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NSF Public Access Plan

 

NSF - Draft Public Access Plan Policy

Status

  • 02/2023 - Plan Outlining New Policy Published
  • 12/31/24 - Final Agency Policy Due
  • 12/31/25 - Effective Date
Jan 2024 Letter to NSF - RFI Response NSF Public Access 2.0

Guidance Templates

Important Tips

  • Use the DMPTool to find the latest applicable NSF DMP template.
  • Request a consultation for help with WVU storage, allowable costs, and results repositories.

Proposed Policy Change

Significant proposed changes to NASA's Public Access Plan (2014) to meet the OSTP Public Access requirements.

Publications

All peer-reviewed scholarly publications resulting from agency-funded research are made freely available and publicly accessible by default in NSF-PAR without any embargo or delay.

Awardees will be required to make juried conference proceedings publicly accessible with no cost or embargo period. This includes both individual peer-reviewed papers resulting from an NSF award to a conference and, in the case of a conference award, the peer-reviewed proceedings or workshop report in its entirety.

Public access requirements MAY be extended to publication types such as book chapters and non-juried conference proceedings, as well as other document formats and additional research outputs (e.g. software).

Free public access will be provided to NSF-PAR article content and article metadata expressed as machine-readable XML, beginning with the effective date of implementation.

Sharing Data

  • Annual and final annual project reporting for scientific data associated with peer-reviewed scholarly publications which result from NSF awards is mandatory unless the data are subject to limitations, and will further be subject to NSF guidelines for researcher responsibilities regarding data management and sharing plans.
  • Deposited datasets must also include acknowledgement of NSF support, the award number and appropriate attribution to facilitate reporting, and will be required to be submitted via a DOI when deposited into NSF-PAR.
  • The NSF will develop procedures to request reasonable accommodations to delay the public release of data which have access limitations associated with them, devoting careful attention to minimize confusion and maximize positive public access outcomes.
  • The NSF will develop approaches and timelines for sharing other types of federally funded scientific data not associated with peer-reviewed scholarly publications. For example, those not related to a particular publication but associated with work funded by the NSF award and those not funded by NSF but which a researcher would like to deposit in conjunction with NSF-funded datasets.
  • National security interests and restrictions in law or regulation that will place boundaries on the NSF-supported data that can be shared publicly. Within these limits, beginning in 2025, NSF will require that researchers deposit scientific.
  • Annual and final annual project reporting for scientific data associated with peer-reviewed scholarly publications which result from NSF awards is mandatory unless the data are subject to limitations, and will further be subject to NSF guidelines for researcher responsibilities regarding data management and sharing plans.
  • Deposited datasets must also include acknowledgement of NSF support, the award number and appropriate attribution to facilitate reporting, and will be required to be submitted via a DOI when deposited into NSF-PAR.
  • The NSF will develop procedures to request reasonable accommodations to delay the public release of data which have access limitations associated with them, devoting careful attention to minimize confusion and maximize positive public access outcomes.
  • The NSF will develop approaches and timelines for sharing other types of federally funded scientific data not associated with peer-reviewed scholarly publications. For example, those not related to a particular publication but associated with work funded by the NSF award and those not funded by NSF but which a researcher would like to deposit in conjunction with NSF-funded datasets
  • National security interests and restrictions in law or regulation that will place boundaries on the NSF-supported data that can be shared publicly. Within these limits, beginning in 2025, NSF will require that researchers deposit scientific

Data Description & Management

  • The NSF fosters further development of broad guidelines and disciplinary-specific norms to shape communities of practice around data description and management, including data appraisal, curation, retention and disposal or deaccessioning of data. These priorities are expected to be reflected both in repositories’ policies and in the individual data management plans required for all NSF proposals.

General

  • Approaches for risk-mitigated data access will be explored as suggested in the 2022 OSTP memo, including “secure research data centers, data use agreements, perturbing identifiable information, or excluding sensitive variables.”
  • The DMPs will be retitled as data management and sharing plans, or DMSPs.
  • The NSF will explore the possibility of instituting or allowing the use of machine-actionable DMSPs to assist in agency compliance checking.

Allowable Costs

    data undergirding peer-reviewed publications deposited in NSF-PAR in data repositories.
  • The NSF plans to more explicitly and systematically require researchers to include, as part of the DMPs, details about how the data produced will be shared publicly and with other researchers and anticipated repositories for the data, and to ensure that costs associated with the chosen repository are reflected in the proposal budget request
  • The costs of documenting, preparing, publishing or otherwise making available to others the findings and products of the work conducted under the award. This generally includes the following types of activities: reports, reprints, page charges or other journal costs (except costs for prior or early publication); necessary illustrations; cleanup, documentation, storage and indexing of data and databases; development, documentation and debugging of software; and storage, preservation, documentation, indexing, etc., of physical specimens, collections or fabricated items. Line G.2. of the proposal budget also may be used to request funding for data deposit and data curation costs.