Research 

NRC-CISTI and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) are working together on plans for PMC Canada — a national digital repository of peer-reviewed health science research resulting from CIHR funding. NRC-CISTI and CIHR have approached the US National Library Medicine to co-sponsor the service, as a mirror site to PubMed Central. CIHR will provide the funding and NRC-CISTI will contribute its technological expertise to build and host the infrastructure and manage and develop the e-repository.

The University of Ottawa supports the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Policy on Access to Research Outputs. Information sessions about this policy were held at the University of Ottawa earlier this fall.
Click here to view the PDF version of Geoff Hynes' Power Point presentation. His speaking notes are also available in this presentation.
Contact Lee-Anne Ufholz, Health Sciences Research Liaison Librarian if you have any questions about how you can adhere to this policy.

Beginning January 1, 2008, recipients of CIHR funding must make every effort to ensure that peer-reviewed articles are freely available online within six months of publication.

CIHR allows that its public access requirement may be met in a number of ways, including through submission to journals that offer immediate open access or permit an author to archive peer-reviewed manuscripts in a central or institutional repository within 6 months of publication.

The University of Ottawa's digital repository; uO Research not only allows researchers to adhere to CIHR’s policy respecting open access to publications, but also increases the visibility and research impact of posted publications.

Authors are the copyright holders of their work until they transfer that right to a publisher.  Before transferring their rights (and the open access decision) to a publisher, authors should:

• Check the publisher's copyright policy on self-archiving to see whether it is consistent with CIHR policy
  • SHERPA/RoMEO -Use this site to find a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement.
• Carefully read the copyright agreement
• Notify the publisher that you must comply with the CIHR open access policy
• Amend the copyright agreement if necessary, many journals will alter the standard contract when asked.
  

The CIHR policy does NOT:

• Require publication in an Open Access Journal
• Prohibit publication in "high-impact" journals
• Bypass peer review or journal publication
• Violate copyrights
• Require 6 month embargo
  

Geoff Hynes
Senior Advisor
Knowledge Synthesis and Exchange
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Tel.: 613-952-8965
Fax: 613-954-1800
E-mail: geoffrey.hynes@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

Mr. Hynes' PowerPoint presentation given at uOttawa is available here (PDF)