA policy statement is not only still online and still in effect,
but we have the publisher's word that there is to be no change in that
policy.

*Peter Suber:* "*The title of Stevan's post suggests that he's defending the
APA's 2002 self-archiving policy.  I join him in that.  But the body of his
post attempts to defend the 2008 deposit fee as well:  "Although it looks
bad<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/07/apa-will-charge-authors-for-green-oa.html>
on
the face of it...things are not always as they seem."  Not always, but this
time."*

Not this time, and never for a publisher that is Green on OA. Once a
publisher is Green on OA, there is nothing more that can or should be
demanded of them, by the research community. The ball is now in the research
community's court. It is up to research institutions and research funders to
design sensible policies that will ensure that the researchers they employ
and fund actually provide Green OA for their joint research output.

Not all research is funded (and certainly not all by NIH), but (virtually)
all researchers have institutions. And all institutions are just a
piece of free
software <http://www.eprints.org/software/>, some server-space, and a few
hours of sysad set-up and maintenance time away from having an IR, if they do
not already have one <http://depot.edina.ac.uk/>.

The sensible OA mandate, from both institutions and funders (like NIH) is to
require deposit in the researcher's own IR, immediately upon acceptance for
publication. If there is an embargo, the deposit can be Closed Access during
the embargo. The IR's "email eprint request" button will provide
almost-immediate, almost-OA for all user needs during any embargo.

If funders or others want to create institution-external, central
collections of already-OA content, based on subject matter, funder,
nationality, or whatever, then they can harvest the metadata and link to the
full-text in the IR in which it was deposited. But there is certainly no
reason to insist that it be deposited directly in their collections. Google,
for example, quietly harvests anything: no need to deposit things in Google.
And no charge.

*Peter Suber:* "*Both arguments are moot for a while, now that the APA has
taken down the new policy statement for "re-examination".  (See the 7/16/08
update<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/07/apa-will-charge-authors-for-green-oa.html>
to
my blog post on the policy.)"*

I don't doubt that well-meaning OA supporters who have not thought it
through are now railing at APA instead of resolutely requesting that NIH
make the minor modification in its otherwise admirable, timely, and welcome
policy that would put an end to this nonsense and let researchers get on
with the urgent task of providing OA by depositing their own research in
their own OA IRs, free for all, webwide.

(For the record, and the too literal-minded: *Of course a $2500 fee for
depositing in PMS is absurd*, but what reduced us to this absurdity was
needlessly mandating direct deposit in PMS in the first place. Time to
remedy the absurdity and let researchers' fingers do the
walking<http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10688/> so
we can all reach 100% OA at long last.)

*A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access
Policy<http://listserver.sigmaxi.org/sc/wa.exe?A2=ind04&L=AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM&F=l&P=92016>
(Oct
2004)

Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates: What? Where? When? Why?
How?<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html>
(Sept
2006)

THE FEEDER AND THE DRIVER: Deposit Institutionally, Harvest
Centrally<http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/Harnad-driverstate2.html>
(Jan
2008)

Optimize the NIH Mandate Now: Deposit Institutionally, Harvest
Centrally<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/344-guid.html>
(Jan
2008)

How To Integrate University and Funder Open Access
Mandates<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/369-guid.html>
(Mar
2008)

NIH Invites Recommendations on How to Implement and Monitor Compliance with
Its OA Self-Archiving
Mandate<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/381-guid.html>
(Apr
2008)

Institutional Repositories vs Subject/Central
Repositories<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/414-guid.html>
(Jun
2008)*

*Stevan Harnad <http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/>*
American Scientist Open Access
Forum<http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html>