Journal Responses to New Federal Requirements for Public Access to Scientific Research

REPORTER: Lindsay Fischer AORN At the May 2025 CSE Annual Meeting, held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, three speakers presented on the federal government’s push to require open access (OA) practices and how researchers and publishers are responding to these changes. The Move Toward Open Data The first speaker presented on the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)’s guidance to make federally funded research freely available.1 The “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research” memorandum (also known as the “Nelson Memorandum”), issued in 2022, represents a requirement to make taxpayer-supported scientific data, along with peer-reviewed research, freely available.1 As this speaker noted, the Nelson Memorandum signaled a shift in how the Federal government defines data. Namely, “scientific data” now includes the factual material needed to validate and replicate research findings. The newfound emphasis on replication has left scientific publications grappling with what, exactly, must be shared to enable replication. He noted that digital materials, which include the code needed to analyze the results, the data that underlies results, and an explanation of how the findings were achieved (e.g., a Methods section with preregistered protocols) are considered factual materials needed to replicate findings. “These are the items that other researchers will need to conduct the study again,” he said. “This means that items like digital stimuli and protocols will need to be available in a manner that they have not been before.” In comparison, other items such as notebooks, preliminary analysis, case report forms, drafts, plans for future […]