American Society of Hematology

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Blood Public Access Policy Expanded to Include HHMI-Funded Authors

By Joel Anne Chasis, MD, and Eleanore Tapscott

2007-09-01

Dr. Chasis is Staff Scientist in the Life Sciences Division at the University of California Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Associate Professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also Chair of the ASH Journals Committee.

Ms. Tapscott is the Director of Publishing at ASH.

ASH recently reached an agreement with Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to extend Blood's Open Access option to HHMI-funded scientists. Blood's Open Access option, recommended by ASH's Journals Committee in July 2006 and approved by the Executive Committee, allows authors the option of having their articles deposited into PubMed Central immediately after publication in exchange for an open access fee. This option was developed as a strategy to accommodate public access requirements of funding groups, such as Wellcome Trust, and now HHMI, while maintaining the journal's 12-month publication embargo policy. As with all other open access options available through the journal, Blood will deposit the article into PubMed Central on the authors' behalf, thereby removing the burden from authors to submit their articles.

HHMI's new public access policy, which will go into effect January 2008, requires its scientists to publish their research and supplementary materials in journals that allow free access to the content in a public repository, such as PubMed Central, within six months of publication. The ASH Open Access option therefore exceeds the HHMI requirement by making the article immediately available, rather than at six months.

In line with Blood's current business model, the journal's 12-month publication embargo restricts non-subscribers' access to an issue until 12 months after publication. However, in each new issue, five research articles and all Inside Blood commentaries are immediately available to the public. Twelve months post-publication, all of an issue's content is available to the public. Currently, more than 95 percent of Blood's content is available to the public with no restrictions; it is free to the public.

Blood's Open Access option for HHMI and Wellcome Trust works in conjunction with its participation in another public access activity: the NIH Portfolio Archive Program. To date, Blood has deposited more than 600 articles and all are linked to PubMed Central through their PubMed citations as well. These public access strategies — including allowing authors to post copies of their articles on the author's personal Web site, department Web site, and/or institution's intranet — emphasize ASH's commitment to broad dissemination of content through processes that protect the integrity of the journal article of record and relieve authors from the burden of submitting manuscripts to various repositories while maintaining a sound business model for Blood.

The Open Access option will be available to HHMI authors on Blood's online manuscript submission system effective October 1, 2007, well ahead of the HHMI deadline of January 1, 2008. Accordingly, HHMI will identify Blood as one of the journals that is compliant with its new, mandated public access policy.