Federally-Funded Research Must Avoid Paywalls per Biden Order

A recent memorandum from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), part of the Executive Office of the President, requires federal agencies to revise their policies so that publications and data from federally funded research are freely and publicly accessible without an embargo at time of publication. Funding agencies have until 2025 to fully comply with the rule with benchmarks about publishing policy in 2024. 

Changes required by the coming new policies have the potential to dramatically reshape the open access publishing landscape. Faculty and staff at University Library will be monitoring developments and working with key stakeholders, including the Office of Research and Economic Development, to communicate with the campus and offer compliance assistance. A major part of making federally-funded research at CSULB available open access is ScholarWorks, the CSU Libraries repository providing access to the unique digital collections of the CSU. We are excited to move forward with the effort to make CSULB scholarly and creative work more accessible to student, faculty, and the wider community. 

What does this mean for ScholarWorks@TheBeach?

• S@B will be updating access and data plans with the goal of implementing updated public access policies by the end of 2025.
• S@B will be encouraging faculty and students to make their submissions freely accessible to the public when submitting work until required to do so in 2025.
• S@B will be reviewing the CSULB works in ScholarWorks to ensure that all federally-funded manuscripts and data previously submitted to the repository are in compliance.