Closed Access Award #1: American Psychological Association

Well, I wrote up this award a short time ago and already the story has changed. But I am still giving the award. On Tuesday, Peter Suber reported that

The American Psychological Association may have the worst publisher policy to date for NIH-funded authors. Excerpt:

In compliance with [the NIH OA policy], APA will deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript of NIH-funded research to PMC upon acceptance for publication. The deposit fee of $2,500 per manuscript for 2008 will be billed to the author's university per NIH policy....

Even after collecting the fee, the APA will not deposit the published version of the article, will not allow OA release for 12 months, will not allow authors to deposit in PMC themselves (and bypass the fee), will not allow authors to deposit in any other OA repository, and will not allow authors to retain copyright.

I agree with Peter that this is a stunningly inane move on their part (for more discussion see Suber's follow up here). They are basically saying that to carry out a simply electronic submission they will charge $2500.

Apparently someone convinced them this was not the brightest thing in the world to do as they are now reconsidering this move (I learned about this reconsideration from the Scientist magazine blog here ... you need to register to read the blog). This blog reports

A statement sent to The Scientist today from APA Publisher Gary VandenBos said: "A new document deposit policy...is currently being re-examined and will not be implemented at this time...APA will soon be releasing more detailed information about the complex issues involved in the implementation of the new NIH Public Access Policy."

VandenBos was not available for further comment.

Even though they are reconsidering their policy, since they have not out and out rescinded it, I am still giving the American Psychological Association my first "Closed Access Award" for this incredibly silly move