“On April 19, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released their draft plan for updating the agency’s policy for public access and requested public feedback.
SPARC submitted comments praising the no-cost manuscript deposit compliance option and offered additional steps for AHRQ to consider to further strengthen the plan and address rights retention to minimize burden on researchers.
Read SPARC’s Comments: Response to AHRQ RFI on Draft Public Access Plan…”
“Yesterday was the first of four listening sessions by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. These are specifically geared towards Early-Career Researchers (ECRs), which I guess I technically would still be had I stayed in academia.
I had the opportunity to briefly participate and share some prepared remarks. Sharing those here to document my own thoughts and make them more accessible. The quality of other’s input was inspiring….”
“The OSTP is hosting a series of virtual public listening sessions to explore perspectives from the early career researcher community on the challenges and opportunities for advancing open science in the United States. Hosted as part of a Year of Open Science, these listening sessions aim to elevate the needs, priorities, and experiences of this community in shaping a future of open and equitable research.
OSTP is seeking input from undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows from a diverse range of backgrounds and disciplines, as well as those involved in training and capacity building, including librarians, educators, and administrators. We are therefore writing to invite your community to join the conversation. We welcome your support in sharing this opportunity with your broader community/network….”
“Available to watch now: “Responding to the Nelson Memo: repository re-curation for open science”.
This talk introduces the concept of re-curation with examples from three different types of repositories and research organisations; generalist, institutional, and field stations. Re-curation is the care and feeding of digital content over time, ensuring it remains discoverable, interoperable, and reusable and aligned with the latest standards.
Learn from Dryad partner Ted Habermann of Metadata Gamechangers about the importance of continually improving metadata to support discovery and reuse as standards emerge and evolve.”
“Open science carries with it a world of possibilities: spurring discovery and equitable innovation, bolstering public trust, democratizing access to research, strengthening evidence-based decision making, and creating a better life for all. These possibilities place open science at the heart of Biden-Harris Administration priorities – from curbing greenhouse gas emissions to reducing social inequalities to ending cancer as we know it.
To help realize these possibilities, the White House is taking action to elevate the needs, priorities, and experiences of those who will shape and inherit the future of open science: the early career research (ECR) community. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) will host a series of virtual listening sessions to explore perspectives on the challenges and opportunities for advancing open science in the United States and solutions that might be implemented by the U.S. Government….”
“NASA seeks public input on the “NASA’s Public Access Plan, Increasing Access to the Results of Scientific Research” (NASA Public Access Plan). NASA has a decades-long history of providing public access to scholarly publications and data resulting from the research it supports, including through the 2014 Open Access Plan. In 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memorandum on “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research” that establishes new guidance for improving public access to scholarly publications and data resulting from Federally supported research. The NASA Public Access Plan outlines the proposed approach NASA will take to implement the new guidance, consistent with its longstanding commitment to public access.”
“THE POSSIBILITIES OF OPEN SCIENCE: WHITE HOUSE LISTENING SESSIONS WITH EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER COMMUNITIES
Open science has the potential to unlock a world of possibilities: spurring discovery and equitable innovation, bolstering public trust, democratizing access to research, and strengthening evidence-based decision making. These possibilities place open science at the heart of Biden-Harris Administration priorities – from curbing greenhouse gas emissions to reducing social inequalities to ending cancer as we know it.
To help realize the possibilities of open science, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is taking action to elevate the needs, priorities, and experiences of those who will shape and inherit the future: the early career researcher community. OSTP will host a series of virtual listening sessions to explore perspectives on the challenges and opportunities for advancing open science in the United States and solutions that might be implemented by the U.S. Government. These listening sessions are hosted as part of a Year of Open Science, announced by the White House in January 2023 to advance open science policies across the federal government. The sessions will be open to the public and may be recorded for OSTP’s use. Registration is required to attend. The upcoming listening sessions will be as follows:…”
“AAAS and other groups warn of rise of inequalities from implementation of White House request Sixteen US scientific societies and associations have called for studies of scholarly publishing costs, as the country’s largest biomedical research funder deliberates on how to respond to government requirements on open access to papers. Last year, the White House asked federal research funders including the National Institutes of Health to ensure immediate open access to publications reporting work they have supported. Individual funders have leeway over the implementation, and the NIH recently sought input on its plan to comply….”
“Like the Holdren Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Memo before it, the Nelson OSTP Memo articulates a “Green” public access mandate. Federal agencies are directed to ensure that “all peer-reviewed scholarly publications authored or coauthored by individuals or institutions resulting from federally funded research are made freely available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay after publication.”
In a subscription world, the effort to develop and maintain federal agency repositories of funded research is an understandable expense; the enabled public access is an alternative to paywalled access. But as the Nelson Memo catalyzes a shift to open access publishing and the overall shift towards an open access world continues inexorably, should we reconsider the double-cost of this repository approach, given that the green public access copy will duplicate already provided open access?…”
“On February 22, 2013, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the memorandum entitled “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.” This memorandum requires federal agencies to make the results of federally funded scientific research available to and useful for the public, industry, and the scientific community. In response, AHRQ published a plan for establishing a policy for public access to scientific publications and scientific data resulting from AHRQ funding (https://www.ahrq.gov/funding/policies/publicaccess/index.html) in February 2015, a Policy for Public Access to AHRQ funded Scientific Publications (NOT-HS-16-008) in February 2016,) and in May 2020, a Data Management Plan Policy (NOT-HS-20-011).
On August 25, 2022, the White House OSTP released a memorandum on “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research” (2022 Memo). The 2022 Memo establishes new guidance for improving public access to scholarly publications and data resulting from federally supported research. Accordingly, AHRQ updated its Public Access Plan that outlines the proposed approach AHRQ will take to implement the new guidance, consistent with its longstanding commitment to public access….”
“SPARC strongly supports the OSTP Memorandum’s emphasis on ensuring equity in contributing to, accessing, and benefitting from the results of federally funded research, and we appreciate NIH’s specific attention on how to ensure equity in publication opportunities for its funded investigators. As the research process has shifted to the digital environment, a wide variety of channels designed to support more rapid, frequent, and iterative communication of research findings have emerged. It is vital that researchers have compliance options that do not present them with financial barriers. To that end, NIH should make it clear that investigators can fully comply with its public access policy by depositing their author’s accepted manuscripts into PubMed Central (PMC) or any other agency-approved repository—and that there is no charge to do so. In its guidance, it is important for NIH to make clear that any fee that investigators may be asked to pay is a publication fee, and not a fee required by NIH to comply with its policy. It is critical that investigators do not conflate compliance with article processing charges (APCs), which create significant barriers for less-well-resourced investigators and institutions to make their research available….”
“This is OASPA’s response to the Request for Information based on this policy (with revisions) from the NIH as released on 21 Feb 2023.
OASPA (the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association) represents a diverse community of organizations engaged in open scholarship and encourages and enables open access as the predominant model for scholarly outputs.
OASPA wishes to ensure that open access is equitable and inclusive and is keen to explore with its publisher members and library stakeholders ways to increase equity in open access publishing. Why? Because the inclusion of all researchers, including authors from developing and transition countries, and indeed from all backgrounds and life stages, is essential for advancing human knowledge and also for a successful transition to open access. Without the development of new and more equitable approaches to open access, we will not benefit from its full potential….”
“COGR is an association of over 200 public and private U.S. research universities and affiliated academic medical centers and research institutes. COGR concerns itself with the impact of federal regulations, policies, and practices on the performance of research conducted at our member institutions. As recipients of a significant portion of NIH extramural research programs, COGR’s member institutions value the opportunity to respond to this request. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memo1 sets forth requirements to increase access to publications and data resulting from federally funded research, and the NIH RFI NOT-OD-23-091 outlines NIH’s plans to address this directive. As recipients of federally funded research, ensuring public access to publications and research data resulting from supported research is core to our mission as research institutions and a responsibility we take seriously. COGR looks forward to continuing to engage with the community and the agencies on this important topic and offer the following comments….”
“On February 21, 2023, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) released “Request for Information on the NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research.” The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is pleased to offer the following comments in response to this request….”
“tl;dr: The NIH should directly oppose a for-profit APC-driven publication system and cloud research infrastructure, and instead focus efforts on building truly public information infrastructures.
This is a response to: Request for Information on the NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research, an RFI for NOT-OD-23-091 and the 2022 Nelson open access memo….”