“Highlights
We examine the impact of the U.S. Department of Energy’s open-access mandate
Scientific articles subject to the mandate were utilized on average 42% more in patents
Articles subject to the mandate were not cited more frequently by other academic papers
Small firms were the primary beneficiaries of the increased knowledge diffusion…”
The Department of Energy Public Access Plan (June 2023) describes how DOE-funded research and digital data will become more open and available to the public and how DOE will use persistent identifiers to help ensure scientific and research integrity. Building on the previous DOE Public Access Plan (July 2014), the new Plan charts a path to:
Provide free, immediate access to peer-reviewed, scholarly publications;
Provide immediate access to scientific data displayed in or underlying publications and increased access to other data;
Use persistent identifiers (PIDs) for research outputs, researchers, organizations, and awards.
Policy and implementation guidance related to the publications and data components of the Plan will be issued by December 31, 2024, followed by policy and guidance for PID requirements….”
“The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released a plan to ensure the Department’s Federally funded research is more open and accessible to the public, researchers, and journalists as part of a broader effort by the Biden-Harris Administration to make government data more transparent. With 17 National Laboratories and scores of programs that fund university and private research, DOE directly supports thousands of research papers per year, and, when this plan goes into effect, those findings will be available immediately and at no cost….
DOE’s public access plan supports the August 2022 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memo that called for Federal agencies to “make publications and their supporting data resulting from federally funded research publicly accessible without an embargo on their free and public release.” The new plan describes the steps DOE will take to enable equitable access to the unclassified and unrestricted results of its multi-billion dollar annual investments in climate, energy, environment, and basic and applied research and development….”
“Community leaders and water researchers can now access publicly available online datasets curated and processed by NETL to better understand the composition of energy-related wastewater streams. The data will help mitigate environmental risks and identify possible sources of valuable critical minerals (CMs).
The National Energy Water Treatment and Speciation (NEWTS) Database provides information at no cost about the levels of toxins, concentrations of metals and other hazardous materials found in energy-related wastewater streams, which include power plant leachate, acid mine drainage, brackish water and oil and gas produced water. Researchers can input the data into computer software to develop appropriate remediation steps.
The NEWTS team is also developing a database dashboard showing sites across the nation where energy-related wastewater stream samples and composition data have been collected. Using the dashboard, community leaders and the public will be able to quickly obtain data from locations displayed on a map where various government agencies collect and analyze water samples from energy-related wastewater streams….”
“As the COVID-19 pandemic put additional stress on college students, many libraries and their institutions leveraged open educational resources (OER) to address the sudden disruption in learning environments across the country. OER are learning materials that are designed to be flexible, customizable, and always free to the student.
In new guidance for federal COVID relief funds released by the U.S. Department of Education, leveraging OER to expand access to free, high-quality textbooks is explicitly cited as a strategy to meet college students’ basic needs. The Department specifically points to OER as an example of a high-impact strategy that can build long-term capacity to ensure students have the tools they need to succeed in navigating challenges created by the pandemic.
From statewide consortiums to community and technical colleges, many institutions have already used federal COVID relief dollars for successful OER programs. The new federal guidance applies to the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), which has distributed $76.2 billion to colleges and universities since 2020. Other OER projects have leveraged COVID relief funds from the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER) and funds allocated by state legislatures.
As the Department of Education’s new guidance opens the door for more U.S. institutions to use their remaining HEERF funds for OER this spring, below are some examples of successful COVID relief-funded projects already leveraging OER to meet student basic needs….”
“Elsevier and the Department of Energy (DOE) Laboratories have established an agreement to support the labs’ authors who wish to publish open access. The agreement provides authors at participating institutions with an incentive to publish their articles open access in applicable Elsevier journals. Where an author chooses to publish OA, articles will be made freely available on ScienceDirect under the author’s choice between two reuse licenses: CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND.”
“Today, ACE released a report outlining the outcomes and best practices that have emerged from the Education Blockchain Initiative, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Education and included the Blockchain Innovation Challenge. The $900,000 competition sought bold ideas to reorient education and employment around learners and ultimately funded four projects that explored how blockchain technology can empower learners with more control over their educational records and create more equitable opportunities for economic advancement….”
“OpenStax and its 12 collaborators have received U.S. Department of Education funding to develop three new free, openly licensed textbooks for in-demand computer science courses. The books will be accompanied by comprehensive support, including educational technology and instructor training.
The textbooks, serving a sector of higher education that includes 2.5 million students, are expected to save students more than $110 million over five years….”
“Key points
The success of the CHORUS and DOE relationship is the result of nearly two decades of interactions between the DOE and a group of scientific publishers.
The relationship between CHORUS and the US federal agencies required understanding of different motivations, operations, and philosophies.
Although achieving public access was simple in principle, it required considerable effort to develop systems that satisfied all parties.
Publishers had been working with federal agencies to achieve open access before the 2013 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, but this helped to create a path for a more fruitful relationship….”
“Key points
The success of the CHORUS and DOE relationship is the result of nearly two decades of interactions between the DOE and a group of scientific publishers.
The relationship between CHORUS and the US federal agencies required understanding of different motivations, operations, and philosophies.
Although achieving public access was simple in principle, it required considerable effort to develop systems that satisfied all parties.
Publishers had been working with federal agencies to achieve open access before the 2013 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, but this helped to create a path for a more fruitful relationship….”