2017 Charleston Library Conference

A recent study conducted by Vanderbilt University showed that research staff in academic institutions spend up to 15% of their time on regulatory compliance. The requirements associated with funded research are varied and complex, and becoming ever more so. With the responsibility for compliance with funder mandates passed along to the researcher, the cost, and the liability for non-compliance, is shouldered by the institutions.

In the U.S. alone, there are now 19 OSTP-approved public access plans in place among federal departments and agencies. In addition, many agencies also require that all new research projects have data management plans in place describing the data to be collected and plans for its long-term preservation and access. Libraries have stepped into the fray as long-time experts in handling curation and access and can now play an important role in the research ecosystem.

There is a lot that can be done to help lessen the burden of compliance, expose necessary metadata and monitor the status of published articles. CHORUS has developed tools to identify, ingest and monitor funded article metadata, and is partnering with libraries and publishers to ensure that articles are publicly accessible when required.

In this session, we will showcase examples of how publishers, funders and institutions are working together to develop efficient solutions to reducing the cost of compliance, and explore the data gap uncovered in these pilot efforts.