The Open Research Funders Group creates resources to assist in developing, managing, and assessing open policies.
The following annotated list of tools and services is available at http://www.orfg.org/policy-implementation-tools-2-1.
Health08 June, 2019|UpdatedJuly 07, 2020
Understanding funder mandates and policies
| Resource | For-profit? | Description | Relevance to funders |
| Dataverse | No | Dataverse is an open source web application to share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. | Dataverse software can be used to create dedicated data repositories. Funders in specialized areas that do not have default repositories can build their own solutions off of Dataverse. |
| Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) | No | DOAJ is community-curated directory that indexes and provides access to open access, peer-reviewed journals. | For funders that encourage or require grant recipients to publish their research outputs in open access journals, DOAJ is often used to determine whether a publication is acceptable. DOAJ maintains an evaluation process that weeds out most of the “predatory” open access journals that are considered problematic publication outlets by the scholarly communication community. |
| Dryad | No | Dryad is an open, generalist repository for research data. It focuses specifically on the data underlying scientific and medical publications. | Some funders link the sharing of research data with the publication of research articles. In these instances, Dryad integrates with a wide range of journals and publishers to facilitate data sharing at the point of publication. This streamlines the workflow for authors and simplifies tracking for funders. |
| Federal Agency Article and Data Sharing Requirements Database | No | The Federal Agency Article and Data Sharing Requirements Database is a free resource for tracking, comparing, and understanding U.S. federal agencies’ open access and open data policies. It was developed and maintained by SPARC and Johns Hopkins University Libraries. | This integrated policy resource can be used to explore and compare agency plans for sharing articles and data. This may be helpful for funders contemplating development of their own policies. It allows for the easy analysis of key issues such as embargoes, exclusions, and licensing requirements. |
| figshare | Yes | figshare is a commercial digital repository where researchers can preserve and share their research outputs, including figures, datasets, images, and videos. It is run by Digital Science, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. | Research funders with open data policies typically encourage grant recipients to deposit their research data in subject-relevant repositories (e.g., dbGAP for genotypes and phenotypes). In instances where no clear disciplinary repository option can be identified, some research funders recommend figshare as a stable, viable “catch-all” repository. |
| Flourish OA | No | Flourish is a data-driven web app and API enabling users to discover relevant and reputable Open Access (OA) publications in order to maximize publishing impact. By aggregating price information and impact data, the site helps researchers to identify credible OA journals that best fit their publication needs. | Flourish OA allows funders, who often are paying for Article Processing Charges (APCs), to search for and compare APC costs. It provides aggregated access to current and historical journal information without needing to visit multiple sources. |
| HowOpenIsit? | No | The HowOpenIsIt? grid provides a means to identify where a journal’s policies sit on the spectrum between “Open Access” and “Closed Access”. Journals have built policies that vary widely across the six fundamental aspects of OA– reader rights, reuse rights, copyrights, author posting rights, automatic posting, and machine readability. It was co-developed by SPARC and PLOS. | HowOpenIsIt? is a resource that can be used by funders to help establish criteria for the level of open access required for their policies and mandates. For example, should the policy require unrestricted reuse right? Should authors be allowed to repost any version of their articles in institutional and subject repositories? HowOpenIsIt? provides a useful mechanism to focus on what the key pillars of a funders’ open access policies should be. |
| Open Access Spectrum (OAS) Evaluation Tool | No | Built off of the HowOpenIsIt? Grid, the OAS Evaluation Tool is a free, searchable database of 1,000+ journals. It converts journal policies across the six fundamental aspects of OA—reader rights, reuse rights, copyrights, author posting rights, automatic posting, and machine readability—into a 100 point scale. It was co-developed by SPARC and PLOS. | For funders that encourage or require grant recipients to publish in journals that meet defined open access conditions, the OAS Evaluation Tool is a convenient tool to look up specific journal policies. |
| Open Funder Registry | No | The Open Funder Registry is an open taxonomy of 10,000+ standardized funder names. It is managed by CrossRef, a not-for-profit membership organization. | The Open Funder Registry is being incorporated by publishers into their submission processes. Authors select funders from this list and provide grant numbers at the time of manuscript submission. This makes it substantially easier for research funders to track outputs derived from their grants. |
| Open Licensing Resources for Foundations | No | This web page, maintained by Creative Commons, aggregates responses to key questions such as, “Why should foundations adopt an open licensing policy?” and “How do foundations explain open licensing to their staffs and grantees?”. It also walks through the basics of Creative Commons licenses. | Open Licensing Resources for Foundations provides a succinct overview of the mechanics and merits of an open licensing policy. Research funders considering such a policy can mine this site to create documentation for their program officers that explains open licensing, how to communicate to grantees about the policy change, answer common questions, and so forth. |
| ORCID | No | ORCID provides researchers with unique and persistent digital identifiers. It is a community-supported effort to address the author disambiguation process. ORCID is integrated with an increasing range of key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submissions. Research funders that request or require grant applicants to include ORCIDs in their applications can, via manual or automated means, more easily track outputs tied to these grants. | ORCID is integrated with an increasing range of key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submissions. Research funders that request or require grant applicants to include ORCIDs in their applications can, via manual or automated means, more easily track outputs tied to these grants. |
| PubMed Central (PMC) | No | PubMed Central (PMC) is a free, full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal, hosted and supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine. It archives copies of more than four million articles, drawn from more than 6,000 journals. | For funders that encourage or require grant recipients to make their research outputs freely available, PubMed Central is a prominent deposit location. However, PMC does not have a direct deposit mechanism for articles unless they are funded by NIH. Organizations that are Health Research Alliance (HRA) members can deploy a special HRA mechanism to enable deposits by their grant recipients. |
| Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) | No | The Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP) is a free registry charting the growth of open access mandates and policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders. It is operated by the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. | ROARMAP is used by policy makers, bibliometricians, and others to track the growth in open access policies. The registry also provides a quick mechanism to compare policies across funders. |
| SHERPA/RoMEO | No | SHERPA/RoMEO is a free, searchable database of publishers’ copyright and self-archiving policies. It was developed by JISC and is run by the University of Nottingham. | For funders that encourage or require grant recipients to retain certain reposting and redistribution rights, SHERPA/RoMEO can be used to look up the policies of specific publishers and journals. |
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