Open Access Federal Mandate

As of December 31, 2025, all U.S. federal agencies are required to have guidelines for making research that they fund freely available to the public (Open Access, or OA). Principal Investigators with federally-sponsored projects will need to publicly share their research publications and supporting data immediately following acceptance and without an embargo (waiting period). 

Rod Library's Scholarly Communication website includes additional information and resources relating to this requirement: https://guides.lib.uni.edu/scholarly-communication/oafederalmandate.

The non-profit organization SPARC is tracking data sharing policies and publication sharing policies released by each federal agency: https://datasharing.sparcopen.org/

Through Rod Library, UNI faculty and staff have access to DMP Tool, a service that helps researchers create data management and sharing plans (DMSPs) that meet funder requirements and follow open science best practice.