AHRQ Public Access to Federally Funded Research

AHRQ Public Access to Federally Funded Research. Francis D. Chesley. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. February, 2015.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's  has established a policy for public access to scientific publications and scientific data in digital format resulting from funding through the agency. Preservation is one of the Public Access Policy's primary objectives.

The Public Access Policy includes the following objectives:

• Ensure that the public can access the final published digital documents.
• Facilitate easy public search, analysis of and access to these publications
• Ensure the attributes to authors, journals, and original publishers are maintained.
• Ensure that publications and metadata are in an archival solution.
• Ensure that all researchers receiving grants develop data management plans, describing how they will provide for long-term preservation of and access to scientific data in digital format.

Data management plans will include:

• A plan for protecting confidentiality and personal privacy.
• A description of how scientific data in digital format will be shared
• It must include a plan for long-term preservation and access to the data

The data management plans will be evaluated based on the values of long-term preservation, access, and the associated cost, and administrative burden. AHRQ will contract with a commercial repository to ensure long-term preservation and full access to the public.

Digital scientific data is defined as "the digital recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as necessary to validate research findings including data sets used to support scholarly publications, but does not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary analyses, drafts of scientific papers, plans for future research, peer reviews, communications with colleagues, or physical objects, such as laboratory specimens."

Digital Preservation Matters.