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Recent News

May 7, 2008
NIH Updates its Public Access Policy FAQ
The NIH has made significant revisions to its NIH Public Access Policy Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm). These revisions were posted on May 2, 2008. For your reference, we have detailed the revisions – which include one blanket change, a series of added questions and answers, and some revisions –below. Please circulate to anyone who may be interested in or affected by the policy.

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A key component of SPARC's overall strategy is advocating for policy changes at the local, national, and international levels that support the use of technology to advance scholarly communication, and which explicitly recognize that dissemination of results of research is an essential, inseparable component of the research process. SPARC actively supports the policies for public access to publicly funded research described below.

Issues
The Federal Research Public Access Act > SPARC resources on this topic > More information from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) - Access to Outputs of Research, Policy in Development > SPARC resources on this topic		National Institutes of Health – Public Access Policy > SPARC resources on this topic > More information from the Alliance for Taxpayer Access UK & Europe > SPARC resources on this topic Other Documents: > Mandatory public access to federally funded research does not violate copyright obligations [PDF] (July 2007) > SPARC comments on access to peer-reviewed papers and associated data in Australia (Productivity Commission’s November 2006 draft report on “Public Support for Science and Innovation”)[PDF] (December 22, 2006) > Effective Advocacy: Elizabeth Turtle and Martin Courtois on "Scholarly Communication: Science Librarians as Advocates for Change," in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship (Summer 2007).
Advocates
Alliance for Taxpayer Access Founded and administered by SPARC, the ATA is a diverse and growing alliance of organizations representing taxpayers, patients, physicians, researchers, and institutions that support open public access to taxpayer-funded research. The Alliance was formed in 2004 to urge that peer-reviewed articles on taxpayer-funded research become fully accessible and available online at no extra cost to the American public.		Open Access Working Group Much of SPARC's advocacy work is conducted in coordination with the Open Access Working Group (OAWG). Initiated by SPARC in 2003, the OAWG is a group of like-minded organizations that collaborate to build a framework for collective advocacy of open access to research. The group seeks to build broad-based recognition that the economic and societal benefits of scientific and scholarly research investments are maximized through open access to the results of that research. OAWG aims to bring about changes within stakeholder institutions enabling viable open access models to be widely and successfully implemented and accepted.