Yoder promotes open access to tax-funded research | CJOnline.com

U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder stood alone among the Kansas congressional delegation Wednesday as sponsor of legislation requiring research funded by federal agencies be made available to the public within six months of publication in a scholarly journal. Yoder said during a presentation in the main library at The University of Kansas that benefit of providing timely online access to scholarly peer-review materials supported in whole or part by federal  taxpayers outweighed the financial impact of such a mandate on publishers of scientific journals. Taxpayers who initially pay for federal research projects shouldn't have to pay again -- for example,  through tax-supported university libraries -- to read results locked up in subscription publications, he said. 'It seems like a common sense idea,' Yoder said. 'It's very straightforward. We certainly know the publishers of these journals don't support this legislation.' The National Institutes of Health has operated under a similar open access format since 2009. The bill offered by Yoder has more than 40 co-sponsors in the House, but the concept has drawn criticism from the Association of American Publishers. None of five other members of the Kansas congressional delegation have agreed to back the bill. Under the House measure jointly advocated by Yoder, a Johnson County Republican, and Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., the 11 federal agencies allocating more than $100 million annually in research grants would be subject to the disclosure rule. The departments of agriculture, commerce, defense, energy, transportation, education and others would create online repositories of journal articles of research completed by that agency and provide free and open access. Exceptions in the Federal Research Public Access Act would be made for classified materials, laboratory notes, conference reports and studies not submitted or accepted by academic publications, Yoder said. In 2009, KU became the first public university in the United States to institute an open access policy in regard to research published in peer-review journals. The university took a lead role last year in formation of the Coalition on Open Access Policy Institutions, which includes Harvard, Duke and Stanford universities. KU recently created a $50,000 fund to support faculty and staff authors at the main KU campus in Lawrence and the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., who make published research available through any of 8,000 open access journals. Lorraine Haricombe, dean of libraries at KU, said the fund demonstrated the university's commitment to advancing an alternative model for distributing scholarship. 'We are aligning KU with other major research institutions and taking another important step in transforming open access from an evolving, alternate model of publishing to a maturing threat to existing publishing models. This change is vital as we address the public good implicit in creating new scholarly research,' Haricombe said."