1

Implementation Plan to Increase Public 

Access to Results of USDA-funded 

Scientific Research

November 7, 2014

United States Department of Agriculture
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Revision History

Version Date Purpose

1 August 18, 2013 Initial submission to OSTP and OMB

1.1 May 20, 2014 Respond to comments from OSTP and OMB

1.2 November 7, 2014 Respond to comments from OSTP and OMB 

Table of Contents

I. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................3

II. Public Access to Scholarly Publications..........................................................................................................4

A. Policy ..........................................................................................................................................................4

B. Business Processes, Procedures and Resources.........................................................................................6

C. Information Systems and Automation .......................................................................................................8

D. Outreach, Education and Training ...........................................................................................................11

III. Public Access to Digital Scientific Data ........................................................................................................13

A. Policy ........................................................................................................................................................13

B. Business Processes, Procedures and Resources.......................................................................................16

C. Information Systems and Automation .....................................................................................................20

D. Outreach, Education and Training ...........................................................................................................22
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I. Introduction

This plan describes USDA’s approach to increase access to scholarly publications and digitally 

formatted scientific data resulting from unclassified research results supported wholly or in part by 

USDA funds, to the extent feasible and consistent with law; agency mission; resource constraints; 

and U.S. national, homeland, and economic security. The plan is consistent with all policies and 

requirements set forth in the OSTP Public Access memorandum (February 22, 2013), and makes 

provisions to ensure that implementation of the plan: 

 Contributes, in the long run, to raising the profile and reputation of the food, agricultural, 

and natural resources as providers of significant contributions to many areas of scientific 

innovation and value to society;

 Proceeds in close coordination with other science agencies and partnering organizations;

 Maintains the highest level of effective funding for science that resource constraints, 

agency mission, and consistency with the law allow; 

 Minimizes the burden on the scientific community, including researchers, professional 

societies, and publishers; 

 Allows flexibility in pursuit of disparate agency missions, operating models, stakeholder 

needs, and meeting the evolving expectations in the scientific community regarding access 

to scientific results;

 Provides public access to scientific results, without charge;

 Supports governance of and best practices for managing scientific results across USDA; 

 Ensures effective access to and reliable preservation of scholarly publications resulting 

from USDA funds for research, development, and education; and 

 Preserves and increases the use of research results to enhance scientific discovery. 

Four categories of tasks will be carried out in a logical and practical manner: 

 Policy 

 Business processes, procedures, and resources 

 Information systems and automation

 Outreach, education and training 

Some of the above tasks are incremental extensions to programs already in place at USDA. Each 

category of tasks will be implemented in three phases: Phase I (2015), Phase II (2016), Phase III 

(2017 and beyond). 
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II. Public Access to Scholarly Publications 

This section of the plan describes USDA’s approach to increase public access to scholarly 

publications resulting from unclassified research results supported wholly or in part by USDA

funds. As noted in the Introduction, the plan is consistent with all policies and requirements set 

forth in the OSTP Public Access memorandum (February 22, 2013).

A. Policy 

The development of a departmental policy on public access to scholarly publications is USDA’s first 

step to ensure compliance with federal laws, executive orders, directives, and policies. The policy 

enhances innovation and competitiveness by maximizing the potential to create new business

opportunities. It will accelerate scientific breakthroughs and innovation as well as enhance 

economic growth and job creation. The policy serves as a roadmap for mission area and/or 

individual USDA agency compliance, and sometimes serves as a charge for mission areas and/or 

USDA agencies to undertake their own implementation. 

In 2011, the Chief Scientist of the USDA established a Scientific Data Management Committee 

(SDMC) under the USDA Science Council. The USDA Science Council provides direction and 

guidance to the SDMC. The SDMC: 

 Provides a platform for USDA agencies to collaborate through meetings, workshops and 

working groups. 

 Reviews scientific data management policies and strategies of other Federal agencies to 

gain insight into scientific data management issues and practices that are relevant to USDA.

 Surveys USDA agencies’ scientific data management policies, strategies, and plans.

 Develops a USDA public access policy to guide the creation, collection, organization, 

management, dissemination, and preservation of scholarly publications resulting from 

USDA funds. 

 Establishes a USDA implementation plan for public access to research results, including 

scholarly publications and digital scientific datasets. 

 Periodically assesses progress and determines whether course corrections are needed.

The USDA adopts a systematic approach to develop and implement a public access policy for 

scholarly publications that includes: 

 Establishment of an iterative process of policy design, planning, implementation, 

evaluation/impact assessment, and policy redesign.

 Working in full and open consultation with stakeholders, including other federal organizing 

bodies, to maintain and improve this public access policy.
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 Establishing a file download monitoring mechanism, enforcing a practical file download 

limit, and posting appropriate fair use policies to help prevent, to the extent feasible, the 

unauthorized mass redistribution of scholarly publications.

The USDA Public Access Policy for scholarly publications will apply to any manuscript that:

 Is peer-reviewed; and

 Is accepted for publication in a journal on or after the USDA approval of a final public 

access policy; and

 Arises from USDA funds, as defined in relevant OMB circulars A-21 and A-11, on or after 

the USDA public access policy’s effective date. Extramural projects with previously 

established USDA funding instruments lacking a public access requirement are exempt 

unless amended, but are encouraged to follow the policy.

The USDA public access policy for scholarly publications will require that authors submit to the 

USDA public access archive system all final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that meet the 

above criteria once the manuscript is accepted for publication. In lieu of the final peer-reviewed 

manuscript, USDA will accept the final published article, provided the author has the right to 

submit the published version. The USDA will ensure easy search and download of scholarly 

publications resulting from USDA funds without charge no later than 12 months following 

publication.

Key Milestones: 

Phase I (2015)

 Draft policy – Develop a draft public access policy for scholarly publications resulting from 

USDA funds. USDA has developed a draft policy that was approved by the USDA Science 

Council in March 2013. 

 Stakeholder inputs – Solicit and collect stakeholder inputs. USDA and other federal 

agencies participated in a public consultation hosted by the National Academy of Sciences 

in May 2013. Thirty-nine stakeholders were invited, including the Association of Public and 

Land-grant Universities, Entomological Society of America, and many others. Additional 

transparent processes will be established to solicit views from stakeholders including 

federally funded researchers, universities, libraries, publishers, users of federally funded 

research results, and civil society groups. 

 Approved policy – Finalize the public access policy for scholarly publications and obtain the 

approval of the USDA secretary. 
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Phase II (2016)

 Policy in effect in 2016 – The policy will be in effect on January 1, 2016. Implementation 

will be prospective and, as noted above, unless approved by all of the authors and 

contributors. Extramural projects with previously established USDA funding instruments 

lacking a public access requirement are exempt unless amended, but are encouraged to 

follow the policy. 

 Collect comments – Continuously solicit and collect stakeholder inputs and lessons learned. 

Phase III (2017 and beyond) 

 Revise policy to incorporate comments – Work in full and open consultation with 

stakeholders to continuously improve the public access policy. 

B. Business Processes, Procedures and Resources

The OSTP policy directive will dramatically change the way agencies, other organizations, and 

individual researchers conduct both business and science. The USDA public access policy for 

scholarly publications establishes major implementation requirements to which USDA programs, 

offices, and procedures will adhere when addressing the planning, submission, management, 

access, and preservation of scholarly publications. USDA will adopt a systematic approach to 

implement the public access policy that will: 

 Explore new approaches and partnerships with authors, federal agencies, publishers, 

publishing organizations such as CrossRef1 and FundRef2, and other stakeholders to obtain 

final peer-reviewed manuscripts or published articles.

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

manuscripts or final published documents without charge no later than 12 months 

following publication.

 Establish terms of use that require anyone downloading a publication or other documents 

agrees to properly attribute any subsequently used reference or quotation. The agreement 

will include reference to the appropriate legal consequence of non-compliance. 

 Provide a mechanism for stakeholders to petition for changing the 12 month embargo 

period for a specific field by presenting clear evidences demonstrating that the USDA 

implementation plan would be inconsistent with the objectives articulated in the OSTP 

memorandum. Evidences can be emailed to the National Agricultural Library. Evidence 

presented will be weighed against the benefits of public access. The USDA will work with 

 

1 http://www.crossref.org/

2 http://www.crossref.org/fundref/
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other Federal agencies that also fund research in that field to coordinate consistent crossagency policies.

 Ensure that publications be stored for long-term preservation while remaining publicly 

accessible for discovery, retrieval, and analysis.

 Adopt sound, non-proprietary preservation standards and archival formats for publications 

and associated content.

 Develop practical backup, migration, and technology refreshing strategies. 

 Partner with other appropriate scholarly publication archives across the federal, academic, 

and business communities.

 Develop a business plan that details a sustainable funding model for approval by the USDA 

Science Council no later than January 2016. An initial PubAg system development effort

was supported by a working capital fund through the National Agricultural Library. The 

recurring operating and maintenance costs will be supported by existing research budgets. 

Key Milestones: 

Phase I (2015)

 Implementation team and structure – Establish a virtual public access implementation 

team and proper management structure to develop an implementation plan, execute the 

plan, and carry out the implementation effort. 

 Publisher negotiation – Negotiate with publishers to establish agreements for automatic 

article ingestion, preprocessing, and access. In 2012, USDA’s researchers published papers 

in more than 1,700 journals with more than 400 publishers. 

 Submission flow and structure – Develop a robust submission flow and establish proper 

organizational structures to process, organize, and manage article submissions for review 

and publication. 

 Quality assurance mechanisms – Establish systematic quality assurance processes and 

allocate proper resources to review and curate article submissions to ensure high quality. 

 Compliance mechanisms – Establish proper mechanisms (e.g., Digital Object Identifiers, 

PubAg ID, FundRef interfaces, and APIs) to facilitate compliance. Current oversight of 

grants and other financial assistance allows for withholding or adjustment of funds at the 

end of each performance period. Failure to comply will negatively influence future funding 

opportunities.

Phase II (2016)

 Cost model – Develop a practical cost model to record and report the operational cost of 

implementing public access to scholarly publications. The cost model could be publicationor annual-based and will be developed and determined by the USDA Science Council.
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 Operation funding mechanisms – Develop practical and sustainable funding mechanisms to 

ensure the permanent operation, preservation and long-term accessibility of USDA’s 

scholarly publications.

 Terms and conditions – Develop proper copy right languages for grant terms and 

conditions. 

 Publisher agreements – Establish agreements for automatic article ingestion, 

preprocessing, and access with major publishers and journal titles. 

 Submission flows and mechanisms – Establish flexible flows for manuscript submission. 

Accept manuscripts in a range of common electronic formats. 

 Compliance reporting – Develop processes to collect and report compliance information. 

Phase III (2017 and beyond) 

 Collaboration arrangements – Collaborate with partners to maximize the potential for 

interoperability between public and private platforms and creative reuse to enhance value 

to all stakeholders, and thereby maximize the impact of the Federal research investment. 

 Publication and dataset linkage – Define processes and identify resources to facilitate the 

linkage between scholarly publications and corresponding scientific datasets. 

C. Information Systems and Automation

USDA plans to leverage its existing investments in public access tools and repositories of full-text 

scholarly publications (e.g. Agricultural Online Access Database, NAL Digital Collections, Automatic 

Indexing System, and NAL Thesaurus) to create the foundation for an expanded repository suitable 

for achieving the objectives of the new public access policy. NAL’s Agricultural Online Access 

Database currently holds more than 5 million citation records and Digital Collections currently 

house more than 90,000 scholarly articles. USDA also plans to collaborate with public and private 

partners on the implementation of parts of this expanded and enhanced repository system in 

order to avoid unnecessary costs to USDA’s science enterprise. This system will:

 Store, organize, and manage the publications collected or submitted under the public 

access policy for scholarly publications. 

 Be established using an open architecture and follow industry standards to facilitate open 

government, enable integration, and promote interoperability. 

 Have the capacity to integrate scholarly publications with appropriate scientific databases. 

 Integrate easily into USDA science agencies’ websites. 

 Apply best practices, advanced technologies, and industrial standards to provide access for 

persons with disabilities consistent with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 

 Adopt common standards to enable integration and interoperability with other federal 

public access archival solutions and other appropriate archives. 
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 Implement an agency strategy and establish mechanisms for measuring and enforcing 

compliance. 

An analysis of alternatives was conducted in early 2013 to compare the costs, benefits, feasibility, 

risks, and issues related to various approaches. A modular and hybrid approach was recommended 

to develop the desired system solution. A conceptual view of the system called PubAg is illustrated 

in Figure 1. This design leverages existing USDA investments and software modules, open source 

software tools, private sector products, and reusable modules produced by the National Library of 

Medicine, Data.gov and other organizations. 

A beta version of the PubAg system (http://pubag.nal.usda.gov) has been developed and became 

publicly available October 1, 2014. The current PubAg system supports the submission of articles

from authors, data management, article indexing, search and discovery of articles, and 

preservation mechanisms. Further enhancements are planned to enable article ingestion from 

publishers, to support text mining and discovery, and to interface with USDA project tracking 

systems to monitor and enforce public access policy compliance.

Figure 1 – PubAg: Public Access to Agricultural Scholarly Publication System Architecture

Key Milestones: 

Phase I (2015)

 Standards and formats – Adopt industrial metadata standards and full-text formats for 

manuscripts and final published articles. Ensure full public access of publications’ metadata 

without charge upon first publication in a data format that ensures interoperability with 
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current and future search technology. Where possible, the metadata will provide a link to 

the location where the full text and associated supplemental materials will be made 

available no later than the 12 month embargo period.

 Technical approach – Analyze the pros and cons among central, distributed, and hybrid 

approaches. Select a practical approach for the implementation. 

 Preservation approach – Evaluate and adopt best practices and open technologies for longterm preservation. 

 System architecture – Develop system architecture to serve as a blueprint for system 

implementation and deployment. 

 Manuscript submission system module – Develop a manuscript submission system to 

accept both final peer-reviewed manuscripts and published papers from authors or 

publishers. 

 Data management module – Develop capabilities to manage metadata generation, 

acquisitions, quality control, and auditing. 

 Search and discovery module – Develop a web-based user interface for searching, 

browsing, and accessing citations and full-text articles.

 Compliance reporting protocols – Define formal protocols for collecting and reporting 

compliance information. 

 Information exchange Application Program Interface (API) protocols – Define formal 

protocols to facilitate machine interface with external systems and to enable the 

implementation of compliance tracking. 

Phase II (2016)

 Multiple input formats – Accept manuscripts in a range of common electronic formats. 

 Publisher interface module – Facilitate access or upload of full-text articles from publishers. 

 Preservation and curation standards – Use standards, widely available and, to the extent 

possible, nonproprietary archival formats for text and associated contents. Provide for 

long-term preservation and access to the content without charge.

 Compliance reporting module – Develop a system module to automate the collection and 

report of necessary compliance information based on the defined protocols.

 Information exchange APIs – Develop various APIs to facilitate machine interface with 

external systems. 

Phase III (2017 and beyond) 

 Partner exchange modules – Develop robust modules to harvest and share repository 

contents and system services with partners. 

 Preservation and curation modules – Develop system modules to facilitate permanent 

preservation and long-term accessibility of peer-reviewed scholarly publications.
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 Publication and dataset linkage – Develop system modules to facilitate and automate the 

linkage between scholarly publications and corresponding scientific datasets.

D. Outreach, Education and Training

Public access to federally-supported research results presents a new challenge for many USDA 

science professionals, awardees, and other stakeholders. As such, outreach to these stakeholders 

that includes proper education and training are critical to the success of public access 

implementation. Major stakeholders include: 

 USDA science support professionals – These professionals will undertake the mechanics of 

writing requests for applications, ensuring policy compliance, collecting and compiling 

project reports that will measure success, and developing systems to track compliance. 

Collaborate with FundRef to add funding agency identifiers to manuscript/article metadata. 

A combination of FundRef, Digital Object Identifier (DOI), compliance reporting Application 

Program Interfaces (APIs), and article metadata will be used for compliance reporting and 

enforcement. 

 Partners’ administrative professionals – Support professionals at universities and other 

science organizations ensure project director and organizational compliance, are heavily 

involved in the research reporting process, and oversee business processes that will be 

affected by the implementation of the policy.

 Leaders in scientific societies, professional organizations, and other affected stakeholder 

groups – Because these individuals advocate for scientific fields and their members, 

complete USDA transparency to this group is a must.

 USDA intramural and extramural Scientists – Scientists will need to learn how to submit 

scholarly publications and relevant metadata to the PubAg system. 

Outreach activities will take several forms:

 Awareness presentations and electronic communications to staff, professional 

organizations and scientific societies:

- USDA scientists and support personnel will undertake these activities during the 

early implementation phases. Already, 300 people have received training on 

manuscript submission; 50 have received training on compliance tracking. These 

experiences help inform planning for large-scale outreach.

- Changes to extramural award terms and conditions and other policy and procedural 

requirements will be communicated to stakeholders in coordination with other 

science agencies. 

 Collection of stakeholder input via:

- The Federal inter-agency working groups
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- Outreach meetings and presentations 

- Other feasible methods

Key Milestones: 

Phase I (2015)

 Talking points – Develop a standard set of talking points to describe the policy and 

implementation plan of public access to scholarly publications. 

 Outreach plan – Develop a comprehensive outreach plan to enable a full and open 

consultation with all stakeholders to continuously improve the public access policy and 

implementation. 

 Training plan – Develop a training plan to analyze target audiences; identify training needs; 

outline training methods; describe training materials; outline training modules; define 

training roles, responsibilities and requirements; plan training schedule; as well as sketch 

evaluation methods. 

Phase II (2016)

 Training modules – Develop training curricula that include the course title, course design, 

contents, delivery methods, potential instructors, and required associate course materials. 

 Online training modules – Develop training modules with proper technology for online 

delivery. 

 Workshops – Develop workshop plans that include objectives, target audiences, activities, 

handouts, facilities, feedbacks and evaluation mechanisms. 

Phase III (2017 and beyond) 

 AgLearn training module – Develop a training module to be delivered through AgLearn, the 

USDA online learning university. 

 Expanded training modules – Continue to revise, improve, and expand training modules. 
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III. Public Access to Digital Scientific Data 

This section describes USDA’s approach to increase public access to digitally formatted scientific 

data as defined in the OSTP Public Access memorandum (February 22, 2013). In addition to the 

overall objectives described in section I, this section of the plan makes provisions to ensure that 

implementing access to digitally formatted scientific data: 

 Preserves publicly accessible digitally formatted scientific data for search, retrieval, and 

analysis;

 Recognizes proprietary interests, business confidential information, and intellectual 

property rights, and avoids significant negative impact on intellectual property rights, 

innovation, and U.S. competitiveness; and

 Protects confidentiality and personal privacy

A. Policy

The development of a departmental policy on public access to digital scientific data is USDA’s first 

step to ensure compliance with federal laws, executive orders, directives, and policies. The policy 

enhances innovation and competitiveness by maximizing the potential to create new business 

opportunities. It will accelerate scientific breakthroughs and innovation as well as enhance 

economic growth and job creation. The policy serves as a roadmap for mission area and/or 

individual USDA agency compliance, and sometimes serves as a charge for mission areas and/or 

USDA agencies to undertake their own implementation. 

A portion of the data that will be affected by this policy falls under the implementation of OMB M13-13. Therefore, part of the departmental policy will promote consistency between agencies and 

across intramural and extramural research programming. Implementation of M-13-13 is currently 

proceeding. This includes the enterprise data inventory required in Section III.3.a of OMB 

Memorandum M-13-13 (“Open Data Policy – Managing Information as an Asset”, May 9, 2013). 

More information about USDA M-13-13 efforts can be found on USDA’s web site. Extramural 

programs are in various states of adoption of open data best practices. The departmental policy, 

coupled with the publication of this plan, will ensure that USDA agency open data efforts proceed 

in a coordinated fashion. 

Upon final acceptance of the USDA Public Access to Data plan by OSTP and OMB, USDA will begin 

authorship of such departmental policy for approval by the Secretary. The departmental policy will 

take into account the OSTP and OMB review of this draft plan, past and current stakeholder input, 

and experience with existing efforts in the Department that provide science value-added access to
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scientific data.3 This policy will contain, at a minimum, the following elements that address 

internal and external research: 

 Scope of the policy and definitions from relevant OMB circulars, as they relate to the 

Department; 

 Responsibilities of parties within the Department for data access implementation, to 

include: the Office of the Secretary, Subcabinet officials, the Chief Scientist of the 

Department, Chief Information Officer of the Department, intramural and extramural 

research agency Heads, and additional officers vested with authority and responsibilities 

for implementation;

 Formation of a USDA Science Output Access Policy (SOAP) Council, which will be co-chaired 

by the USDA Chief Scientist (or SES designee) and the USDA Chief Information Officer (or 

SES designee), with representation from key intramural and extramural science Agencies in 

the Department; 

 A process for periodic review and revision of the science output access plan, as well as the 

policy itself. 

In the interim, the Chief Scientist of the Department, working with other Agencies and Mission 

Areas through the USDA Science Council, will lead USDA Public Access to Scientific Data policy 

development until the SOAP Council is in place.

Tasks of the USDA Science Output Access Policy (SOAP) Council 

After approval of this implementation plan, either the SOAP Council or its Science Council 

predecessor will conduct the following activities to the extent feasible and consistent with law; 

agency mission; resource constraints; U.S. national, homeland, and economic security:

 Establish policies and strategies that will result in compliance with the OSTP Public Access 

memorandum in the following areas:

o Meeting Public Access goals and objectives; 

o Business Processes, Procedures, and Resources; 

o Information Systems and Automation; and 

o Outreach, Education, and Training

o Development of an agency strategy for measuring and enforcing compliance for 

both intramural and extramural research activities 

The SOAP Council will establish an overall USDA leader in each of the five areas, foster 

synchronization among these areas and across the department, and ensure close 

 

3 Existing science value-added efforts within the Department to promote public access to digital scientific data include 

USFS Research Data Archive, NIFA/NSF iPlant initiative, ARS National Plant Germplasm System, and NRCS Geospatial 

Data Gateway.
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coordination with other science agencies and partnering organizations. Milestones and 

their target dates, as described in this document, may be altered because of these efforts. 

 Seek robust, ongoing, and high-level feedback from internal and external stakeholders, 

including:

o Federally funded researchers, 

o Universities, 

o Libraries, 

o Publishers, 

o Users of Federally funded research results, and 

o Civil society groups

 Compile an inventory of intramural and extramural research activities that will be affected 

by the OSTP Public Access memorandum. This inventory will serve as a baseline, and will 

categorize the current state of intramural and extramural research activities as: 

o Category 1: In full compliance with the directive;

o Category 2: In partial compliance with the directive and share some data in some 

fashion, with an explanation of the shortfall; 

o Category 3: Do not currently share data; and

o Category 4: Likely to be excluded from the scope of the directive, including the

reasoning for that exclusion

This inventory will serve as the basis for measurement of departmental compliance with 

the OSTP directive. Intramural and extramural work on this inventory is already 

proceeding. However, final categorizations will be informed by the aforementioned 

departmental policy, as guided by stakeholder input. The inventory will identify existing 

activities that might serve as model programs. Inventory information on research activities 

in Categories 2 and 3 will be used to prioritize implementation efforts, recognizing that 

some research activities will face significant adoption challenges given near term systems 

and resources. For Category 4, agencies will identify barriers for activities that face 

significant adoption challenges and propose possible solutions where appropriate.

Additionally, this inventory will provide a broad overview of the significant intellectual 

property, attribution, security, and other crosscutting challenges that are likely to be 

encountered during implementation of the plan.

 Periodically review data set citation recommendations. While current departmental 

approaches for identifying and providing appropriate attribution to scientific data sets

represent modern best practices, this element of the plan recognizes that the science 

community’s approach to data set attribution may evolve over time.
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 Cooperate in the authorship of the IT and Business Plan study described later in this 

document.

 Author and submit to the Science Council an option memo that provides Agencies with 

guidance on the strengths and weaknesses of the following strategic IT policy options:

o Development of a USDA data repository for all federally supported research data;

o Contribution to a single federal wide data repository;

o Encouragement of a highly interoperable federal, academic, private hybrid system

This memo will be informed by the aforementioned inventory as well as the in-depth study 

discussed in the information technology section of this document. It will assess and take 

into account the long-term needs for the preservation of scientific data in the food, 

agricultural, and natural resources fields, probable implementation costs, and additional 

Agency and Mission Area policy requirements needed to measure and enforce compliance 

with each respective option. Further, these options should include alternative funding 

requirements and business models that will contribute to a final business plan. 

The SOAP Council will develop and present action and policy recommendations, complete 

with a recommended business plan that details a sustainable funding model, for approval 

by the USDA Science Council no later one year after approval of this implementation plan

based on these options. This sustainable funding model will identify resources within the 

existing agency budget to implement the plan. 

Key milestones (2015 – 2016): 

 OSTP and OMB approve USDA’s implementation plan for access to digital scientific data

 USDA convenes SOAP Council and begins drafting departmental policy

 Complete inventory of affected programs and their categorization 

 USDA publishes departmental policy

 Provide option memo with guidance for Agencies and Mission Areas

B. Business Processes, Procedures and Resources

While some programs and Agencies have significant experience with providing public access to 

scientific data, the OSTP Public Access memorandum will dramatically change the way that all 

USDA Agencies, partner organizations, and individual researchers do their work. A phased

implementation is necessary to secure the benefits of increasing access to federally funded 

research without causing undue disruption to the research system that the public relies on for new 

discoveries. Implementing long-term preservation of and public access to digital scientific data will 

require substantially more training and acculturation than improving public access to scholarly 

publications, as relatively few USDA scientists or research agreement awardees have practical 

experience with this activity. The scientific community’s delivery infrastructure for digital scientific 
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data is also much less mature than the analogous infrastructure for scholarly publications. Portions 

of USDA-funded scientific data sets reside on scientists’ computers, and data set documentation 

resides primarily in the heads of the scientists working on the individual research projects.

Phase 1 (Learning and Expansion: 2015 - 2016)

As previously discussed, several programs are already substantially in compliance with the Public 

Access memorandum, and others can serve as pilots for expansion. Affected agencies will form 

implementation teams to facilitate learning from existing programs and to oversee the success of 

pilots for expanding implementation of the policy. These agency teams should coordinate business 

process, procedures and resources with their counterparts across the department and report 

regularly to the SOAP Council. The SOAP Council will be responsible for coordinating activities of 

implementation teams with efforts by science agencies outside the Department to implement the 

Public Access to Scientific Data policy. However, agency teams might need to work directly with 

agencies in other departments to coordinate activities. Agency implementation teams and the 

SOAP Council will solicit and evaluate stakeholder input. Based on this input, the following are 

likely steps that will foster compliance with the new departmental policy:

 Performance standard and element modification;

 Agency and/or Mission Area intramural research project management guidelines;

 Award terms and conditions;

 Request for application templates;

 Grants.gov and agency grant preparation instructions (general instructions, FAQs, 

application checklist, lengthening minimum page standards to accommodate data 

management plans, etc.);

 Guidance for the inclusion of appropriate costs for data management and access in 

extramural funding proposals;

 Project data management plan evaluation rubrics to ensure proper assessment of plan 

merits;

 Encouraging scientific journals to require data availability as a condition of publishing 

research articles; and

 Other steps as necessary

For internal researchers, the key steps will include building open data-related compliance into 

performance standards and elements, ideally including the Research Grade Evaluation process. 

Data management plans for extramural research will be evaluated as a part of grant applications 

and periodically verified as part of reporting. Non-compliance will jeopardize current and/or future 

agency funding. The approach created by USDA Forest Service and the Joint Fire Science Program 

(JFSP) to track compliance with data preservation and access components of JFSP awardees’ data 
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management plans can inform the development of compliance mechanisms for USDA research 

grants and contracts.

USDA science and science support employees who participate in pilots and teams will be seen as 

forward-looking leaders. Activities may include the following recommended best practices: 

 Publishing intramural data thorough existing public sites and data repositories;

 Presenting in-service best practice workshops for USDA colleagues;

 Authorship of research project data access plans;

 Leadership of extramural programs calling for data management plans;

 Creation of discipline-based data standards and/or repositories;

 Conducting outreach activities for external scientists; 

 Developing IT or business process infrastructure to manage increased public data access; 

 Service on an agency public data access implementation team; and

 Participating in Public Access to Data policy development

In 2015, the USDA-level working group will solicit information about pilot participation from 

affected agencies as one measurement of compliance. This information will be reported to the 

SOAP Council no later than 60 days after the solicitation is distributed to affected USDA agencies. 

Phase 2 (Mainstream Implementation: 2016 - 2017) 

The Learning and Expansion phase will inform the Mainstream Implementation phase, in which 

policy implementation is extended throughout the Department’s science enterprise. Performance 

guidance will include increased public data access as a standard for USDA scientists and support 

staff. Changes to extramural award terms and conditions and other policy and procedural 

requirements will be communicated to stakeholders in coordination with other science agencies. 

USDA will also notify awardees and other federally funded scientific researchers of their 

obligations via requests for applications, federal register notices, and changes in award terms and 

conditions, as necessary. Extramural research program requests for applications will begin to 

require data management plans as a part of new proposals; similarly, new intramural research 

studies will require data management plans. These data management plans will, at a minimum, 

describe how the researcher(s) will provide for long-term preservation of, and access to, the digital 

scientific data created by the proposed study. Alternatively, researchers can explain in their data 

management plans why long term preservation and access cannot be justified, if applicable. USDA 

will reserve the right to review and disallow the researcher’s argument against long-term 

preservation and access and require conformance to the access policy for digital scientific data as 

a condition of funding. New extramural research programs and intramural research projects will 

begin as Category 1 (in full compliance) beginning in 2016. 
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All USDA-funded researchers will be required to comply with USDA’s policy for making the digital 

data underlying the conclusions of peer-reviewed scientific research publications freely available 

in public repositories in machine readable formats. USDA will ensure that data management plans 

include clear plans for sharing research data. USDA will also ensure new awards to researchers are 

not made unless the researcher has successfully satisfied all terms of completed previous awards 

from USDA, including making digital data produced in the course of previous USDA-funded 

research freely available in compliance with the relevant data management plans for the previous 

awards.

In 2016, Agencies and Mission Areas will report to the SOAP Council on intramural and extramural

Category 2 & 3 science programs that are not prepared to expand public access to research data. 

Reports will describe barriers to expansion and plans to improve adoption.

Phase 3 (Sustainable Adoption: 2018 and beyond)

Agencies will be expected to make substantial progress to improve data sharing, while preserving 

the balance between the: 1) relative value of long-term preservation and access; and 2) associated 

cost and administrative burden. Post award compliance mechanisms will be perfected and added 

to award terms and conditions. Progress will be reported to the Directors of OSTP and OMB 

regularly through the SOAP Council or its designated successor organization. It is important to note 

that some research, due to feasibility; privacy; consistency with law; business confidential 

information and other proprietary interests; agency mission; resource constraints; and/or U.S. 

national, homeland, and economic security will not afford public access to data. This could be the 

case for entire research programs, including the Small Business Innovation Research program and 

some research capacity funding programs. 

Key Milestones:

Phase 1 – Learning and Expansion (2015 – 2016) 

 Pilot programs identified 

 Agency implementation teams formed 

 Draft updates to performance standards and elements completed 

 SOAP Council solicits progress reports 

 Agencies submit progress report to SOAP Council 

Phase 2 – Mainstream Implementation (2017)

 Final publication of new award terms and conditions, which have cleared the required 

federal register process, as well as concomitant grant and agreement documents and other 

resources (post award compliance mechanism work ongoing) 

 Fiscal year performance plans incorporate new performance standards 

 Agencies report non-early adopting projects and programs 
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 Projects and programs broadly adopt public access protocols; on-going redirection of 

internal resources to support phased adoption; intramural and extramural research may 

follow different tracks 

 Experience provides feedback on the public access protocols – semi-annually throughout 

the phased adoption process

 SOAP Council solicits progress reports 

 Agencies submit progress report to SOAP Council 

Phase 3 – Sustainable Adoption (2018 and beyond)

 Adoption across USDA’s science enterprise is completed and supported by sustainable 

systems – 6 years after initial plan approval and decades into the future

 SOAP Council solicits progress reports – annually throughout phased adoption; possibly 

biannually for up to four years after adoption is completed

 Agencies submit progress report to SOAP Council – not more than 30 days after solicitation

 Cultural shift in USDA science community successfully implemented – 2025 and beyond

C. Information Systems and Automation

The graphic below shows a desirability continuum of research data sharing information systems. 

 An IT and Business Plan study will be submitted by the SOAP Council during Phase 1 that 

discusses findings and recommendations in the following areas, at a minimum: 

o An inventory of appropriate, available, and/or developing federal and non-federal 

data repositories, which are currently or are poised to receive research data 

consistent with the requirements of new federal open data access policies;

Single perfect 

federal RDS 

systems

Interoperable 

set of complete 

department 

based RDS 

systems

Complete & 

interoperable 

coverage with a 

federalacademicprivate hybrid 

RDS systems

Complete noninteroperable 

coverage with a 

highly 

distributed RDS 

systems

Incomplete 

coverage with 

highly 

distributed RDS 

systems, some 

interoperability 

Highly 

distributed RDS 

systems 

congealing 

around academic 

diciplines

Spotty RDS 

systems with 

little or no 

coordination

Few or no 

research data 

sharing (RDS) 

requirements, 

few or no RDS 

systems

More Desirable Less Desirable
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o Potential public-private partnerships with foundations and other research funding 

organizations, including the new Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research as 

proposed in the President’s 2015 Budget; 

o Data standards common to single and multiple disciplines in the food, agriculture, 

and natural resources sectors;

o Recommended near-term modifications to the CRIS system and REEport to allow 

accommodation of data management plan information, more robust metadata, and 

new compliance tracking; 

o Potential for REEIS and other existing systems to serve as public metadata portals;

o Identify ways to optimize search, archival, and dissemination features, and ensure 

long-term stewardship of the results of federally funded research. For example, the 

Forest Service Research Data Archive (FS RDA) participates in CrossRef, science.gov, 

and Thomson-Reuters Data Citation Index to improve search. In addition, FS RDA 

data sets are considered permanent Federal records, ensuring long-term 

stewardship by the agency and NARA; and

o Strategies being pursued by the largest science agencies (NIH, NSF, others) to 

increase public data availability

This study should be informed by previously identified Category 1 and pilot programs that 

are leading departmental efforts. As part of Phase 1, the SOAP Council will use this study to 

develop near-term action recommendations for approval by the USDA Science Council.

 Encourage development of discipline-based data management standards and data 

repositories by scientists who are undertaking pilot program activities. As soon as possible 

after the aforementioned data repository inventory is made available, key portions should 

be made available to all USDA scientists. 

 Prototype first round of changes to the CRIS system and REEport to accommodate data 

management fields by the end of Phase 1. 

 Develop a catalog of data sets generated via USDA-sponsored research to enable 

researchers to locate and cite data sets and to link those data sets to the scientific 

literature. This catalog is expected to be part of the comprehensive public listing of agency 

data that is required by the 2013 May 9 Executive Order and OMB Memorandum M-13-13. 

The USDA data catalog will serve not as a repository of study data, but as a registry that will 

have information describing the data set (i.e. metadata) and information about where and 

how to access the data. The metadata in the catalog will be able to provide both scientific 

metadata and the Federal government’s common core metadata scheme (available at 

https://project-open-data.cio.gov). 

 USDA will explore the development of a research data commons, a federated system of 

research databases, along with other Departments and Agencies for storage, 

discoverability, and reuse of data with a particular focus on making the data underlying the 
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conclusions of peer-reviewed scientific publications resulting from federally funded 

scientific research available for free.

Key Milestones (2015 – 2016):

 SOAP Council receives working group study that includes an inventory of existing data 

repositories, potential public-private partnerships, prospective changes to reporting 

systems, and other near-term action recommendations 

 USDA Science Council decides near-term action recommendations 

 Strategic options memo presented to the SOAP council 

 Pilot data standards and repository development undertaken by USDA are summarized

 USDA Science Council decides strategic data management directions and long term action 

recommendations 

 Initial changes to REEport are prototyped to accommodate data management reporting, in 

coordination with other science agencies that use Research Performance Progress 

Reporting standards 

D. Outreach, Education and Training

Public access to federally supported research data is a new concept for many USDA science 

professionals, awardees, and other stakeholders. USDA needs to provide training, education, and 

workforce development related to data management, analysis, storage, preservation, and 

stewardship, in coordination with other agencies and the private sector. This will include: 

 USDA Intramural and Extramural Scientists – Scientists will need to learn how to develop 

high quality data management plans, the most effective avenues to make data public, and 

best practices to facilitate re-use of the data. 

 USDA Intramural and Extramural National Program Leaders – National Program Leaders will 

need to become informed about the current state of public data access in their fields in 

order to provide the best possible science leadership. 

 USDA Extramural Program Panelists and Panel Managers – Panelists and panel managers 

will need to learn how to evaluate data management plans. USDA will examine current 

best practices in this area and develop guidance for program panelists and panel managers 

during the pilot year. USDA Forest Service’s experience with Joint Fire Science Program’s 

implementation of data management plans in 2011 is expected to provide insight.

 USDA Science Support Professionals – These professionals will undertake the mechanics of 

writing requests for applications, ensuring policy compliance, collecting and compiling 

project reports that will measure success, and developing systems to track compliance. 

Researchers must report on execution of their data management plan in their final reports 

to the agency. For intramural program staffs, the key step to ensuring this will include 

building data access-related compliance into performance reviews. Data management 
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plans for extramural research will be evaluated as a part of grant applications and 

periodically verified as part of reporting; extramural program staffs will play a key role in 

this process. Non-compliance will jeopardize current and/or future agency funding, a 

process that will be implemented by extramural program staffs.

 Partnering Administrative Professionals – Support professionals at universities and other 

science organizations ensure project director and organizational compliance, are heavily 

involved in the research reporting process, and oversee business processes that will be 

affected by the implementation of the policy.

 Leaders in scientific societies, professional organizations, and other affected stakeholder 

groups – Since these individuals advocate for their scientific fields and membership, 

complete USDA transparency to this group is critical.

Outreach activities will take several forms:

 Awareness presentations and electronic communications to existing professional 

organizations, scientific societies;

o USDA scientists and support personnel will undertake these activities during the 

pilot and early implementation phases

 Collection of stakeholder input via:

o Applicable Federal Advisory Committees 

o Presentations and outreach activities

o Non-formal methods

 Formal training and job aid development and delivery, including job aids to facilitate 

panelist evaluation of data management plans.

The SOAP Council Outreach, Education, and Training group will coordinate these activities. 

In 2015, this working group will publish a set of official USDA-wide talking points for use by USDA 

scientists and other leaders to use at existing venues where stakeholders gather. These talking 

points will be approved by the USDA Office of Communications and the USDA Science council by 

this date. Based on these talking points, this group will conduct an internal USDA webinar to 

create awareness among USDA scientists and support personnel.

The working group will coordinate with Federal Advisory Committees to assess the knowledge 

needs of the stakeholders outlined above. It will poll the affected agencies to determine the sorts 

of stakeholder questions that are being received and the types of training being requested. In 

2015, the working group will compile an inventory of all existing, planned, and unplanned but 

required training based on individual agency needs. The working group will coordinate the 

development of this training within USDA to reduce duplication, as well as facilitating adaptation 

of existing training published by other agencies, universities, and other organizations. The majority 

of these resources required for the implementation phase will be complete by 2016. With 
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guidance by the working group, agencies will develop and share these resources utilizing the most 

appropriate medium for the audience and message.

Key Milestones (2015 – 2016): 

 Official USDA-wide talking points developed and approved 

 Conduct webinars for USDA science and support personnel; make available for viewing 

 Meet with applicable Federal Advisory Committees and poll agencies to assess training 

needs 

 List of existing, planned, and unplanned but required training created

 Complete coordinated agency efforts to make future training available 

Key Milestones (2016 and beyond): 

 Institutionalize the provision of regular and ongoing training and outreach information 

regarding increasing access to publically funded research data for internal and external 

scientists and stakeholders.

 Refine training and outreach materials as needed.