Increasing Public Access to the Results of USDOT-Funded Transportation Research, 18371-18373 [2023-06373]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
• Office of the Secretary

[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 59 (Tuesday, March 28, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 18371-18373]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-06373]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Office of the Secretary

[Docket No. DOT-OST-2023-0045]


Increasing Public Access to the Results of USDOT-Funded 
Transportation Research

Issue Date: March 23, 2023.
AGENCY: Office of the Secretary (OST), Department of Transportation 
(DOT).

ACTION: Notice; request for information.

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SUMMARY: The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) invites 
public comment on issues or topics the DOT should consider as it 
updates the DOT Public Access Plan in response to new White House 
Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) guidance.

DATES: Comments are requested by May 10, 2023. See the SUPPLEMENTARY 
INFORMATION section on ``Public Participation,'' below, for more 
information about written comments.

ADDRESSES: Written Comments: Comments should refer to the docket number 
above and be submitted by one of the following methods:
     Federal Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
     Email: [email protected] Include the docket number in 
the subject line of the message.
     Mail: Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, 
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. Include docket number on the 
outside of the envelope.
     Hand Delivery: 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building 
Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. 
ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays. Include docket 
number on outside or first page of your submission.
    Instructions: All submission received must include the agency name 
and the docket number. All comments received in the Federal Rulemaking 
Portal will be posted without change, including any personal 
information provided.
    For detailed instructions on submitting comments and additional 
information on the rulemaking process, see the Public Participation 
heading of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document. Note 
that all comments received will be posted without change to https://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided.
    Privacy Act: Except as provided below, all comments received into 
the docket will be made public in their entirety. The comments will be 
searchable by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or 
signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, 
business, labor union, etc.). You should not include information in 
your comment that you do not want to be made public. You may review 
DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published 
on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78) or at https://www.transportation.gov/privacy.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments received, go to https://www.regulations.gov or to the street 
address listed above. Follow the online instructions for accessing the 
dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mx. Leighton L Christiansen, Data 
Curator, National Transportation Library, Bureau of Transportation 
Statistics, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and 
Technology, by email at [email protected] or by phone at (202) 578-
0185.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Purpose

    DOT seeks public input on the Increasing Public Access to the 
Results of USDOT Funded Transportation Research (DOT Public Access 
Plan).

Background

    On February 22, 2013, the White House Office of Science and 
Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memorandum entitled ``Increasing 
Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research'' 
<<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_public_access_memo_2013.pdf>>, which called for all Executive 
Departments with greater than $100 million in yearly research and 
development expenditures to prepare a plan for improving the Public's 
access to the results of Federally funded research. On December 16, 
2015, the DOT published its ``Plan to Increase Public Access to the 
Results of Federally-Funded Scientific Research, Version 1.1'' << 
https://doi.org/10.21949/1503646>> in response. The 2015 Public Access 
Plan codified and extended DOT's longstanding commitment to and 
practice of sharing DOT-supported research results. Further, the 2015 
plan included making the digital datasets underlying the research 
results accessible by the public.
    On August 25, 2022, the White House Office of Science and 
Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memorandum entitled ``Ensuring 
Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research'' 
<<https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf>> which establishes new guidance for improving 
public access to scholarly publications and data resulting from 
Federally supported research. This second OSTP memorandum calls on all 
Federal Departments and Agencies to prepare new or updated Public 
Access plans to ensure the Public's immediate access to the results of 
Federally funded research, which will further advance research 
transparency and advance U.S. economic competitiveness by raising 
awareness of new research discoveries and innovations.
    In response, DOT will draft a version 2 of its Public Access Plan. 
The updated plan will:

[[Page 18372]]

     Affirm and enhances DOT's commitment to the Public's 
access to DOT-funded Scientific Research results, including digitally 
formatted scientific data;
     Affirm DOT's support for the reproducibility of Scientific 
Research results;
     Build on DOT's commitment to the Public's access to DOT-
funded Scientific Research results by adding Source Code and Software, 
among the categories of accessible Research Outputs;
     Ensure the free and immediate availability, reliable 
preservation, and continuous access to DOT-funded research results, 
without embargo; and
     Enhance the usefulness of Scientific Research results to 
promote further innovation, increase American economic competitiveness, 
and advance the safety, reliability, sustainability, and equity of the 
national transportation system.

Specific Questions

    DOT seeks information regarding the DOT Public Access Plan from all 
interested stakeholders, including, but not limited to: members of the 
public; principal investigators; research institutions; libraries; 
scholarly publishers; scientific societies; transportation agencies; 
transportation-focused groups, organizations, and associations; data 
scientists; data repositories; and others.
    DOT is providing the following questions to prompt feedback and 
comments. DOT encourages public comment on any or all of these 
questions, and also seeks any other information commenters believe is 
relevant.
    The questions to which DOT is interested in receiving responses 
are:
    1. How best to improve access to textual research outputs. A high 
percentage of DOT funded research results are delivered via technical 
reports, research briefs, manuals, technology transfer documents, and 
other grey literature, designed for immediate sharing and rapid 
implementation. The current DOT Public Access Plans allows researchers 
to distribute these outputs through the website or repository of their 
choice, and requires a copy be submitted to the DOT National 
Transportation Library digital repository for long-term preservation 
and public access. DOT seeks information on how to improve and 
streamline this submission process to improve timeliness; and, to avoid 
reinforcing inequities to access and submission, while not creating new 
ones.
    2. How best to improve accessibility of textual research outputs. 
DOT research grants and contracts require researchers to submit textual 
research outputs that are accessible to members of the public who use 
computer screen readers and other assistive technologies to access 
information, as consistent with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act 
of 1973 and the 2018 ITC Refresh, 36 CFR 1194. DOT seeks information on 
how to improve equity of access to research results.
    3. How best to improve access to scholarly publications from DOT 
funded research. Section 3.a) of the 2022 OSTP memo calls on agencies 
to ``update or develop new public access plans for ensuring, as 
appropriate and consistent with applicable law, that all peer-reviewed 
scholarly publications authored or co-authored by individuals or 
institutions resulting from federally funded research are made freely 
available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated 
repositories without any embargo or delay after publication.'' DOT 
seeks information on: i. How peer-reviewed scholarly publications 
should be made publicly accessible; ii. How to maximize equitable reach 
of public access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications, including by 
providing free online access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications in 
formats that allow for machine-readability and enabling broad 
accessibility through assistive devices; and, iii. The circumstances or 
prerequisites needed to make the publications freely and publicly 
available by default, including any use and re-use rights, and which 
restrictions, including attribution, may apply.
    4. How best to improve access to datasets. The 2015 DOT Public 
Access Plan required all data underlying research conclusions be made 
publicly accessible, while protecting sensitive personal, business, and 
security information. Further, the Plan required research proposals 
include a data management plan (DMP) that, among other things, detailed 
where datasets would be preserved. However, DOT allowed researchers a 
choice of where to preserve the data: in an institutional or third-
party domain-specific or generalist repository; with DOT; or, to self-
distribute data when requested by the public. Further the 2015 DOT plan 
allowed researchers to include reasonable preservation costs in their 
research proposal. Going forward, the updated plan will continue to 
mandate research data must be shared while protecting sensitive 
information. However, in order meet the requirements of the 2022 OSTP 
memo and to better ensure long-term preservation of data of interest to 
DOT, the broader research community, and the public, researchers must 
preserve data in an institutional or third-party repository or with 
DOT, but self-distribution will no longer be allowed. DOT will continue 
to encourage researchers to plan for, and budget for, long-term data 
preservation as part of the research proposal process. DOT seeks 
information on how to best facilitate, support, and fund long-term data 
preservation and sharing.
    5. How to implement evolving ethical frameworks to DOT-funded 
research. A percentage of transportation research involves the direct 
study of human subjects as they interact with the transportation 
infrastructure and operations. Transportation researchers have a long 
history of protecting human subjects under academic Institutional 
Review Board (IRB) and similar ethical guidelines. With the increase in 
volume of digital data collected about people and populations during 
research execution, some collectively in identified public settings and 
some oriented to observation of individuals requiring their knowledge 
and consent, the global movement towards open science and data sharing 
has developed new ethical frameworks. One example of these is the 
``CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance'' << https://www.gida-global.org/care>>, created to allow Indigenous People to assert greater 
control over the use of Indigenous data and knowledge. DOT seeks 
information on how to ensure DOT supported research is engaged with and 
implements these evolving ethical frameworks.
    6. How to best improve access to other types of research outputs. 
The 2015 DOT Public Access Plan focused on making text-based research 
outputs and digital datasets accessible to the public. But 
transportation research is not confined to only these two types of 
outputs. More and more research outputs include software, code, 
simulations, visualizations, and others yet to come. With the need to 
update our Public Access Plan, DOT is interested in having supported 
researchers share all research outputs with the public, where 
practicable and within legal parameters. DOT seeks information on the 
projected types of research outputs, the level of effort and expense in 
sharing them, as well as ethical and legal concerns with sharing other 
types of research outputs.
    7. How to implement persistent identifiers (PIDs) for people; 
research documents and outputs; and, research

[[Page 18373]]

entities. The 2015 DOT Public Access Plan called for persistent 
identification of research outputs and researchers. The 2022 OSTP memo, 
section 4.b) requires all federally funded researchers to have a 
personal persistent identifier as defined in NSPM-33 Implementation 
Guidance << https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/010422-NSPM-33-Implementation-Guidance.pdf>> section 2. Further, the 
OSTP memo section 4.c) requires persistent identification of research 
and development awards, such as research grants and contracts. Finally, 
DOT is interested in being able to uniquely and persistently identify 
research entities, to enable analysis of outputs and research 
relationships. DOT seeks suggestions on improving the use of persistent 
identifiers and their metadata, including adoption use cases from 
institutions.
    8. How to improve research project lifecycle management. The 2015 
DOT Public Access Plan commits DOT to sharing research project 
information through a publicly accessible database. DOT seeks 
suggestions on improving our research project management tools and 
practices, and welcomes institutional use case examples.

Public Participation

How do I prepare and submit comments?

    Your comments must be written in English. To ensure that your 
comments are filed correctly in the docket, please include the docket 
number of this document in your comments.
    Please submit one copy (two copies if submitting by mail or hand 
delivery) of your comments, including the attachments, to the docket 
following the instructions given above under ADDRESSES. Please note, if 
you are submitting comments electronically as a PDF (Adobe) file, we 
ask that the documents submitted be scanned using an Optical Character 
Recognition (OCR) process, and without password protection, thus 
allowing the agency to open, search, and copy certain portions of your 
submissions.

How do I submit confidential business information?

    Any submissions containing Confidential Information must be 
delivered to OST in the following manner:
     Submitted in a sealed envelope marked ``confidential 
treatment requested'';
     Document(s) or information that the submitter would like 
withheld should be marked ``PROPIN''; accompanied by an index listing 
the document(s) or information that the submitter would like the 
Departments to withhold. The index should include information such as 
numbers used to identify the relevant document(s) or information, 
document title and description, and relevant page numbers and/or 
section numbers within a document; and
     Submitted with a statement explaining the submitter's 
grounds for objecting to disclosure of the information to the public.
    DOT will treat such marked submissions as confidential under the 
FOIA and will not include them in the public docket. DOT also requests 
that submitters of Confidential Information include a non-confidential 
version (either redacted or summarized) of those confidential 
submissions in the public docket. In the event that the submitter 
cannot provide a non-confidential version of its submission, DOT 
requests that the submitter post a notice in the docket stating that it 
has provided DOT with Confidential Information. Should a submitter fail 
to docket either a non-confidential version of its submission or to 
post a notice that Confidential Information has been provided, we will 
note the receipt of the submission on the docket, with the submitter's 
organization or name (to the degree permitted by law) and the date of 
submission.

Will the Agency consider late comments?

    OST will consider all comments received before the close of 
business on the comment closing date indicated above under DATES. To 
the extent possible, the agency will also consider comments received 
after that date.

How can I read the comments submitted by other people?

    You may read the comments received at the address given above under 
written comments. The hours of the docket are indicated above in the 
same location. You may also see the comments on the internet, 
identified by the docket number at the heading of this notice, at 
https://www.regulations.gov.

    Issued in Washington, DC, on March 23, 2023, under authority 
delegated at 49 CFR 1.25a.
Robert C. Hampshire,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology.
[FR Doc. 2023-06373 Filed 3-27-23; 8:45 am]
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