Mandating access: assessing the NIH's public access policy

Area of Science:

• Biomedical research
• Bibliometrics
• Scholarly publishing

Background:

• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) implemented the Public Access Policy (PAP) in April 2008.
• The PAP mandates free availability of NIH-supported articles on PubMed Central.
• This policy aimed to enhance researcher access to biomedical literature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of the NIH Public Access Policy on researcher access to biomedical literature.
• To examine changes in publishing patterns for NIH-supported articles after the PAP implementation.
• To assess the effect of the PAP on article citations and journal selection.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 600,000 NIH-supported articles.
• Utilized a matched comparison sample for control.
• Examined citation data and journal publication types (open access vs. subscription-based).

Main Results:

• The PAP had a modest effect on article citations, suggesting pre-existing widespread access.
• NIH-funded articles were more likely to be published in traditional subscription-based journals post-PAP.
• No significant evidence of journal discrimination against NIH articles was found.

Conclusions:

• The NIH Public Access Policy had a limited impact on enhancing researcher access to biomedical literature.
• The policy did not significantly alter citation rates, likely due to prior broad accessibility.
• Publishing trends shifted towards subscription journals, with factors other than the PAP influencing journal choice.