The Department of Transportation (DOT) recently released its Public Access Plan in compliance with the White House Directive. The plan takes effect at the end of this month and aims to increase public access to the publications and data arising from DOT-funded research. DOT provides a summary of how to comply, and here are the plan’s highlights:

Publications
DOT’s plan requires that authors make available final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts of journal articles, as well as scientific research project written deliverables (e.g., technical or final reports). Authors must:

• Report their planned research to TRB’s Research in Progress database
• Make available publications (must be no later than 12 months following publication)
• Submit publications to the DOT National Transportation Library (NTL) digital repository
• Ensure rights under copyright are non-exclusively retained by DOT

Data
The data requirement involves:

• A mandate for proposals to include a data management plan (DMP)
• Specific requirements to share and link to data underlying published findings
• Emerging guidelines on selecting a repository for public access to data
• Once data is published in a repository, submit URLs and associated metadata to DOT

The Libraries can help you comply with these new requirements:

• For assistance in creating your data management plan, or for any aspect of complying with funder data sharing requirements, contact the Libraries’ Data Management Services
• To ensure you retain sufficient rights to allow for manuscript deposit, you may opt to use the amendment to publication agreements specifically designed to accommodate the requirements of the White House Directive
• For information on major funder policies, see the scholarly publishing website
• Confirm your ORCID for reporting

Comments or questions?
For publications: contact Ellen Finnie, program manager, Scholarly Publishing, Copyright, and Licensing, MIT Libraries
For data: contact the Libraries’ Data Management Services