APS News

August/September 2015 (Volume 24, Number 8)

APS Begins Release of Public Access CHORUS Papers

By Emily Conover

As the clamor for open access to scientific research has intensified in recent years, a group of scientific publishers — of which APS is a member — responded in 2013 by creating the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States (CHORUS), which connects users with publicly accessible research on publishers’ websites. Now, APS is releasing the first wave of articles, making papers funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) freely available through CHORUS effective August 1, several months ahead of the department’s official October 1 start date.

In February 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo requiring federal agencies that spend more than $100 million on R&D to fashion plans that would make published research freely available to the public within a one-year embargo period after publication. The memo also called for public-private partnerships between agencies and scientific journals, to avoid duplication of effort. CHORUS takes on that role.

“Publishers are providing a service across the community to help agencies and researchers meet the OSTP mandate, but at the same time are making these papers publicly accessible in the context of the peer-reviewed journals in which they were published,” says APS Chief Information Officer Mark Doyle, co-chair of the technical working group for CHORUS.

One year ago, DOE unveiled its response to the OSTP memo, a website called the Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science (PAGES). PAGES is a searchable database that links to DOE-funded research available on publishers’ websites, or if none is available, to a version in DOE’s repository.

CHORUS provides a portal that allows users to search for federally funded open-access research across the participating publishers and scientific societies, which include APS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, AIP Publishing (the journal publishing arm of the American Institute of Physics), the American Astronomical Society, Elsevier, IOP Publishing (part of the Institute of Physics), and others. CHORUS also provides a set of tools that show publishers’ progress in making research publicly accessible.

DOE will work with CHORUS to fulfill the OSTP mandate, according to an agreement made last spring. As part of CHORUS, publishers submit funding information and other metadata to CrossRef, a nonprofit that catalogs information about academic publications, provides Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration, and allows reliable linking in citations across journals. PAGES can then use CrossRef to link to content on publishers’ websites and access articles funded by DOE.

On August 1, APS began releasing DOE-funded papers that were published one year ago, and from now on about 150 to 200 articles will be released each month as their embargoes expire. This is around 10% of the average number of articles APS publishes monthly. In January 2016, APS-published  articles funded by other federal agencies will begin to become available. However, the available version of the article may not be its “version of record,” (the final version that will appear in the journal). Instead, the articles may be provided in the “accepted manuscript” state — before copyediting and formatting have taken place.

Related Information 

Gray Arrow DOE Joins the CHORUS - APS News, October 2014
Gray Arrow Open Access Mandate will Include Raw Data - APS News, 2013
Gray Arrow APS to Participate in Multi-Publisher Open Access Research Clearinghouse - APS News, August/September 2013
Gray Arrow OSTP Memo Sets Goal of Public Access - APS News, April 2013

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Editor: David Voss
Staff Science Writer: Emily Conover
Contributing Correspondent: Alaina G. Levine
Art Director and Special Publications Manager: Kerry G. Johnson
Publication Designer and Production: Nancy Bennett-Karasik

August/September 2015 (Volume 24, Number 8)

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Articles in this Issue
Roger Falcone Chosen as Vice President of APS for 2016
U.S. Physics Olympiad Team Returns With Gold and Silver
Getting Up to Speed on FASTR Legislation
Inclusive Astronomy Conference Confronts Diversity Issues
Comic-Con Embraces Science Amid the Fantasy
Physicists Find Fulfillment Outside of Academia
PhysTEC Coalition Grows to Over 300 Institutions
APS Begins Release of Public Access CHORUS Papers
APS Liquid Helium Purchasing Program Progress
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Members in the Media
This Month in Physics History
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