Over the past few months major funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Department of Defense, as well as others, have announced new public access policies for funded research. What this means is that many faculty and grad students at FSU will soon be required to make journal articles and data sets derived from funding openly accessible as a condition of continued or future funding. This is a major shift in the default research culture, and University Libraries are working to provide information, resources, and support as the campus adjusts to these requirements.
One key change is the requirement, by almost every agency, for a well-developed data management plan along with new proposals. University Libraries Data Services team is available for consultations and assistance in preparing data management plans that meet the requirements of funders. Additionally, FSU researchers can utilize DMPTool, which provides templates for data management plans by agency.
Public access mandates, including data management plans, shared open data and open access to research articles, will expand the worldwide visibility of the important research conducted at FSU, increase the impact of that research, and aid in examining related work at other institutions with whom we compete for grants and contracts.
University Libraries are closely monitoring these policy developments and collaborating with other campus units such as the Office of Sponsored Research Compliance to assist researchers in meeting these funder requirements. Researchers with questions about public access to funded research or data management planning should contact Micah Vandegrift (Digital Scholarship Coordinator) and/or Renaine Julian (Data Research Librarian) at lib-datamgmt@fsu.edu.
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