Extended Deadline for Public Access and Digital Data RFIs

In November, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued two Requests for Information (RFI), one on open access to scientific publications and the other on the management of digital data. On Dec 20, responding to numerous requests, we submitted to the Federal Register an extension of the deadlines for those RFIs to January 12, 2012. We anticipate the official notice of that extension appearing in the Federal Register this Friday, but wanted to ensure that all stakeholders knew as soon as possible about the extended deadline.

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, signed by President Obama earlier this year, calls upon OSTP to coordinate with agencies to develop policies that assure widespread public access to and long-term stewardship of the results of federally funded unclassified research. Towards that goal, OSTP issued the two RFIs soliciting public input on long-term preservation of and public access to the results of federally funded research, including digital data and peer-reviewed scholarly publications.
We encourage stakeholders to carefully consider the questions in the RFIs and provide comments to the addresses specified. Soon after the conclusion of the comment periods, OSTP will make all comments available on its website (including the names of the authors and their institutional affiliations, so please do not include any proprietary or confidential information when responding). All comments are now due by January 12, 2012.