US National Science Foundation’s new rules on sharing scientific data
Under the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) new rules on sharing scientific data, grant proposals submitted on or after 18 January 2011 must include a Data Management Plan to describe how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results.
The NSF’s Data Sharing Policy expects investigators to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF grants.
Details on NSF’s Data Sharing Policy and Data Management Plan Requirements are available on the NSF website.
Sayeed Choudhury, associate dean of university libraries at Johns Hopkins University and head of a project called the Data Conservancy, explains the rationale for these new rules in an interview with The Chronicle.