EAGER: Investigating reasonable costs to achieve public access to federally funded research and scientific data

本项目将调查在一系列公开场所发表研究成果所涉的费用。使用混合研究模型，该项目将产生见解，工具和干预策略，以突出和减轻目前不同研究层次和机构类型的机构和研究人员之间的差距。 国家采用开放科学做法的目的是确保所有公民都能立即免费获得联邦资助的研究。 然而，即使这些数字研究成果对用户免费，其出版和管理也不是“免费”的。这就提出了谁应该为这些进程支付费用以及支付多少费用的重大问题。 随着研究人员、研究机构、学术团体、出版商、图书馆以及各种数据管理和学术交流基础设施提供商积极应对新出现的政策变化，本研究将解决以下关键问题：1）出版公共研究的成本是什么，以及这些成本在出版物类型、机构类型和学科之间有何差异; 2）美国研究人员和研究机构直接或间接支付什么（例如，3）研究人员及其研究机构使用什么样的工作流程和决策链来确保研究成果的适当公共获取渠道;以及4）研究人员和研究机构目前如何为公共场所的合理成本设定门槛，他们是否将其作为可允许的费用进行预算？随着这项研究的进行，该项目将特别寻找不同类型和层次的机构在思想和行动上的差异。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will investigate costs involved in publishing research outputs in a range of publicly accessible venues. Using a mixed research model, the project will produce insights, tools, and intervention strategies to highlight and mitigate current disparities between institutions and researchers in different research tiers and institution types. National adoption of open science practices aims to ensure all that all citizens benefit from immediate and free access to federally funded research. However, even when those digital research outputs are free for users, their publication and management are not “free.” This raises significant questions regarding who should pay for these processes and how much. As researchers, research offices, scholarly societies, publishers, libraries, and various data management and scholarly communication infrastructure providers actively grapple with emerging policy changes, this research will address key questions: 1) What are the costs of publishing publicly available research, and how do these differ across publication types, institution types, and disciplines; 2) What do US researchers and research institutions pay directly or indirectly (e.g., through transformative agreements) to make federally funded outputs publicly available; 3) What workflows and decision chains do researchers and their research institutions use to secure appropriate public access channels for research outputs; and 4) How do researchers and research institutions currently establish a threshold for reasonable cost for publicly available venues, and do they budget this as allowable expense? As this research is conducted, the project will especially look for differences in both thought and action across institutional types and tiers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.