NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) Publication Access Project Data Sharing

Data sharing for submitted manuscript. Full citation information will be shared upon publication.<b>Title:</b> Open but Hidden: Open Access gaps in the National Science Foundation funded publications as posted online to the NSF Public Access Repository.<b>Abstract</b><b>Objectives</b>: In August of 2022, the U.S. federal government released new guidelines for making publicly funded research open and available. This study looks at the availability of National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research within the designated Public Access Repository (PAR) from two research intensive (R1) universities as required under the previous 2016 policy to evaluate the current state of compliance before new guidelines go into effect.<b>Methods</b>: The project team searched the NSF PAR for records published between 2017 and 2021 from two institutions. Records were reviewed to determine if the PAR held a deposited copy or provided a link out to the publisher held version(s). Where only a publisher linkout was provided, links were evaluated for the availability of an open access version.<b>Results</b>: A total of 841 unique records were identified. Of these 42% had a deposited PDF version as required by the NSF 2016 Public Access Policy. The remaining 58% relied exclusively on a publisher-held version. However, 45% of the provided publisher links directed to paywall versions. Additionally, 24% of records required users to have specialized knowledge of the CHORUS initiative in order to navigate from the initial paywall prompt to a publicly available version.<b>Conclusions</b>: Despite having a public access mandate since 2016, NSF compliance rates remain low. It seems unlikely that the additional guidelines introduced under the 2022 memo, meant to further drive public access to federal research, will increase compliance without additional dedication to oversight and/or imposed consequences for non-compliance.