Join Us: Shaping the Future of Federal Public Access Policy

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is requesting public feedback to draft future policies on public access to data and peer-reviewed publications resulting from Federally Funded Scientific Research (FFSR).

To this end, OSTP has posted two Requests for Information (RFI) and responses are due by January 12, 2012.

• Public Access to Digital Data resulting from FFSR
• Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Publications resulting from FFSR

At Kitware, we have decided to respond to both RFIs the “Open Source Way“.

We have posted the draft of our responses in the two public documents below:

• Open Response to RFI on Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Publications
• Open Response to RFI on Public Access to Digital Data

and we now invite you to join us in refining and extending the answers to both RFIs. The documents are open for editing by anyone with the link.

Please join us in improving the feedback that we are providing to OSTP, or if you are satisfied with the current content of the documents, please join us by signing the response at the end of each document.

If you want to suggest large changes to the document, please coordinate with others by using the annotation tools that you will find in the top menu bar.

We will close down edits on January 10th, to format the final document responses and submit them to OSTP by January 12th.

Also, watch for an upcoming inSCIght podcast on this topic, open access and federally funded research, which should be available sometime this week.

More about the Office of Science and Technology Policy:

OSTP’s Mission

The mission of the Office of Science and Technology Policy is threefold:

• To provide the President and his senior staff with accurate, relevant, and timely scientific and technical advice on all matters of consequence;
• To ensure that the policies of the Executive Branch are informed by sound science; and
• To ensure that the scientific and technical work of the Executive Branch is properly coordinated so as to provide the greatest benefit to society.

Strategic Goals and Objectives

• Ensure that Federal investments in science and technology are making the greatest possible contribution to economic prosperity, public health, environmental quality, and national security.
• Energize and nurture the processes by which government programs in science and technology are resourced, evaluated, and coordinated.
• Sustain the core professional and scientific relationships with government officials, academics, and industry representatives that are required to understand the depth and breadth of the Nation’s scientific and technical enterprise, evaluate scientific advances, and identify potential policy proposals.
• Generate a core workforce of world-class expertise capable of providing policy-relevant advice, analysis, and judgment for the President and his senior staff regarding the scientific and technical aspects of the major policies, plans, and programs of the Federal government.