Responses to NSF's (and Other Agencies') OSTP Response (Got That?)

Last month, the National Science Foundation released a report titled "Today's Data, Tomorrow's Discoveries: Increasing Access to the Results of Research Funded by the National Science Foundation." (We summarized yhehighlights in our blog post on March 18, 2015.) This plan is the first piece of the NSF goal to provide increased public access to NSF research outputs; more from NSF is expected this month.

There was a flurry of twitter-tivity following the report's release; you can follow the continued discussion via the hashtag #OSTPresp. You'll also be able to follow a discussion about other agencies' OSTP responses that were released in the few weeks prior to the NSF report. After several agencies updated or released new policies in close succession, Amanda Whitmire at Oregon State University updated her libguide describing Federal Public Access Plans, and also created a crowd-sourced document to keep track of agencies and their plans, available here: http://bit.ly/FedOASummary. Primarily maintained by academic library-based data specialists, the document is open to additions and edits, which will help everyone stay current as new plans come out (and old ones are edited). The document includes whether an agency's policy covers data as well as traditional research outputs, embargoes, data management plan (DMP) details, preferred repositories (if stated), and more.

The UW Libraries has created a simplified version of this document that is geared toward whether agencies have DMP requirements and what their preferred repository is, with an intended audience that is not in the librarian world. Here you'll find a list of agency requirements, where data and articles are made available, and whether or not there's a DMP requirement. It's a little easier for the layperson to digest than the full list, and can be helpful in presenting this information to faculty and researchers.

Continue to watch twitter and this blog for further information about OSTP responses and what they mean for researchers. And feel free to add anything we've missed in the comments.

Today's Data, Tomorrow's Discoveries: NSF's OSTP response released today

The NSF OSTP response came out today. Here are a few choice tidbits from a quick reading:

"All data resulting from the research funded by the award, whether or not the data support a publication, should be deposited at the appropriate repository as explained in the DMP. Metadata associated with the data should conform to community standards and the requirements of the host repository. At a minimum, data elements should include acknowledgement of NSF support as well as the award number and appropriate attribution." pg 7

"NSF investigators typically have multiple funding sources. Since a given item may be based on funding from more than one agency, NSF expects to allow submissions of articles and papers to public access repositories operated by other Federal agencies that meet the standards of the OSTP February 22, 2013, memorandum and for which the investigator can provide a persistent identifier as an element in annual or final reports." pg 13

"In collaboration with other Federal agencies and interested parties, NSF will develop criteria for eligible repositories, based on the criteria set forth in the OSTP memorandum, and will provide appropriate guidance for awardees and investigators on the website.
NSF may initiate these discussions as early as FY 2016." pg 14.

"Rarely does NSF expect that retention of all data that are streamed from an instrument or created in the course of an experiment or survey will be required." pg. 15

"Over the next three years, NSF will consult with the community and with other Federal agencies and facilitate the establishment of standards for metadata and repository systems." pg 16

"NSF is aware that individual publishers and library systems are experimenting with new approaches to presenting information, linking publications to data, and providing pointers to repository systems. NSF proposes to foster these developments and their use by ensuring consistent and predictable access to the underlying information, thus providing a platform for creativity and innovation." pg 18.

There's much more in the full text, available here:  http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2015/nsf15052/nsf15052.pdf. It deserves a read if you have time!  NSF's Executive Summary of the plan, which is only two pages, is here: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2015/nsf15051/nsf15051.pdf.

UW Libraries hosting virtual conference on "Dealing with the Data Deluge"

The UW Libraries is excited to announce that it will be hosting an upcoming NISO (National Information Standards Organization) virtual conference on "Dealing with the Data Deluge: Successful Techniques for Scientific Data Management." Attendance is open to the UW community.

• Where: Allen Auditorium, UW Libraries
• When: Wednesday, April 23, 8am-2pm
• What: "Dealing with the Data Deluge: Successful Techniques for Scientific Data Management," a NISO virtual conference

With funding support from the Libraries Organization Development & Training to cover our site registration, this virtual conference will "explore in greater depth than traditional webinars some of the practical lessons from those who have implemented data management and developed best practices, as well as provide some insight into the evolving issues the community faces." More details from the event page:

With the expansion of digital data collection and the increased expectations of data sharing, researchers are turning to their libraries or institutional repositories as a place to store and preserve that data. Many institutions have created such data management services and see the data curation role as a growing and important element of their service portfolio. While some of the experience in managing other types of digital resources is transferrable, the management of large-scale scientific data has many special requirements and challenges. From metadata collection and cataloging data sources, to identification, discovery, and preservation, best practices and standards are still in their infancy.

Topics and Speakers include:

• Keynote Speaker – Jan Brase, Ph.D., German National Library of Science and Technology; Managing Agent of DateCite, Chair of the International DOI Foundation (IDF), Vice-President of the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), and Co-Chair of the CODATA Data Citation task group
• Guidelines and Resources for Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Data Access Plans –Jared Lyle, Director of Data Curation Services, Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), University of Michigan
• Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles: Implementation of the Principles in the Harvard Dataverse Repository – Merce Corsas, Ph.D., Director of Data Science, Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), Harvard University
• Purdue University Research Repository (PURR): A Commitment to Supporting Researchers – Michael Witt, Head, Distributed Data Curation Center (D2C2); Associate Professor of Library Science, Purdue University Research Repository (PURR)
• Is This Data Fit for My Use? The Challenges and Opportunities Data Provenance Presents – Adriane Chapman, MITRE
• A Durable Space: Technologies for Accessing Our Collective Digital Heritage – David Wilcox, Product Manager, DuraSpace
• The SHared Access Research Ecosystem (SHARE) Project: A Joint Initiative of ARL, AAU, and APLU –Judy Ruttenberg, Program Director for Transforming Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries (ARL)

More information about the event, including the schedule, is online at www.niso.org/news/events/2014/virtual/data_deluge/. 

Public Comment on Access to Federally Supported Research and Development Data and Publications

In response to both the recent OSTP memorandum and the proposed bill (FASTR) that call for increased public access to data and publications resulting from federally funded research, a group of cooperating agencies and the National Research Council have organized two planning meetings held May 14-17 to gather stakeholder input (also included are "brief introductory addresses by a select few experts and summarizing commentary by equally few rapporteurs").

Two meetings will be held, one focused on publications (May 14-15) and the other on data (May 16-17). The public is invited to attend in person (at the National Academy of Sciences in DC) or via webcast, but registration is required. Attendees may also request time to present a verbal or written statement.

Sponsoring Agencies:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Technical Information Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Department of Defense
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of Health and Human Services
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Department of the Interior
United States Geological Survey
Department of Transportation
Environmental Protection Agency
Institute of Museum and Library Services
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Endowment for the Humanities
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Institution

The New OSTP Policy and Data

The OSTP policy changes last month that mandate greater access to federally funded research left us wondering what, exactly, it'll mean for federally funded research data. There have been several good blog posts written that summarize what the policy states and an interpretation of what the changes might mean in the realm of data.

The Scholarly Kitchen gives a history of how the policy came to be, deciphers what it means, and provides a list of agencies covered (NIH, CDC, FDA, ARHQ, NSF, NASA, DOE, USDA, FAA, FHWA, NIST, NOAA, USGS, EPA, DOD, VA, USAID, Dept. of Education, and the Smithsonian), and some first impressions of what it means for public access to funded research papers.

Carly Strasser from California Digital Library takes a look at the policy from both a scholarly article and data perspective, providing a short-and-sweet summary in plain English about potential changes from the policy.

And last, Kristin Briney spends time looking at what the policy means for data in particular.

Basically, what all this means is that data management plans will now be required of researchers on federal grants, and these plans should be supported by the various agencies. There is no particular mandate for sharing, just the "maximizing of access to research data." There is a lot of potential there for increases in data management plan creation and support, open repositories and greater access to the content therein. Agencies have 6 months from the announcement to create a policy; come August, there will be some interesting things to discuss.