BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 609
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 1, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ACCOUNTABILITY AND ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW
Jim Frazier, Chair
AB 609 (Nestande) - As Amended: April 23, 2013
SUBJECT : State-funded research
SUMMARY : Requires open access publication of research papers
when research has been funded by state agencies.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires state agencies under the executive branch that
provide funding of research grants to grantees for direct
research to develop public access policies. These policies
would require that an author's final manuscript or an
electronic link to the final manuscript in an open access
digital repository of original research papers that have been
accepted for publication in peer review journals be submitted
to the funding state agency and the California State Library.
2)Provides for free online public access to the final
peer-reviewed manuscripts or published version as soon as
practicable, but not later than 12 months after publication in
peer-reviewed journals.
3)Provides for the long term preservation of and free access to
the published research papers in a digital repository
maintained by the California State Library or by a repository
determined by the library.
4)Requires by December 1 of each year, each state agency to
submit a report on its policy to the Governor, the Senate
Committee on Rules, and the Speaker of the Assembly.
EXISTING LAW : Authorizes the Department of General Services
(DGS) to carry out various duties relating to assisting a state
agency in the management and development of intellectual
property.
Current law requires that, beginning January 1, 2015, and every
three years thereafter, DGS tracks and updates a database of
intellectual property generated by state employees or with state
funding. By January 1, 2018, DGS is required to:
1) Develop factors that state agencies should consider when
deciding whether to sell their intellectual property or
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license it to others.
2) Develop an outreach campaign informing state agencies of
their rights and abilities concerning intellectual property
created by their employees.
3) Develop sample invention assignment agreements that
state agencies can consider if they believe it is necessary
to secure the rights to potentially patentable items
created by their employees on work time using state
resources.
4) Develop sample language for licenses or terms-of-use
agreements that state agencies can use to limit the use of
their intellectual property by others to only appropriate
purposes.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : This bill would require agencies under the executive
branch that provide funding of research grants to grantees for
direct research to develop public access policies. Policies
would require that an author's final manuscript (or an
electronic link to the final manuscript in an open access
digital repository) of research papers that have been accepted
for publication in peer review journals be submitted to the
funding state agency and the California State Library.
The bill would require free online public access to the final
peer-reviewed manuscripts or published version that was the
product of a state agency's research grant as soon as
practicable, but not later than 12 months after publication in
peer-reviewed journals. The bill does not set a threshold for
the minimum amount of state-funded research that would trigger
the requirement so even small state grants towards research
would require the opening of access for these journal articles.
The University of California (UC) and California State
University (CSU) systems are not considered state agencies under
the bill and spending their direct research funds would
therefore not apply to the open access requirement. However, UC
or CSU researchers would still be subject to the public access
policies if they received grants from state agencies.
The author explains that the bill seeks to "ensure that the
public can access the published results of California
taxpayer-funded research for free." Specifically, the author
states that the cost to purchase academic journal subscriptions
or articles is expensive and that state-funded research should
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be shared with the public.
The bill only applies to articles that have been published in
peer-reviewed journals. The peer review process, which is
generally managed by journals, aims to ensure the quality of the
research by seeking the scrutiny of experts before articles are
published.
The Association of American Publishers, Inc. (AAP) opposes this
bill. It states that the bill "authorizes the government to
take private-sector journal articles to which publishers have
made significant value-added contributions." AAP contends that
while the government may fund original research, the publishers
add value by investing in the management of the peer review and
other processes. The AAP argues that the requirement of opening
access to journal articles would harm not-for-profit and
commercial publishers and negatively impact journal publishing
jobs in California.
The exact number of academic journals in California is unknown.
However, the University of California Press, which is the
publisher of the UC system, lists 57 journals on its web site.
Supporters of this bill, which include UC, various
organizations, professors and researchers, state that requiring
open access would provide the public access to important
research and spur innovation and economic growth. They argue
that the results of publically-funded research should be made
available to the public.
Since 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has had a
program in place that is similar to what is proposed by this
bill. Under the NIH Public Access Policy, investigators funded
by the NIH must submit an electronic version of their
peer-reviewed manuscripts no later than 12 months after journal
publication. Institutions and investigators are tasked with
ensuring that any publishing or copyright agreements concerning
submitted articles comply with the policy.
Under this bill, it is unknown how many articles that result
from state-funded research would be required to be posted within
one year of journal publication. According to UC, state agencies
funded approximately $236 million in UC research in Fiscal Year
2011-12. This represents about 5 percent of the UC's $4.4
billion research budget. However, the number of journal articles
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that resulted from this state-funded research is unknown as UC
does not track the number of publications generated by awards.
Also, it is unknown what percent of these research results are
already publicly available since state agencies may provide
grants to UC researchers to conduct specific studies that result
in reports that are publicly-posted on state agencies' web
sites.
Additionally, the cost and staff time of various state agencies,
DGS and the California State Library in implementing open access
policies, compiling the database of articles, and reporting on
implementation is unknown. As noted above, the bill requires
state agencies to develop open access policies, DGS to assist
state agencies, and the State Library to post and manage an
article database. This differs from the NIH model in which
researchers are responsible for posting their articles to an
existing database.
As stated in the existing law section, DGS is in the process of
providing guidance related to managing intellectual property,
which includes publications. The proposed bill appears to be
premature in that it sidesteps that process before such guidance
has been provided.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Association of College and Research Libraries
Association of Research Libraries
Elias H Botvinick, MD, Professor at UCSF
Jeffrey O. Bush, PhD, Assistant Professor at UCSF
Karen Butter, librarian
Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions
Creative Commons
Michael B. Eisen, PhD, Associate Professor at UCB
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Greater Western Library Alliance
Sunita Pullela Ho, PhD, Associate Professor at UCSF
Christopher M. Kelty, PhD, Associate Professor at UCLA
Glenn E. (Gene) Lucas, Executive Vice Chancellor at UCSB
Cara Maesano, PhD, former UCD Postdoc
Patricia McDaniel, PhD, Assistant Professor at UCSF
Laurence Peiperl, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF
AB 609
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Public Knowledge
Public Library of Science
Rageshree Ramachandran, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor at UCSF
Richard Schneider, PhD, Associate Professor at UCSF
MacKenzie Smith, University Librarian at UCD
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition)
Francis F. Steen, PhD, Associate Professor at UCLA
Anneliese Taylor, librarian at UCSF
University of California
Opposition
Association of American Publishers, Inc.
NetChoice
Analysis Prepared by : Scott Herbstman / A. & A.R. / (916)
319-3600