Beginning with the January 2017 issues of AMS journals, the embargo period for journal content will be reduced from two years to one year. Executive Director Keith Seitter’s column in the December 2016 issue of BAMS provides the rationale for this change and is summarized below.
The mandate from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in 2013 laid out the goal for federal funding agencies to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of federally funded research. For the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic science research that is published in our journals, this means articles that are federally funded must be made freely accessible within one year of publication.
But what about research results published in AMS journals that do not fall under the OSTP mandate? Under our existing policy, they would have been subject to the standard two-year embargo period. This unequal situation was remedied at the AMS Council meeting in September 2016, where Council approved making all journal articles open and publicly available one year after final publication regardless of their funding source. This new policy will be implemented on an article-by-article basis, in contrast to the previous practice of making whole volume years open after two years have passed.
Authors may still take advantage of the AMS Open Choice option and pay a modest fee to make their articles open access immediately upon publication. With the policy change, the work of all authors, even those who do not select Open Choice, will be accessible and more visible much more quickly than ever before. This new policy reflects AMS’s long-standing commitment to carrying out a core mission: ensuring the broadest possible distribution of research for the weather, water, and climate community.
