Category Archives: oa.arl

Institutional Strategies for the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy: Infrastructure, Policies, and Services

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“In the fall of 2020, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released its new policy for data management and sharing that will go into effect in January 2023. This policy applies to all NIH-funded research and requires investigators to submit data management and sharing (DMS) plans.

As research data sharing has started to become an enforced requirement from funders and publishers, many academic institutions, libraries, and individual researchers have developed services, technology, and workflows to meet this requirement. As institutions gear up to meet what will be a greater demand for support among researchers on their campuses given the upcoming NIH DMS policy, identifying and sharing existing tactics and expected strategic opportunities for academic institutions is critical to meeting this demand.

The Association of Academic Health Science Libraries (AAHSL), the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) conducted a mixed methods research project to identify and share these existing or proposed innovations for other institutions to reuse, build upon, or otherwise leverage to meet this upcoming NIH requirement….”

New Report and Resources Available on NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy – Association of Research Libraries

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“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) have released a new report, Institutional Strategies for the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy. The report shares infrastructure, services, and policies that institutions have developed to meet the requirements of the forthcoming US National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy.

In addition to the report, the site aamc.org/nihdatasharing will be a continually updated resource that contains links to ongoing institutional efforts and other relevant initiatives.”

Paul Courant [Receives the 2022 Paul Evan Peters Award]

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“The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and EDUCAUSE are pleased to announce that economist Paul Courant, who has served in multiple roles at the University of Michigan, including provost and dean of libraries, has been named the 2022 recipient of the Paul Evan Peters Award. Courant, a founder of HathiTrust, is the Edward M. Gramlich Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Economics and Public Policy and the Harold T. Shapiro Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Public Policy in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He is also a professor emeritus of economics and of information, and he holds the distinction of Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus and Provost Emeritus. The award recognizes notable, lasting achievements in the creation and innovative use of network-based information resources and services that advance scholarship and intellectual productivity. Named for CNI’s founding director, the award will be presented during the CNI Membership Meeting in Washington, DC, to be held December 12-13, 2022, where Courant will deliver the Paul Evan Peters Memorial Lecture. Previous award recipients include Francine Berman (2020), Herbert Van de Sompel (2017), Donald A.B. Lindberg (2014), Christine L. Borgman (2011), Daniel Atkins (2008), Paul Ginsparg (2006), Brewster Kahle (2004), Vinton Cerf (2002), and Tim Berners-Lee (2000).”

ARL Celebrates Biden-Harris Administration’s Historic Policy to Make Federally Funded Research Immediately Available – Association of Research Libraries

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The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) enthusiastically welcomes today’s announcement by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) that the administration has updated the 2013 “Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research” memorandum with new policy guidance, “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research.” The new guidance focuses on immediate public access to federally funded research and the embrace of information-integrity measures, including persistent digital identifiers. In a significant expansion over prior policy, this guidance applies to all federal agencies with any research and development expenditures.

ARL Applauds NSF Open Science Investment – Association of Research Libraries

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“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) commends the ongoing commitment of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to open science. NSF today announced awards for 10 new projects focused on building and enhancing coordination among researchers and other stakeholders to advance FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data principles and open-science practices.

The inaugural awards in NSF’s Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable, Open Science Research Coordination Networks (FAIROS RCN) program represent a pooled investment of over $12.5 million in open science from all directorates comprising NSF. This program is particularly unique given that the 10 projects are composed of 28 distinct NSF awards (detailed below) representing many organizations and institutions in the United States seeking to advance open-science efforts….”

Accelerating Social Impact Research: Libraries at the Intersection of Openness and Community-Engaged Scholarship

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“The social impact of research, whether it is examining educational and economic disparities, developing new medications, or understanding environmental challenges, is a developing, but key, component of higher education and research institutions. Critical to accelerating this impact and advancing public good is the broad adoption of open research principles and practices, which have been shown to benefit the individual researcher through increased citations and scholarly impact, to spur scientific advancements, and to provide more equitable access to research and a deep commitment and engagement with the local community or the communities that are engaged in or using the research. As educators and stewards of the scholarly and scientific record, research libraries have a significant interest in accelerating open research and scholarship within their institutions, and are ideally situated to support the institutional mission to serve the public and their communities. Within higher education, research library leaders have a unique position on campus, supporting every discipline with services, expertise, collections, and infrastructure. To move forward together, ARL piloted a six-month cohort program for members to accelerate the adoption and implementation of open science principles at the intersection of social impact of research and scholarship….”

Accelerating Social Impact Research: Libraries at the Intersection of Openness and Community-Engaged Scholarship—An ARL Report – Association of Research Libraries

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“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published the first report of a six-month pilot cohort program from 2021, Accelerating the Social Impact of Research (ASIR). The pilot engaged small teams from eight ARL member libraries who wanted to share strategies to accelerate the adoption and implementation of open-science principles for social-impact research and scholarship. The report, Accelerating Social Impact Research: Libraries at the Intersection of Openness and Community-Engaged Scholarship, sets the context for this confluence, draws examples from the participating members of the cohort, and identifies the opportunities available for research library leaders. The next installments of this publication series will include additional profiles of the cohort libraries and how they are advancing open scholarship and community engagement….”

What Do Library-Publisher Relations Look Like in 2022?

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In order to gain greater insight into the state of library-publisher relations today, we asked Executive Director of AUPresses, Peter Berkery, and Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries, Mary Lee Kennedy, to share their thoughts about how relations between the two communities have changed. Their answers ultimately reveal more similarities than differences. They note current sites of collaborations (particularly around open access) and common areas of tension (around financial sustainability). While there has been a refiguring of what publishing means, both groups have a heightened dedication to a just and equitable scholarly environment. We hope these interviews can continue the dialogue that librarians and publishers are having across and within our communities.

ARL Supports cOAlitionS Call for Publisher Transparency and Reduced Author Burden for Immediate Open Access – Association of Research Libraries

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“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) endorses the cOAlition S call to publishers asking for greater clarity and transparency in manuscript submission processes, enabling authors to exercise the right to retain their copyright and to meet Plan S grant obligations for immediate open access (OA) dissemination of their research articles. Urgent global challenges underscore a growing consensus on the benefits of immediate open access. In a time of experimentation with business models to achieve that goal, transparency is critically important for all stakeholders—including funders, research institutions, and their libraries—to make data-informed decisions with the resources they steward. What cOAlition S proposes will also reduce author burden with respect to decision-making and publication workflow as researchers navigate the policy environment to realize immediate OA. In alignment with cOAlition S’s request to publishers, ARL works for optimal institutional and public policies–including a balanced copyright regime–that expand access to knowledge. Our member libraries partner on implementation of those policies in the research ecosystem, including consultation on open licensing, publishing, and other open research practices….”

Sustainability Funding for Scholarly Infrastructure Needs Infrastructure of Its Own

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“SCOSS, OACIP, the SCIP census, and IOI are all promising initiatives to address the library community’s need for data, criteria, and transparency that would enable the operationalization of maintenance funding for community-based infrastructure necessary for sustainable scholarship. Research libraries can work with these new projects to supply and help standardize data about which scholarly infrastructures are used by their local communities and how their organizations are contributing to the infrastructures’ sustainability.”

Open Persistent Identifiers: The Building Blocks of Sustainable Scholarly Infrastructure

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“At a time when research discovery is more necessary than ever, it is also becoming more complicated. The work of tracking and identifying publications and other research outputs is taking place in a context of increased technological complexity, competing motivations and priorities, and constrained resources. As exemplified by the Microsoft case, one of the fundamental challenges and risks in the scholarly infrastructure landscape is the unpredictable availability of the platforms and services we rely upon to perform this work. When these platforms and services go away, what do we have left?

Such challenges and risks might be overcome or at least mitigated if and when scholarly infrastructure is built with open components that can persist beyond their packaging. “The Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure” (POSI), which were initially outlined in 2015 and are seeing a revival in 2021, provide a set of guidelines for open infrastructure for research and scholarly communications.2 Within this framework, open infrastructure is a strategy for sustainability. Using the POSI principles as a backdrop, we examine one essential ingredient of open infrastructure: persistent identifiers, or PIDs. We explore ways in which the use of openly available PIDs, and investments in the services that support them, can enable the discovery of research outputs while promoting the sustainability of data and information. Research libraries have an opportunity to adopt a “PID-centric” approach to tracking, sharing, and publishing research. PIDs have the potential to address pain points, increase efficiencies, and save time. Promoting the implementation of open PIDs and the metadata associated with them serves a broader goal of improving information connectivity….”

University Libraries a part of national group to investigate true institutional cost of research data sharing | VTx | Virginia Tech

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“Virginia Tech and five other members of the Data Curation Network and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) were awarded a National Science Foundation EAGER grant (#2135874) to conduct research, develop models, and collect information related to cost for public access to research data. The group, led by ARL, is composed of data specialists from Virginia Tech, University of Michigan, Duke University, University of Minnesota, Cornell University, and Washington University in St. Louis.

Public access to research data increases transparency of research results, heightens the visibility of institutional scholarship, and can accelerate the pace of discovery through scholarship. However, common questions around public access to research data remain. Where are funded researchers making their data publicly accessible, and what is the quality of the corresponding metadata? How do researchers make the decision on how and why to share data? What is the cost to institutions to implement the federally mandated public access to research data policy?…”

ARL and Six Universities Awarded National Science Foundation Grant to Study Discipline-Specific Models and Costs for Public Access to Research Data – Association of Research Libraries

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“The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and six universities involved in the Data Curation Network a $297,019 grant to conduct research, develop models, and collect costing information for public access to research data across five disciplinary areas. The project, Completing the Life Cycle: Developing Evidence-Based Models of Research Data Sharing, will start in August 2021….

This research seeks to answer the following questions:

Where are funded researchers across these institutions making their data publicly accessible and what is the quality of the metadata?
How are researchers making decisions about why and how to share research data?
What is the cost to the institution to implement the federally mandated public access to research data policy? …”

Micah Vandegrift Appointed ARL Visiting Program Officer for Accelerating Social Impact of Research – Association of Research Libraries

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“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has named Micah Vandegrift as a visiting program officer in the Scholars & Scholarship program for July 2021–July 2022. Vandegrift is the open knowledge librarian at NC State University Libraries.

As visiting program officer, Vandegrift will design and deliver a pilot experience for a cohort of eight ARL member libraries that are advancing open research practices at their institutions. The pilot Accelerating the Social Impact of Research (ASIR) program will help participants develop a strategic approach for advancing the social impact of science, aimed at building and reinforcing institutional points of influence for open research practices. This initiative is in coordination with the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science and with the NASEM Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI)….”

COMMENTS OF THE LIBRARY COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE REGARDING COPYRIGHT AMENDMENT BILL

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“IIPA [International Intellectual Property Alliance] attacked subsection 12D7(a) as a threat to “academic freedom” because it gives the author of a scientific article that is the result of a research activity primarily funded by the government the right to make the article available on an open access basis. This is a truly Orwellian argument. How does preserving a scientist’s right to make her research publicly available undermine her academic freedom? The statute doesn’t obligate her to provide open access, although the Government certainly has the authority to do so as a condition of its providing the research funding. Indeed, the United States government conditions it research grants on making the resulting articles available on an open access basis. So do the EU and many other research funders around the world.