By Mary Lou Marino
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued an email and memorandum last week in response to the more than 65,000 individuals and organizations that responded to or signed a petition to require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research. The new directive applies to federal agencies that spend more than $100 million per year on research and development and requires each agency to create a plan for the free, public access to federally funded research within 12 months of publication.
The directive specifically addresses public access to peer-reviewed articles and scientific data. K-State researchers who receive funding from USDA, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Homeland Security, Food and Drug Administration, NASA, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Environmental Protection Agency and 14 other agencies are affected by this directive. Agencies have six months to submit draft plans; implementation will take place once final plans are in place.
Researchers whose work is funded through National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation are already familiar with these requirements. However, this directive will greatly expand the access to the work and research being done at the university. K-State Libraries and the office of research and sponsored programs will stay on top of the various agency plans as they are finalized and are prepared to work with researchers to plan deposits of articles or digital data sets.
K-Staters need not wait for agency directives to archive their work. The K-State Research Exchange, or K-REx, is the university repository for scholarly work and makes all content freely available to the public. By sending a copy of a final, peer-reviewed, revised manuscript to krex@k-state.edu, authors can start the process of depositing their research in the repository. Data sets can also be made publically available via this route helping to meet potential data sharing requirements that may result from this directive. Also, see the office of research and sponsored programs webpages on National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health data management plans reflecting requirements already in place by agencies that currently have research data access requirements.
For further information, contact Jenny Oleen, scholarly communications librarian with K-State Libraries, at jkoleen@k-state.edu or Mary Lou Marino, development director in the office of research and sponsored programs, at mlmarino@k-state.edu.
(Editor’s note: Reprinted from K-State Today’s article published March 8, 2013.)
