Public Access Plans and Federal Agencies: An Update

Two years ago, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memorandum was issued directing federal agencies with over $100 million in research and development expenditures to make the results of federally funded research publicly available. This directive is intended to maximize free public access while protecting privacy and confidentiality, and accommodate commercial interests. It differs from previous public access policies in that it covers “sharing research data” as well as the resulting literature. Some of the key features of the OSTP public access plans include:

  • Data management plans and subsequent compliance are required
  • Integrates costs of public access and data management into proposal budgets
  • Promotes use of repositories for both literature and data deposition
  • Supports infrastructure development for repositories
  • Supports interoperability
  • Promotes citation of datasets

Recently there has been a flurry of activity as federal agencies have completed their plans for compliance. As they become public, these plans are made available on the HSLS Scholarly Communications LibGuide by clicking on the Public Access Policies tab. The “Public Access Policies — Federal Agencies” section is located on the right side of the page. Public access plans for the agencies listed below are currently linked on the LibGuide.

  1. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR)
  2. U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
  3. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  4. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
  5. U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)
  6. U.S. Department of Energy (DoE)
  7. U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
  8. U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
  9. U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)

For more information, contact Andrea Ketchum at the Health Sciences Library System at ketchum@pitt.edu or 412-648-9757.

~ Andrea Ketchum