Mar 28 -- The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) invites public comment on issues or topics the DOT should consider as it updates the DOT Public Access Plan in response to new White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) guidance. Comments are requested by May 10, 2023.
On August 25, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memorandum entitled “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research” <<
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf>> which establishes new guidance for improving public access to scholarly publications and data resulting from Federally supported research. This OSTP memorandum calls on all Federal Departments and Agencies to prepare new or updated Public Access plans to ensure the Public's immediate access to the results of Federally funded research, which will further advance research transparency and advance U.S. economic competitiveness by raising awareness of new research discoveries and innovations.
In response, DOT will draft a version 2 of its Public Access Plan. The updated plan will:
-- Affirm and enhances DOT's commitment to the Public's access to DOT-funded Scientific Research results, including digitally formatted scientific data;
-- Affirm DOT's support for the reproducibility of Scientific Research results;
-- Build on DOT's commitment to the Public's access to DOT-funded Scientific Research results by adding Source Code and Software, among the categories of accessible Research Outputs;
-- Ensure the free and immediate availability, reliable preservation, and continuous access to DOT-funded research results, without embargo; and
-- Enhance the usefulness of Scientific Research results to promote further innovation, increase American economic competitiveness, and advance the safety, reliability, sustainability, and equity of the national transportation system.
DOT seeks information regarding the DOT Public Access Plan from all interested stakeholders, including, but not limited to: members of the public; principal investigators; research institutions; libraries; scholarly publishers; scientific societies; transportation agencies; transportation-focused groups, organizations, and associations; data scientists; data repositories; and others.
DOT is providing the following questions to prompt feedback and comments. DOT encourages public comment on any or all of these questions, and also seeks any other information commenters believe is relevant.
The questions to which DOT is interested in receiving responses are:
1. How best to improve access to textual research outputs. . . .
2. How best to improve accessibility of textual research outputs. . . .
3. How best to improve access to scholarly publications from DOT funded research. . . .
4. How best to improve access to datasets. . . .
5. How to implement evolving ethical frameworks to DOT-funded research. . . .
6. How to best improve access to other types of research outputs. . . .
7. How to implement persistent identifiers (PIDs) for people; research documents and outputs; and, research entities. . . .
8. How to improve research project lifecycle management. . . .
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-06373