ALPSP has submitted its response to the Public Access Policy consultation carried out by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP; part of the Executive Office of the President in the US government).

In summary, ALPSP:

• Believes that publishers should be allowed to control their own business models without the government expropriation of value added by private organizations.
• Encourages additional research to assess the level of demand and purpose of access to the peer-reviewed literature by researchers and the public so that the most appropriate and cost-effective solution can be found.
• Suggests that the United States should instigate a large-scale, cooperative research study involving relevant stakeholders (akin to the PEER project in Europe) to gather evidence to inform OSTP policy in this area.
• Asserts that the system of peer-reviewed journals greatly assists research efficiency and suggests that Federal agencies work with publishers to find acceptable policies for public access that do not have a deleterious impact on publishers' ability to add this value.
• Publishers should determine if and when versions of the article to which they have added value should be made freely available and this will vary greatly depending on the needs of different research disciplines.

Speaking about the consultation response, ALPSP's Chief Executive Ian Russell said: 'Publishers play an important role in the research communication process, adding value not only through technical processes like copy editing, typesetting and reference linking but also by providing quality assessment that filters and ranks the scholarly literature - making research more efficient in the process.  This contribution is acknowledged by just about all stakeholders and it is therefore vital that public access policies do not undermine the legitimate business of private organizations that are adding this value.  We support the widest possible dissemination of research results so long as this is supported by business models that are sustainable and scalable.  We also agree that the outputs of publicly funded research should be available to the public but these outputs are research project reports and research data and it is these, not journal articles and research monographs, that should be made freely available to the public.'

Ian Russell
19 January 2010

Resources:

ALPSP Response to OSTP Public Access Policy consultation (pdf)
Office of Science and Technology Policy
Public Access Forum