What the Upcoming Federal Agency Public Access Requirements mean for NC State researchers

If you or your colleagues have been awarded federal funds to conduct your research, you may have heard about some possible changes that could affect how you share your publications and data with the public and how you represent your scholarly profile.  In August 2022, a memo titled “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research” was issued by Dr. Alondra Nelson on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

General Information about Federal Policy Changes Related to OSTP Memo

• What will be required?

  In a nutshell, the memo issues guidance in several main areas that will likely impact any researcher who receives federal funding:

  • Immediate public access to publications and data: The memo calls for immediate public access (a shift from prior public access policies that allowed embargoes) to research outputs including peer-reviewed publications such as articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, as well as datasets and code, that are supported with funding from federal grants. See below for more details.
  • Use persistent identifiers: The memo calls for the use of persistent identifiers (e.g., DOIs for publications, ORCID IDs for researchers) to be used in grant applications and related outputs such as publications.
  • Establish policies for how data must be managed and shared: The memo calls for federal agencies to outline plans to establish researcher responsibilities on how federally funded scientific data will be managed and shared.
• When will these new policies be implemented?
  • Nothing in response to the August 2022 OSTP memo has been put into place and nothing has taken effect yet.
  • The memo directs all federal funding agencies to develop (or update) and implement plans to support this guidance by December 31, 2025. Some of these policies may not take effect until the beginning of 2026; however, many federal funding agencies are already discussing earlier timelines by which they plan to update and make available their implementation plans.
  • Related to, but not directly in response to the OSTP memo, the NIH implemented a new data management & sharing policy for NIH researchers effective as of January 25, 2023.

  • Below is a timeline from the University of Michigan Library:

    

• What can I do right now to prepare for the upcoming changes?
  • Use digital persistent identifiers (known as PIDs or DPIs) for all of your publications, data, and code, and for your researcher identity.
    1. Sign up for an ORCID ID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) and connect it to your Unity ID. Start here: https://ci.lib.ncsu.edu/
    2. Make sure your publications and research data have been assigned a PID (such as a DOI or Handle) and link them from your ORCID record.
  • Familiarize yourself with the data repositories in your field. The Libraries Data Repositories page provides useful information. If you aren’t aware of any data repositories in your field, check out the Dryad Data repository. Start here: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/do/data-management/sharing-data/data-repositories
  • Familiarize yourself with strategies that support sharing of scholarly articles and other types of publications. Start here: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/do/open-research/scholarly-sharing/where-to-share
  • Familiarize yourself with the elements of data management and sharing plans, which outline at a high level how you will collect, manage, store, and provide access to your data. Some federal agencies already require DMPs or data management plans (aka data management and sharing plans) including NSF, USDA, DOE, and NIH. Send us a copy of your DMP to get feedback to improve it. Start here: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/do/data-management/drafting-your-dmp
• What is a persistent identifier (PID), and how do I get one?
  • Persistent identifiers or PIDs are unique identifiers to digital objects, people, organizations, etc. that are meant to persist over time. The advantage of PIDs is that they provide access to the digital objects regardless of the location of the information. DOIs (digital object identifiers) and ORCIDs (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) are both examples of PIDs.
  • For articles, DOIs are usually assigned to articles by a publisher or article repository.
  • For datasets, DOIs are usually assigned by the data repository that hosts the dataset. Our membership to the Dryad Data Repository includes DOIs to datasets.
  • For people, ORCIDs are free and easy to set up. Start here:https://ci.lib.ncsu.edu/
  • NC State has the Research Facilitation Service (RFS), which partners with university and departmental service providers to address research computing and data questions. It’s a good place to start if you aren’t sure where to look for help.
• What is the difference between the 2013 OSTP memo and the 2022 OSTP memo?
  • The main updates with the 2022 memo are that it:
    1. Removes the embargo period for public access and, instead, calls for immediate public access to publications and data created by research funded by federal grants regardless of the amount of the grant
    2. Calls for grant applications to include a data management and sharing plan that supports immediate access to all shareable data, not just the data that underlies peer-reviewed publications
    3. Calls for use of persistent identifiers (PIDs) for researchers, funding sources, publications, and datasets
    4. Applies to all agencies with extramural R&D budgets, not just those with R&D budgets over $100,000 million
  • A more detailed comparison is available here: https://www.arl.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Table-Comparison-Office-of-Science-and-Technology-Policy-2.pdf
• What agencies are covered under the new OSTP memo?

  All federal fund-granting agencies. See the following list from Grants.gov: https://www.grants.gov/learn-grants/grant-making-agencies.html

• What additional information is available from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy?

  The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy made an FAQ available: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/12/20/frequently-asked-questions-2022-public-access-policy-guidance/

Public access requirements for publications

• What publications are going to be required to be made publicly accessible?

  Compared to the 2013 OSTP memo, the 2022 OSTP memo broadens the definition of publications and includes not only research articles and accepted manuscripts, but also peer-reviewed book chapters, editorials, and conference proceedings. From the University of Michigan Library OSTP guide:

  1. Peer-reviewed publications include "peer-reviewed research articles or final manuscripts published in scholarly journals, and may include peer-reviewed book chapters, editorials, and peer-reviewed conference proceedings published in other scholarly outlets that result from federally funded research.”
  2. Scientific data include: "the recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as of sufficient quality to validate and replicate research findings. Such scientific data do not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary analyses, case report forms, drafts of scientific papers, plans for future research, peer-reviews, communications with colleagues, or physical objects and materials, such as laboratory specimens, artifacts, or field notes." In addition, scientific data do not include data subject to legal, privacy, ethical or other similar restrictions or limitations.

   

• Do researchers need to pay article processing charges (APCs) in order to comply with the new policies?
  • No. There is no requirement based on the OSTP memo or in any emerging information from federal funding agencies that researchers will be required or even encouraged to pay article processing charges (APCs) to journals to comply with the public access policy.
  • The OSTP guidance states that grantees may request funding to cover “reasonable publication costs,” but does not require it, and agency officials have stated that their intent is for researchers to fulfill these requirements by depositing their articles and data in a designated repository, regardless of where they publish. A Frequently Asked Questions issued by the White House in December 2022 specifically states “Importantly, adherence to and implementation of the policy guidance in the 2022 Memorandum does not require expense on the part of the researcher.”
  • You will be required to make publications freely available and publicly accessible in agency-designated repositories. In some cases, those agency-designated repositories have yet to be identified. In other cases, federal funders are already using repositories, e.g., the NIH uses PubMed Central as its primary public access repository for publications that are supported by NIH grants. See this list of designated public access repositories: https://www.library.illinois.edu/scp/ostp-mandate/
  • If you do decide to pay an APC to make your publications open access, NC State has several OA agreements in place to cover the costs of APCs required for OA publishing.
• What is the difference between "public access" and "open access"?
  • The Office of Science & Technology Policy defines public access as the “free availability of federally funded scholarly materials to the public". Public access is often dictated as policy set forth by federal funding agencies such as NIH or NSF. Public access does not necessarily incur a publishing fee nor does it include a specific license dictating re-use.
  • Open access is a broad set of principles and practices for sharing research outputs (including publications and data), where they are freely available online and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.  Many (but not all) open access journals require a fee known as an article processing charge (APC).
  • In some cases, publishing in an open access journal may not meet public access policy guidelines. For example, NIH-funded research articles published in some open access journals may still need to be deposited into the NIH repository PubMed Central in order to be compliant.
• Who is going to submit my article (or other publication type) to the agency-designated repository?

  In some cases, the publisher of the journal in which your article was published will submit it on your behalf. Publishers might do this for free, or they might charge you for this service. In other cases, you will have to submit the appropriate version of your article to the agency-designated repository yourself or set up a designee to do this for you.

• Does NC State offer any support for helping to understand how I can comply with the public access requirements for publications?
  • The NC State University Libraries offers the Open Knowledge Center, providing support for public access to publications and expert help for securing rights to make publications publicly accessible.
  • NC State also has several OA agreements in place to cover the costs of APCs required for OA publishing.
• Will a 12-month embargo still be allowed after publication and before an article supported by federal funds has to be made publicly available?

  No, the 12-month embargo will no longer be allowed.

• How many publications by NC State authors are funded by US federal funding agencies?

  Eric Schares (University of Iowa) found that over 11,000 publications from 2017-2022 by NC State authors were funded by federal grants. View NC State and other institutions’ data: https://ostp.lib.iastate.edu

Public access requirements for research data

• Do I really have to make my research data publicly accessible?
  • Yes. However, the specifics will be determined by the implementation plans from the federal funding agencies. In general, underlying data needed to validate the conclusions of articles need to be shared and made immediately available upon publication of related publications.
  • For supporting data, agencies have already begun to indicate that a variety of repositories will be acceptable for deposit, and many research data repositories are working to ensure that they are ready to meet the guidelines issued by the OSTP for data repositories.
• Who will submit my research data to the appropriate data repositories?

  In most cases, you or a designated member of your research team will submit the relevant data to a data repository. Check with your funder to see whether they prefer you use a specific data repository. NC State is an institutional member of the Dryad data repository. The Libraries also provides information about additional repository options depending on disciplines/subjects. Dryad can link datasets with articles and will provide you with a digital object identifier (DOI) for your data.

• Does NC State offer any support for helping to understand how I can comply with the public access requirements for data?
  • NC State has the Research Facilitation Service (RFS), which partners with university and departmental service providers to address research computing and data questions. The team can help with these kinds of questions or link you to the appropriate unit for help when necessary.
  • NC State has the Research Data Management Guide providing support for public access to data and a team of experts to support specific questions for sharing data publicly
  • NC State has a membership to the Dryad data repository, and our guide recommends additional repository options depending on disciplines/subjects. Dryad can link datasets with articles and provide you with a digital object identifier (DOI) for your data.
• Can I include costs that I expect to incur to comply with data management and sharing in the budget of my grant?

  Yes. You can include reasonable publication costs and costs associated with submission, curation, management of data, and special handling instructions as allowable expenses in all research budgets.

• I keep hearing about FAIR data - what exactly does that mean?

  FAIR Data Principles stand for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Please reach out to us through the Research Facilitation Services (RFS) intake form if you need help to learn about possible established data repositories used in your field (data repositories organized by discipline are available at re3data.org and fairsharing.org), and let us know if you would like help using the Dryad Data repository.      
   

Agency guidance documentation

SPARC, a non-profit advocacy organization focused on securing open and equitable access to scholarly research, is closely tracking new agency guidance as it becomes available. Please see SPARC's website for links out to agency-specific documentation.

For more information on navigating agency guidelines for public access to research data, please see our Data Management Guide.

For questions about any of the information contained here, please feel free to contact any of the Library staff listed below.