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Administration for Community Living (ACL) Public Access Plan 

Table of Contents

1. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE ..................................................................................................................... 2

2. PUBLIC ACCESS TO PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS................................................................................... 3

a. Definitions ........................................................................................................................................... 3

b. Scope ................................................................................................................................................... 3

c. Requirements...................................................................................................................................... 4

d. Compliance and Evaluation ................................................................................................................. 5

e. Implementation Timeline .................................................................................................................... 6

3. PUBLIC ACCESS TO SCIENTIFIC DATA .......................................................................................................... 7

a. Definitions........................................................................................................................................... 7

b. Scope................................................................................................................................................... 7

c. Requirements...................................................................................................................................... 8

d. Compliance and Evaluation................................................................................................................. 9

e. Implementation Timeline..................................................................................................................10
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1. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

On February 22, 2013, the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP) issued a 

memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies entitled “Increasing Access to the 

Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research” (OSTP Memo or Public Access Memo). In the 

memorandum, OSTP asks federal agencies with research and development budgets greater than $100 

million per year to develop a plan to ensure free public access to federally-funded, peer-reviewed 

scientific publications and to maximize public access—to the extent feasible and permitted by law—to

digital data resulting from federally funded research. 

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) is an Operating Division (OPDIV) within the Department 

of Health and Human Services (HHS), initially established on April 18, 2012, by bringing together the 

Administration on Aging, the Office on Disability, and the Administration on Developmental Disabilities. 

Through budget legislation in subsequent years, Congress moved several programs that serve older 

adults and people with disabilities from other agencies to ACL, including the State Health Insurance 

Assistance Program, the Paralysis Resource Center, and the Limb Loss Resource Center. Recently, the 

2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act moved the independent living program, Assistive 

Technology program, and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation 

Research (NIDILRR) from the Department of Education to HHS/ACL. The transfer of NIDILRR, which has a 

current appropriation for research and development of approximately $104 million, necessitated the 

development of an ACL public access plan (prior to this transfer, ACL did not administer research 

programs).

NIDILRR’s mission is to generate new knowledge and to promote its effective use to improve the abilities 

of individuals with disabilities to perform activities of their choice in the community, and to expand 

society’s capacity to provide full opportunities and accommodations for its citizens with disabilities. 

NIDILRR achieves this mission by providing for research, development, demonstration, training, 

technical assistance, and related activities to maximize full integration of individuals with disabilities in 

society; ensuring the widespread distribution of practical scientific and technological information in 

usable formats; and promoting the transfer, use, and adoption of rehabilitation technology for 

individuals with disabilities in a timely manner.

ACL will make available to the public ACL/NIDILRR peer-reviewed scientific publications and data arising 

from research funded in whole or in part by ACL/NIDILRR, to the extent feasible and permitted by law 

and available resources.

The ACL Public Access Plan is intended to: 

• Establish a mechanism for compliance with the OSTP public access policy; 

• Make published results of ACL/NIDILRR-funded research more readily accessible to the public;

• Make scientific data collected through ACL/NIDILRR-funded research more readily accessible to 

the public; and 

• Increase the use of research results and scientific data to further advance scientific endeavors 

and other tangible applications. 
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ACL plans to implement its public access to publications plan in FY2016. ACL is developing a plan to 

address public access to scientific data and will begin implementing the data public access plan in 

FY2017.

2. PUBLIC ACCESS TO PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

a. Definitions

Embargo: An embargo is defined as a period between the date of publication and the date the 

publication is made publicly available for free.

Final peer-reviewed manuscript: A final peer-reviewed manuscript is defined as an author's final 

manuscript of a peer-reviewed paper accepted for journal publication, including all 

modifications from the peer-review process. 

Final published article: A final published article is defined as a publisher's authoritative copy of 

the paper, including all modifications from the publishing peer-review process, copy editing, 

stylistic edits, and formatting changes. 

Peer-reviewed publication: A peer-review publication is defined as a publication describing 

original scientific research findings that has been peer-reviewed prior to being published in a 

scientific journal.

Peer-reviewed publication’s metadata: Peer-reviewed publication’s metadata is defined as 

information that describes a peer-reviewed publication, generally making the publication 

uniquely identifiable and more easily searchable. Publication metadata often include the 

publication author(s), publication title, journal title, publication date, publication abstract, and 

unique identifying numbers or codes. 

b. Scope

The ACL requirements for public access to peer-reviewed publications will be applicable to peerreviewed publications resulting from all research funded by ACL/NIDILRR , regardless of the 

funding mechanism (e.g., grant, cooperative agreement, contract, other funding mechanism).

The ACL requirements for public access to peer-reviewed publications will also apply to peerreviewed publications resulting from research jointly supported by ACL/NIDILRR and a partner 

agency, when the research is administered by ACL/NIDILRR. An exception to these requirements 

is when the jointly-supported research is administered by a partner agency with a comparable 

public access policy. In that case, ACL will defer to the partner agency's public access policy for 

peer-reviewed publications. 

ACL employees whose scientific work is published in peer-reviewed journals as part of their 

assigned duties will be under the scope of this plan. 

ACL does not have an intramural research program; therefore, it is not addressed in this plan. 
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c. Requirements

These public access requirements will be applied prospectively, and not retrospectively.

ACL will use PubMed Central (PMC)—the National Institutes of Health (NIH) digital archive of 

biomedical and life sciences journal literature, developed and operated by the National Library 

of Medicine, as its designated peer-reviewed publications repository.

Using PMC service will enable ACL to meet the following objectives:

- Ensure that the public can read, download, and analyze in digital form final peer-reviewed 

manuscripts or final published articles; 

- Facilitate easy public search, analysis of, and access to peer-reviewed publications directly 

arising from research funded by the Federal Government;

- Ensure full public access to peer-reviewed publications’ metadata, without charge upon first 

publication, in a data format that ensures interoperability with current and future search 

technology. The metadata will provide a link to the location where the full text and 

associated supplemental materials will be made available after the embargo period; 

- Encourage public-private collaboration to: 

o maximize the potential for interoperability between public and private platforms 

and creative reuse to enhance value to all stakeholders, 

o avoid unnecessary duplication of existing mechanisms,

o maximize the impact of the Federal research investment, and 

o assist with implementation of the ACL Public Access plan; 

- Ensure that attribution to authors, journals, and original publishers is maintained; and 

- Ensure that publications and metadata are stored in an archive that:

o provides for long-term preservation and access to the content without charge,

o uses standards, widely available and, to the extent possible, nonproprietary archival

formats for text and associated content, 

o provides access for persons with disabilities consistent with Section 508 of the 

Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and 

o enables integration and interoperability with other Federal public access archival 

solutions and other appropriate archives. 

The ACL public access plan requires that all peer-reviewed publications generated from 

ACL/NIDILRR -funded research be publicly available via PubMed Central (PMC) no later than 12 

months after the official publication date. The peer-reviewed publications may be made 

available in either the final published article or final peer-reviewed manuscript format.

ACL/NIDILRR-funded authors may choose one of the following options to achieve compliance: 

- When appropriate, publish their work in peer-reviewed journals that currently archive their 

complete contents in PMC (full participation) with a 12 month or less embargo period. In 

cases where an author publishes with one of these journals, the publisher will supply the 

final published article directly to PMC and the author does not need to take any additional 

action to comply with ACL Public Access Policy. 
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The complete PMC journal list is available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/. 

The “Participation Level” column indicates which journals have a full participation level and 

the “Free Access” column indicates the journal’s embargo period from the date of 

publication. To exercise this option, only those listed journals with both a full participation 

level and the embargo period of 12 months or less will meet the requirements of the ACL 

Public Access Policy.

- Submit final peer-reviewed manuscript to PMC through the National Institutes of Health 

Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS) http://www.nihms.nih.gov/ upon acceptance of 

the manuscript for publication, with the understanding that these manuscripts will be made 

publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. The author 

should address the requirements for PMC deposit with the publisher at the time of 

acceptance or earlier to ensure compliance with the ACL Public Access Policy. 

ACL employees whose work is published in peer-reviewed journals as part of their assigned 

duties will also be required to make the peer-reviewed publications publicly available 

through either one of the mechanisms indicated above.

d. Compliance and Evaluation

ACL will establish compliance terms and conditions for grant, cooperative agreement, contract, 

and other funding mechanisms, to be included in all Funding Opportunity Announcements and 

Requests for Proposals issued after October 1, 2016. The compliance terms and conditions will 

also be communicated to all recipients of new awards for grants, cooperative agreements, 

contracts, and other applicable funding mechanisms. 

ACL/NIDILRR-supported investigators will be required to report any peer-reviewed manuscripts 

that have been accepted for publication in their annual performance reports and final reports, 

with an indication whether the compliance with the ACL Public Access Policy has been achieved 

by one of the two methods below:

- The manuscript is being published in a journal with PMC’s full-participation status with a 12- 

month or less embargo period; or 

- The final peer-reviewed manuscript has been submitted through the National Institutes of 

Health Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS) with an embargo period of 12 months or 

less. 

Grantee compliance will be monitored by requiring the ACL/NIDILRR-supported investigators to 

identify the PubMed Central Identification Number (PMCID) for any peer-reviewed publications 

associated with their grant, cooperative agreement, contract, or other funding mechanism to 

demonstrate compliance with the ACL Public Access Plan. PMC assigns the PMCID to peerreviewed publications (final peer-reviewed manuscript and final published article) that are 

under an embargo period as well as those that are already publicly available through PMC. 

The data from the PMC’s funding agency administrative portal showing status of submitted final 

peer-reviewed manuscripts and final published articles associated with ACL/NIDILRR-funded 

grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, and other funding mechanisms will also be reviewed 

at a regular interval. This will enable ACL to monitor compliance and take appropriate action such
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as prompting investigators who are delayed in completing necessary actions that PMC 

requires in order to make the peer-review publications available to the public. 

Failure to comply with ACL’s public access to publications plan could result in withholding, 

suspension, or termination of funding for non-competing continuation awards. Before awarding 

new grants or contracts, ACL will inquire whether prospective awardees are in compliance with 

the ACL Public Access Policy. Prospective awardees’ failure to comply with ACL’s public access 

policy could be considered a risk factor in making decisions for new awards. 

ACL will rely on the HHS petition process for considering requests to shorten the embargo 

period for publications in a specific field. This process is described in greater detail in the HHS 

Guiding Principles and Approach for Enhancing Public Access, Appendix A at 

http://www.hhs.gov/open/public-access-guiding-principles/index.html#app-a.

Compliance of ACL employees who published in peer-reviewed journals as part of their assigned 

duties will be monitored through internal clearance and reporting processes. 

e. Implementation Timeline

Implementation Activities Timeline

Begin to communicate ACL requirements for

public access to peer-reviewed publications to 

ACL stakeholders and solicit input and feedback 

from stakeholders through ACL website and 

other appropriate venues.

March 1, 2016

Establish an interagency agreement with NIH

establishing PMC as the repository for 

ACL/NIDILRR-funded peer-reviewed 

publications

March 31, 2016

Publish ACL’s requirements for public access to

peer-reviewed publications on the HHS Public 

Access website, ACL website (ACL.gov), and 

other appropriate venues, and identify point of 

contact within ACL to respond to questions, 

comments, or suggestions

October 1, 2016

Incorporate terms and conditions on

compliance with ACL’s requirements for public 

access to peer-reviewed publications into ACLsponsored grant, cooperative agreement, 

contract, and other funding mechanism 

notices, such as Funding Opportunity 

Announcements and Requests for Proposals

October 1, 2016

Communicate terms and conditions on public

access to peer-reviewed publications all 

recipients of new awards for grants, 

cooperative agreements, contracts, and other 

applicable funding mechanisms. 

October 1, 2016
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Implementation Activities Timeline

Review the status of implementation of ACL

requirements on public access to peerreviewed publications and assess compliance

October 1, 2017

3. PUBLIC ACCESS TO SCIENTIFIC DATA

a. Definitions

Data embargo: A data embargo is defined as a period between the award’s end date and the date 

the data is made publicly available for free. 

Data management plan: A data management plan is defined as a written document describing how 

researchers will provide for long-term preservation of, and access to, scientific data in digital 

formats resulting from federally funded research, or explaining why long-term preservation and 

access cannot be justified. 

Dataset metadata: Dataset metadata is defined as information that describes a dataset, generally 

making the dataset uniquely identifiable and more easily searchable, as well as information that 

allows a meaningful and appropriate use of the data. Dataset metadata can include, but is not 

limited to, principal investigator’s name, funding sources, project description, sample and sampling 

procedures, variables, data collection instruments, interview guide and questions, meaning of data 

codes, and other relevant information about the dataset that would enable meaningful and 

appropriate use of the data by researchers other than those who originally collect the data.

Scientific data: Scientific data are defined as digitally recorded factual material commonly accepted 

in the scientific community as necessary to validate research findings including data sets used to 

support scholarly publications. Scientific data do not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary 

analyses, drafts of scientific papers, plans for future research, peer review reports, 

communications with colleagues, or physical objects, such as laboratory specimens. For the 

purpose of this public access plan, the following types of data are excluded from the scope of this 

plan: personally identifiable data; proprietary trade data; and other data whose release is limited 

by law, regulation, security requirements, or policy.

b. Scope

The ACL requirements for public access to scientific data will be applicable to all research funded 

by ACL/NIDILRR, regardless of the funding mechanism (e.g., grant, cooperative agreement, 

contract, other funding mechanisms). The ACL requirements for public access to scientific data will 

also apply to research jointly supported by ACL/NIDILRR and a partner agency, when the research 

is administered by ACL/NIDILRR. An exception to these requirements is when the jointly-supported 

research is administered by a partner agency with a comparable public access policy. In that case, 

ACL will defer to the partner agency's public access policy for scientific data.

Scientific data collected by ACL employees as part of their assigned duties will be under the scope 

of this plan.
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ACL does not have an intramural research program; therefore, it is not addressed in this plan.

c. Requirements

These public access requirements will be applied prospectively, not retrospectively. However, in 

case of ongoing longitudinal data collection, it may be necessary to make the previously collected 

data available retrospectively if doing so is essential for the prospectively collected data to be 

meaningful and useful for future analyses.

The ACL public access plan requires that scientific data generated from ACL/NIDILRR-funded 

research be publicly available no later than 24 months after an award’s end date. The scientific 

data must be packaged and stored in such a way that enables retrieval and meaningful use by 

interested parties at no cost. When an award funds more than one research project or a research 

project generates more than one type of scientific data, all datasets must be made publicly 

available. Each dataset must have a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for future reference and citation. 

ACL designates the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a unit 

within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan that provides data archiving 

services, as its preferred data repository for scientific data from all ACL/NIDILRR-funded research. 

The exception to this designation is the archiving of longitudinal scientific data collected through 

the ACL/NIDILRR-funded Burn Injury, Spinal Cord Injury, and Traumatic Brain Injury Model 

Systems. For these three specific funding programs, the longitudinal scientific data have been and 

will continue to be deposited to and made publicly available by the National Statistical and Data 

Center of each respective model system. The National Statistical and Data Centers have the 

capacity to function as a data repository and making those data accessible to the public.

ICPSR operates an internationally recognized repository that meets industry standards and accepts 

both quantitative and qualitative data. ICPSR also has a provision for an embargo period, where 

the data can be held but not released for up to 24 months from the date of depositing, at the 

submitter’s request. ICPSR assigns DOIs for datasets that are under an embargo period and those 

already made publicly available.

ACL/NIDILRR-funded awardees may choose another public repository to deposit their dataset(s), 

provided that 1) there is a satisfactory justification for why it is not possible to deposit the dataset 

at ICPSR and 2) the chosen repository is comparable to ICPSR as far as meeting industry standards 

on data archiving and having an embargo period that will allow the awardee’s compliance with this 

plan.

ACL/NIDILRR-funded awardees may include a justification for using a different repository in the 

data management plan submitted as part of the original proposal.

ACL requires that applicants for ACL/NIDILRR grants and cooperative agreements, as well as 

applicable contracts and other types of award as determined by ACL, submit a data management 

plan. ACL will review the data management plans of potential awardees for completeness and 

compliance before releasing the awards.

The data management plan (DMP) must include the following components:
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i. Description of the types and format of data to be collected, and how they will be 

organized, stored, and preserved.

ii. Description of metadata to be included in the data submission to a repository in order to 

enable meaningful and useful analysis of the data by users who are not part of the 

research team.

iii. Indication of whether the awardee will submit the scientific data to ICPSR or another 

public data repository. If the data are to be submitted to ICPSR, no further justification is 

required. If another repository is identified, the awardee must provide a justification of 

how this repository will provide for a long-term preservation of, and public access to, 

scientific data in digital formats resulting from ACL/NIDILRR funded research at no cost. 

This justification should include a description of the way in which shared digital data will 

be discoverable, retrievable, and analyzable through the chosen data repository.

iv. If applicable, explain why data sharing, long-term preservation, and access cannot be 

justified. 

v. Provide a plan to address the study participants’ consent process to enable the deidentified data to be shared broadly for future research. 

vi. Indicate an estimated cost to implement the data management plan. This cost is allowable 

as part of the award’s direct costs.

ACL is planning to develop an online training module for ACL/NIDILRR awardees on planning for 

archiving and preservation of data. Awardees will be required to meet the training requirement 

within the first 3 months of their award start date. The purpose of this training module is to raise 

awareness of best practices in data preparation and packaging from the onset of data collection to 

maximize the data’s usability at a later date.

ACL employees who collect scientific data as part of their assigned duties will also be required to 

deposit the data and make them available through the ICPSR. 

ACL may issue additional guidance in specific areas as needed to support the implementation of its 

public access for scientific data plan. 

d. Compliance and Evaluation 

ACL will establish compliance terms and conditions for grant, cooperative agreement, contract, 

and other funding mechanisms, to be included in all Funding Opportunity Announcements and 

Requests for Proposals issued after October 1, 2017. The compliance terms and conditions will also 

be communicated to all recipients of new awards for grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, 

and other applicable funding mechanisms. 

ACL will monitor awardees’ compliance by requiring ACL/NIDILRR-supported investigators to 

report their submission of the scientific data to ICPSR or an equivalent repository, the date that the 

data will be release within 24 months after the award’s end date, and the DOIs for all datasets 

associated with their grant, cooperative agreement, contract, or other types of award. Awardees 

will be required to report this information in the Final Report for each award.
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Failure to comply with ACL’s public access to scientific data plan could affect the decision to issue a 

new award. Before awarding new grants or contracts, ACL will determine whether prospective 

awardees are in compliance with the ACL plan for public access to scientific data. If an awardee 

fails to comply with ACL’s public access policy, ACL may consider this failure to comply as part of

the awardee’s history of performance when making decisions about future awards.

Compliance of ACL employees who collect scientific data as part of their assigned duties will be 

monitored through internal reporting processes. 

e. Implementation Timeline

Implementation Activities Timeline

Begin to communicate ACL requirements for 

public access to scientific data to ACL 

stakeholders 

Ongoing

Submit ACL public access plan for scientific data 

to HHS Office of Secretary for clearance 

April 30, 2017

Publish ACL’s requirements for public access to 

scientific data on the HHS Public Access 

website, ACL website (ACL.gov), and other 

appropriate venues, and identify point of 

contact within ACL to respond to questions, 

comments, or suggestions

June 30, 2017

Incorporate terms and conditions on 

compliance with ACL’s requirements for public 

access to scientific data into applicable ACLsponsored grant, cooperative agreement, 

contract, and other funding mechanism 

notices, such as Funding Opportunity 

Announcements and Requests for Proposals

October 1, 2017

Communicate terms and conditions on public 

access to scientific data to applicable recipients 

of new awards for grants, cooperative 

agreements, contracts, and other applicable 

funding mechanisms. 

October 1, 2017

Review the status of implementation of ACL 

requirements on public access to scientific data 

and assess compliance

October 1, 2018