Open Government Resources and Government-Funded Open MandatesGWEN S INCLAIR GSINCLAI@HAWAII .EDU

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS & MAPS DEPARTMENT, UHM LIBRARY

ADJUNCT FACULTY IN UHM LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE PROGRAM

What I’ll talk about todayWhat are the research products of the U.S. government?

How do users access them?

Examples of government data that is not open

Examples of how government open data is being used

What kinds of research does the U.S. government fund?

Requirements for access to federally-funded research

Predictions about the future

Slides for this presentation: http://goo.gl/GCl2JW

Part 1: Government-produced research

Research products of the U.S. gov’tActivity:

Examine your publication and answer the following questions:

What is the subject matter?

Who was the publisher of the document?

What are the authors’ affiliations?

Dissemination of government research (19th Century)

Reports of explorationsScientific investigations

Type Example

Congressional documents Report of the expedition of the squadron of dragoons to the Rocky Mountains during the summer of 1835 (24th

Congress, 1st session, House document 181)

Agency annual reports Omaha dwellings, furniture, and implements (Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1891-2)

Report of the expedition of the squadron of dragoons to the Rocky Mountains during the summer of 1835 (24th Congress, 1st session, House document 181)

Omaha dwellings, furniture, and implements (Annual

report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1891-2)

Dissemination of government research (20th Century)

Technical reportsBooksConference papersCirculars, bulletins

Agency journalsCommercially published journals

Type Example

Bibliographies U.S. Department of Commerce bibliography of technical reports

Lists of publications NASA scientific and technical reports for 1967

Agency catalogs EPA national publications catalog

Indexes Index to publications of the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture 1936-1940

General catalogs U.S. government research reports

Announcements News releases, bulletins

Type Example

Bibliographies Selective bibliography in science and engineering (Northwestern University)

Commercial indexes Applied science and technology index

Agency indexes Diabetes literature index

Databases MedlineEnergy citations index

Dissemination of government research (21st Century)

Technical reportsBooksConference papersCirculars, bulletinsData

Journal articles

Type Example

Repositories EPA science inventory

Lists of publications Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory morphology publications

Agency web sites USGS maps, imagery, and publications

Databases NCDC storm events databaseUSDA current research information system

Social media Twitter, YouTube

Type Example

Publisher web site (abstracts are free)

Wiley journals

Aggregator EBSCOHost

Search interface Google Scholar

Acquisition of government researchBOOKS, TECHNICAL REPORTS, GENERAL PUBLICATIONS, DATA

Library

Purchase or acquire from government agency

Purchase or download from NTIS

Purchase from U.S. Government Bookstore

Purchase through a vendor

Subscribe to a database

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Library

Interlibrary loan

Purchase directly from publisher

Ask a friend

National Technical Information Service (NTIS)

Publication Board, established in Department of Commerce in 1945 (Later Office of Declassification and Technical Services)Distributed captured German documents to the military and U.S. companies

Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information established in 1964

Published U.S. Government Research, which announced reports of research and development released by the armed services, Atomic Energy Commission, and other agencies

Published Government-wide Index to Federal Research and Development Reports

NTIS established as self-supporting agency under Department of Commerce in 1970

American Technology Preeminence Act of 1991:

required agencies to transfer unclassified scientific, technical, and engineering information which results from federally funded research and development to NTIS

Required NTIS to cover its operational costs through fees

National Technical Reports LibraryCurrently contains records for over 2.5 million government reports

Users can purchase copies of information products in print, microform, or PDF

Basic search interface is free

Full version of NTRL costs $2,100-$11,200 for institutions; $200 for individuals

30% of reports are available in full text as free PDF downloadsfor public users of the database, there is a 10-article download limit per session

If you’re in a foreign country, you must pay for a subscription to view full text documents

NTIS woesBy 1995, losing money because of increasing availability of government reports online

In 2000, Congress proposed eliminating NTIS and transferring its repository to Library of Congress

NTIS currently loses money on sales of publications

Expenses covered through services to government agencies (data hosting, web site development)

75% of NTIS’s holdings are available from other public sourcesNASA Technical Reports Server

SciTech Connect

Defense Technical Information Center

Data.gov and the Open Government Initiative (2013)

Executive Order 13642, “Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information”

OMB issued the Open Data Policy:

Ordered agencies to make data freely available through Data.gov, administered by the General Services Administration

Required agencies to inventory and catalog their data assets

Required agencies to publish a list of their data assets that are or could be made public

Required agencies obtain public input to facilitate and prioritize the release of datasets

Examples of government information that is not openDoD media library

Contains over 1 million photos, videos, audio logs and documents

Full search limited to DoD users

Public access sites only cover the past 10 years

Government information not subject to open government directivesPACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records)

Established in 1998

Access to case information costs $0.10 per page, capped at $3.00

If usage does not exceed $15 in a quarter, fees are waived

Not included:Pre-2003 bankruptcy case documents

Criminal case documents older than Nov. 1, 2004

Confidential information is redacted

E-Government Act of 2002: does it require free access?

Government information not subject to open government directivesCongress: what’s open, what’s not

Open Not open

Votes Congressional Research Service reports

Lobbying disclosure forms Committee prints

Floor debate Congressional hearings

Examples of non-profit uses of government open dataCapitol Words

http://capitolwords.org

Text analysis of Congressional Record

Examples of non-profit uses of government open dataOpen Checkbook

https://opencheckbook.demo.socrata.com

Which government agencies spend the most money? Who is receiving that money and what are they spending it on?

Examples of non-profit uses of government open data

Surging Seas

http://sealevel.climatecentral.org

Visualization tool for sea level rise in the U.S. based on data from the National Elevation Dataset of the U.S. Geological Survey

Examples of for-profit uses of government open data

Google Patent Search

https://patents.google.com/

Uses U.S. Patent and Trademark Office data

Value added services include optical character recognition to make the text of patents fully searchable, an integrated viewer for patent images, and proprietary search algorithms.

Examples of for-profit uses of government open data

Zillow http://www.zillow.com

Uses American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau

PredictionsIncreasing availability of reports and data on agency web sites

Increasing availability of digitized historical scientific and technical literature in free repositoriesTRAIL (Technical Report Archive and Image Library)

National Agricultural Library

USGS Publications Warehouse

Increasing commercial publication or reissuance of government research

Increasing development of APIs using government research products

NTIS will cease to exist

Lack of support for centralized repositories

Part 2: Government-funded research

The federal government’s grantmaking, 19th and early 20th centuryGrants to states (e.g., land grant universities)

Research done in government laboratories by government researchers or by contractors such as universities, hospitals, research institutions, and companies, e.g.,Office of Naval Research

National Applied Mathematics Laboratory of National Bureau of Standards

Public Health Service hospitals

Bell Laboratories

Research published in government documents, conference proceedings, or journal articles

Data retained by government agency or contractor

Grantmaking authority established in enabling legislation for agencies

Annual reports on scientific progress requiredNo indication of where the results are to be published

No requirement that results be published in a particular forum

No requirement to deposit data

Research results disseminated through:Conferences

Publications

Agency-published reporting journals, e.g., Cancer chemotherapy reports

Agency-published indexes to research, e.g., Public Health Service’s Research grants index

The federal government’s grantmaking, 1930s forward

NIH Public Access PolicyOriginally issued by NIH as a policy in 2005

Legislatively mandated in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008

SEC. 218. The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Research Works Act, introduced in 2011, would have overturned NIH’s policy, but it was withdrawn by its sponsors.

Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR)Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 Died in committee

Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009 (FRPAA) reintroduced in each session of Congress from 2009-2012

Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) introduced in 2013Approved by Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, July 2015

Requires each federal agency with extramural research expenditures of over $100 million to develop a federal research public access policy

Public access policies applicable to agency researchers and agency-funded researchers

Requires each federal agency to submit an annual report on its federal research public access policy to Congress

Office of Science and Technology Policy memorandum, February 22, 2013 A We the People petition was presented to the White House in May 2012 to “Require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research.”

Office of Science and Technology Policy responded with a memorandum that:

Directed executive branch agencies that have at least $100 million in annual R & D expenditures to develop public access plans

12-month embargo period

Directed agencies to develop interfaces for retrieval of data

Required free access to metadata and the development of data management plans by grantees

Acknowledged that proprietary interests, confidential business information, and intellectual property rights must be respected

Developers of public access plans must solicit views from stakeholders

Public access plansDepartment of Energy

Establish Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science (PAGES) portal

PAGES will provide metadata and abstracts “in a way that is open, readable, and available for bulk download”

PAGES will “facilitate analysis of peer-reviewed scholarly publications directly arising from research funded by DOE”

All research proposals selected for DOE funding must include a Data Management Plan

Public access plansNational Science Foundation

Requires that NSF-funded research results be deposited in a public access compliant repository [PAGES];

Requires that research publications be available after 12-month embargo period

Requires the provision of free metadata

Requires research to be reported in annual and final reports during the period of the award with a unique persistent identifier that links to the full text of the publication

NSF already requires applicants to submit a data management plan

Public access plansDepartment of Defense plan

Requires digitally formatted scientific data resulting from unclassified, publicly releasable research supported wholly or in part by DoD funding to be publicly accessible

Data will not be publicly releasable if release would compromise the ability to file for intellectual property protection on any invention arising from the data

Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) will be the search interface and repository

PredictionsBills mandating open access for federally funded research will not succeed

Public access plans will continue to govern access to grant-funded research

Partnerships will be needed to host research publications and data due to lack of federal funds for these functions

New open-access publishing venues will be developed

Journal articles will be less important

Questions?Thank you for coming!

Slides for this presentation: http://goo.gl/GCl2JW