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RESTORE Act Centers of Excellence

Data Accessibility and Management Best Practices

Introduction:

Treasury’s Office of Gulf Coast Restoration (OGCR) is providing this best practices document to 

guide the management of data1resulting from science funded by Centers of Excellence (COE) 

Research Grants under the RESTORE Act.

The goals for scientific data management and stewardship are described in the FAIR Guiding 

Principles, initially developed in 2014 at the Jointly Designing a Data Fairport workshop in 

Leiden, Netherlands (1). According to these principles, data should be findable, accessible, 

interoperable, and re-usable (FAIR) to facilitate knowledge discovery and innovation.

 Findable (or discoverable) means that data are assigned a unique and persistent identifier 

(such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)) and described with rich metadata that are 

registered or indexed in a searchable resource.

 Accessible means that data and metadata are retrievable by their identifier using a 

standardized communications protocol that is open, free, and universally implementable.

 Interoperable means that data and metadata use community agreed formats, language, 

and vocabularies and metadata is machine-readable.

 Re-usable means that data and metadata maintain initial richness, are clearly associated 

with their provenance, include a clear data usage license, and meet domain-relevant 

community standards.

In addition, a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Memorandum 

“Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research” (22 February 2013)

states that the results of federally funded scientific research should be made publicly available in 

a digital format in order to stimulate innovation and accelerate scientific breakthroughs (2). The 

OSTP Memorandum further instructs federal agencies to encourage the deposit of data in 

publicly accessible databases and the development of data management plans by extramural 

researchers receiving federal grants. An Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

Memorandum “Open Data Policy – Managing Information as an Asset” (9 May 2013) also 

directs federal agencies to “manage information as an asset throughout its lifecycle to promote 

openness and interoperability” (3). The memorandum emphasizes the importance of using 

machine-readable and open formats, data standards, and common core and extensible metadata 

for newly generated data in order to facilitate public access and use.

 

1 As defined in OMB circular A-110, data are the factual material commonly accepted in the 

scientific community as necessary to validate research findings. Environmental observations, 

data collected in a laboratory, and digital audio or video recordings of environmental phenomena 

are included in this definition. Data may include numerical model outputs, particularly if they are 

used to support the conclusion of a peer-reviewed publication.
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Data Accessibility:

Data resulting from COE awards should be made publicly available in an open-standard, 

machine-readable format and include appropriate metadata documentation. Ideally, data and 

metadata will follow international and US standards, such as International Organization for 

Standards (ISO) or Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standards, as applicable. For 

further guidance and best practices on data standards and metadata documentation, please refer 

to “Project Open Data” (4) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Data 

Documentation Directive (5).

 Open-standard means that proprietary software is not required for the data to be read.

 Machine-readable means that the data and metadata are stored electronically in a digital 

format whose structure is well-described and the data can be read without the aid of a 

human.

 Appropriate metadata means that users can search for, access, read, understand, and use 

the data. 

To meet these criteria for data accessibility, OGCR recommends that data resulting from COE 

awards be submitted to a data facility that preserves data, properly manages archived data, mints

DOIs, and makes archived data available to users in a timely fashion. To facilitate ease of data 

discovery, state entities and COE are encouraged to select data facilities used by other COEs, 

such as the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) (6) 

or the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (7).

Data are generally expected to be made publicly available at the time of publication of a peerreviewed article relying on the data or two years after the data are collected. When data resulting 

from a COE award are made accessible, a brief description of the data and the location 

(repository, DOI) of the data must be included in the next Performance Progress Report narrative 

submitted to Treasury per the RESTORE Act Standard Terms and Conditions and ProgramSpecific Terms and Conditions.

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Data Management Plans:

OGCR recommends that state entities require their COE to develop and follow written data 

management plans in order to consider the management of data and information resources well 

before the collection or creation of data and to comply with data management best management 

practices. Data management plans describe the process through which data will move from field 

 

2 RESTORE Act Standard Terms and Conditions and Program-Specific Terms and Conditions, 

August 2017, Section D Recipient Reporting and Audit Requirements, 2 Performance Reports, b, 

i, c-d: 

Section B-3: Summarize any significant findings or events, including any data compiled, 

collected, or created, if applicable. Section B-4: Describe any activities to disseminate or 

publicize results of the activity, project, or program, including data and its repository and 

citations for publications resulting from this Award.
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observations to the data user, including the acquisition, quality control, metadata cataloging, 

storage, and archiving of data. COEs are expected to make data publicly available. Further, state 

entities are strongly encouraged to have COE consider and prioritize end user needs when 

designing their data management frameworks. In addition, COEs should engage subrecipients in 

data management efforts to ensure data are appropriately managed throughout the information 

lifecycle.

COEs are encouraged to state in RFPs that data management plans are required and to review 

data management plans in the evaluation of proposals, as applicable. Although OGCR 

recommends the development of data management plans, submitting them to OGCR is not 

required.

References:

1) Wilkinson, M.D. et al. 2016. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management 

stewardship. Nature 3:1476-4687. https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201618

2) White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Memorandum “Increasing Access to 

the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research” (22 February 2013): 

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_public_access_me

mo_2013.pdf

3) Office of Management and Budget Memorandum “Open Data Policy – Managing Information 

as an Asset” (9 May 2013): 

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2013/m-13-13.pdf

4) Project Open Data: https://project-open-data.cio.gov/

5) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Data Documentation Directive: 

https://nosc.noaa.gov/EDMC/documents/DataDocumentationPD-v2.0.0.signed.pdf

6) Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative: 

https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org/

7) National Centers for Environmental Information: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/