Does the NIH proposal mandate a restructuring of the scholarly communication system?
The NIH proposal is neither a mandate from the federal government to the scientific community concerning how and where to publish research articles nor does this proposed policy mandate changes to scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publishing. The NIH proposal balances the public interest in access to federally funded research while maintaining the critical role of peer review and editorial processing by journal publishers. The NIH proposal is silent on where and when an author may publish. In fact, the proposal protects journal publishers by placing a six-month embargo on access to the deposited article. It does not mandate a shift from a subscriber-pays model to author-pays or other open access model. The NIH proposal is directed at enhancing public access to biomedical literature. It is not an open access proposal.
