Supporting Public Access: The Cost and Price of U.S. Institutions' Changing Research Workflows

In Fall 2024, Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) concluded an ethnographic study with the research offices, data centers, libraries, and information technology groups of 25 U.S. research institutions, particularly focusing on how their workflows and relationships are changing to address new and forthcoming policies regarding public access for all U.S. federally funded research outputs. This work complements a report and series of interviews simultaneously conducted with data repositories on the costs and labor involved in curating, ingesting, and storing the data created as a result of these federally funded projects.

In this briefing, we will share the spectrum of unfolding institutional practices, workflows, and plans we have documented, taking a close look at the variable roles that are played by data centers, libraries, and their counterparts in the changing research environment. How are repositories responding to increasing demand and uncertain cost landscape? How are the campus entities positioning themselves for the future, and how are they thinking about repository support practices? How might changes in institutional research workflows impact repositories, including the level (and fluctuation) of demand they face, the level of financial support they receive, and their overall visibility and standing within the broader research support ecosystem?

Presenters:

• Katherine Skinner – Invest in Open Infrastructure Lauren Collister – Invest in Open Infrastructure
• Maggie Levenstein – ICPSR

The slides from this webinar are available at https://bit.ly/icpsrjan2025 and https://myumi.ch/wy6VX.