Public access, a requirement that certain federally funded research results (i.e., peer-reviewed publications and data) be made freely available after a given embargo period, is intended to accelerate scientific discovery and improve education. In 2013, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum directing federal agencies with over $100 million in annual R&D expenditures to develop and implement public access plans.
AAU works with its member institutions and other associations to monitor federal public access policies and evaluate issues relating to opportunities and challenges for universities as they move to comply with and implement these new federal requirements. AAU also engages in discussions of policy and best practices relating to open access, which refers to the growing practice of making scholarly works available digitally, online, free of charge, and without most copyright and licensing restrictions. As part of this work, AAU is partnering with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Association of University Presses (AUPreses) on the TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) initiative to accelerate dissemination of scholarship in the humanities and humanistic social sciences through open access editions of peer-reviewed and professionally edited monographs.”