Plan (U)S(A)

[Rick Anderson]

Just curious – has anyone heard what kind of reception Smits got during his visit to US government agencies and private funders a few weeks ago?

 

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Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

rick.a...@utah.edu

[Glenn Hampson]

I know Robert didn’t meet with the incoming head of OSTP (Kelvin Droegemeier). Kelvin said he’s looking forward to connecting with us once he gets settled in DC (his Senate confirmation should be this month).

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[David Wojick]

However, it is the case that OSTP is conducting a review of the Public Access Program. But I am not sure that the funding agencies have the legal authority to impose the Plan S restrictions on researchers. The present program is based on the (claimed) agency's federal use license to the accepted manuscript, because the government paid for part of the work. This is a very far cry from telling people which journals they cannot publish in. Federal use is not federal control.

David
http://insidepublicaccess.com/

At 01:54 PM 11/6/2018, Glenn Hampson wrote:

I know Robert didn’t meet with the incoming head of OSTP (Kelvin Droegemeier). Kelvin said he’s looking forward to connecting with us once he gets settled in DC (his Senate confirmation should be this month).

 
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
Sent: Tuesday, November 6, 2018 10:02 AM
To: osi20...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Plan (U)S(A)
 

Just curious – has annyone heard what kind of reception Smits got during his visit to US government agencies and private funders a few weeks ago?

[Danny Kingsley]

People can publish wherever they like. It just won’t be compliant. I come at this from a compliance point of view – that’s the angle I have in my current position. It is also why it is important to see what the actual policy is.

 

No-one has to take the money. Equally, it is entirely reasonable for there to be expectations and rules attached to funding. In any other environment that is completely accepted. I used to work for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the level of scrutiny and justification we had over the (comparatively small) funding we had for our Science Online and Heath Matters webpages was very high. It was taxpayers’ money in that instance, so fair enough.

 

Danny

 

Dr Danny Kingsley

Deputy Director - Scholarly Communication & Research Services

Cambridge University Library

e: da...@cam.ac.uk

p: 01223 747 437

m: 07711 500 564

[Rick Anderson]

> People can publish wherever they like. It just won’t be compliant.

 

And, apparently, the Plan S folks plan to “monitor compliance and sanction non-compliance.” (Those are their words, not the words of external fear-mongers.) It would be interesting to know what sanctions they intend to impose; that language sounds a bit more foreboding than just “we won’t give you a grant next time you ask for one,” though in practice that’s probably all it can really mean.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

[Danny Kingsley]

It is what that means Rick. It is what they do now for non-compliance. They have done so for several years.

 

Danny

 

Dr Danny Kingsley

Deputy Director - Scholarly Communication & Research Services

Cambridge University Library

e: da...@cam.ac.uk

p: 01223 747 437

m: 07711 500 564

 

[David Wojick]

Congress could make such a rule but it well might wind up in the Supreme Court. As a precedent, "food stamps" apparently cannot be used to buy hot foods, alcohol, cigarettes, pet food, paper products, medicine, or household supplies. But but I know of no precedent for restricting publication. That applying for a grant is voluntary is probably irrelevant, as grant programs fall under the same rules as regulatory programs. (I helped write some of these rules.)

It is a question of what the federal government is allowed to do. That this is about restricting freedom of expression is very important.

I cannot see an agency passing such a restrictive rule without explicit legal authority, but things have become pretty wild in the last decade or so, when it comes to the Executive Branch making its own laws. Anything is possible, but it would probably take a Democrat president.

Thus the legal issues are pretty deep.

However there is very little political appetite for something like this here. The green Public Access Program is up and running. Congress won't even shorten the embargo period to 6 months, much less boycott the industry. 

I suppose an agency might try to just sneak it in. That would be interesting but I cannot imagine which agency it would be. NIH is the only agency interested in OA and they are very green with PMC, which has captured a bunch of other agencies under Public Access.

Plan S looks very much like the British approach writ larger and tougher. The U.S. Has already rejected that approach, for now anyway. Gates joining is something of a wild card.

Interesting times indeed. 

David

http://insidepublicaccess.com