[OKFN-IN] Fwd: [SPICY IP] The DST/DBT Releases the Second Draft of its Open Access Policy

[Sridhar Gutam]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Thomas J. Vallianeth" <thomasjv93 at gmail.com>
Date: Oct 21, 2014 3:34 PM
Subject: [SPICY IP] The DST/DBT Releases the Second Draft of its Open
Access Policy
To: <spicyip at googlegroups.com>
Cc:

[image: dst_b_15_12_2012]
<http://spicyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/dst_b_15_12_2012.jpg>The
Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Biotechnology
(DST/DBT) together released
<http://www.dbtindia.nic.in/policy/DBT-DST_Open_Access_Policy_2nd_Draft.pdf>
the second draft of its Open Access Policy and has invited comments on the
same. The Open Access Policy is the DST/DBT initiative aimed at trying to
increase the availability of the findings of publicly funded research by
encouraging these to be made open access. The manner in which the policy
achieves this is by requiring every DST or DBT funded or other indirectly
funded research to be deposited in repositories specifically set up for the
purpose. The authors may choose to publish these in journals of their
choice and may impose an embargo on the open access availability of the
paper for the maximum period of one year after which however, it will be
openly available.

CIS has done a nice post comparing the two policies here
<http://cis-india.org/openness/second-draft-of-open-access-policy-of-the-department-of-biotechnology-and-department-of-science-released>
and there are a number of differences between the two drafts. Some of the
issues that they've discussed are publishing freedom, creation of
repositories and the embargo period.

I'd like to highlight however a significant change here - that in the
copyright policy. The first draft's copyright section reads,

"*Copyright: In case the scientist produces research as part of her
employment with a government body, the copyright vests in the government
body, unless otherwise agreed upon to the contrary. Therefore, if the
copyright continues to vest in the Government, transfer of rights would
have to be by the Government, or by the scientist after prior permission
from the Government. If the research has been produced the scientist in the
course of her employment with any institution, copyright vests in the
institution concerned, unless otherwise agreed upon to the contrary. The
institution should Retain the right to make the articles freely available
gratis, whether the journal is open - access or subscription - based. The
DBT/DST recommends that all authors receiving funds from DBT/DST should, at
the time of returning the copyright transfer form, inform the publisher
that they would retain the right to place the full - text of the final
author version in the institution's IR and DBT/DST Central. This can be
achieved by attaching to the copyright transfer agreement the DBT/DST
author addendum."*

It also had an addendum which tries to modify the publication agreement to
take into account this open access policy. However, the second draft does
not retain any of this language and instead states,

*"It is not the intent of this policy to violate copyright or other
agreements entered into by the researcher, institution or funding agency.
However, the DST and DBT expects the authors to bring to the notice of
publishers their obligations under this policy to deposit the manuscript in
institutional or central depository of funding agency."*

The modified language seems somewhat timid in the handling of the copyright
and I haven't really found a comment (the comments on the first draft are
accessible here <http://www.btisnet.gov.in/oap.htm>) that would explain why
the DST/DBT retreated in the manner that it has. With the latter wording it
seems that the copyright now vests with the authors and subsequently with
the publishers (depending on the nature of the agreement with the journal)
irrespective of the agency that funded the research. I have not had the
chance to examine agreements that researchers sign with the DST/DBT while
undertaking projects or employment contracts that researchers have with
public institutions and readers are welcome to share information on whether
a S.17(c)-esque <http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1280900/> requirement is made
out in those agreements. If it is not, then the original wording of the
draft policy would have better aided the Open Access Policy. Perhaps one
justification for this change is that academic journals might not be open
to such language, pretty much depriving them off them the valuable resource
that earns them their bread and butter, correspondingly making it harder
for academics to publish. In any case, this handling of copyright, in my
opinion grants substantially less amount of bite to the policy and in
effect is doing nothing but creating a repository of information, with no
clear indication on what can be done with this information. If the
copyright still vests with the respective authors or publishing houses, it
could open up the use of this material to substantial amounts of litigation
defeating the Open Access philosophy. While the policy itself is a
commendable initiative, some clarity in this regard would be much
appreciated.





*Click here <http://spicyip.com/?p=13544> to view this post on spicyip.com
<http://www.spicyip.com/> and leave a comment.*




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