nasa / smd-open-science-guidelines

NASA Science Mission Directorate: Open-Source Science Guidance

NASA’s Open-Source Science Initiative (OSSI) is a comprehensive program of activities to enable and support moving science towards openness, and it aims to implement SMD's Strategy for Data Management and Computing for Groundbreaking Science 2019-2024. OSSI includes a commitment to the open sharing of software, data, and knowledge (algorithms, papers, documents, ancillary information) as early as possible in the scientific process. The principles of open-source science are to make publicly funded scientific research transparent, inclusive, accessible, and reproducible.

As part of the OSSI, SMD’s Scientific Information Policy provides guidance on the open sharing of publications, data, and software created in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. SPD-41a: Scientific Information Policy for the Science Mission Directorate updates the previously released SPD-41, which consolidated existing Federal and NASA policy on sharing scientific information. SPD-41a was developed in light of new federal guidance on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research, studies from the National Academies, and input from the SMD scientific community.

This repository provides guidelines, best practices, and examples of open-source science to support the SMD scientific community in implementing the requirements of SPD-41a and achieving the broad OSSI goal of moving science towards openness. Please note the Limitations to this guidance. This guidance represents general recommendations and best practices for the SMD scientific community and should be considered alongside any additional guidance provided by SMD Divisions or specific funding solicitations. For additional information about SPD-41a and other scientific information policies that correspond to SMD Divisions, see the Scientific Information Policy website and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). For additional open science resources and training opportunities, see NASA’s see NASA’s Transform to Open Science (TOPS) program.

Guidance

For Researchers

• Open Science and Data Management Plan
• Sharing Publications
• Data Management and Sharing
• Software Management and Sharing
• Persistent Identifiers for Investigators
• Sharing Materials from Science Events
• Glossary of Open-Source Science Terms
• Open-Source Science Case Studies - Coming soon!

Looking for this guidance in another format? This content is also available as a PDF on the SMD Science Information Policy page.

For Missions

• To be developed

For Data Repositories

• Registering DOIs for data citation

SMD Division Policies and Guidance

• List of division-specific policies and resources

Contributing

Contributions to the repository are welcome! Following the best practices of open science, this material can be best built through the collective knowledge of the community. To report something that needs to be fixed or suggesting an addition, contributions can be made through opening an issue in the repository. If you are interested in contributing material directly to the repository, please see the Contributors' Guide.

SMD sometimes solicits a Request for Comment (RFC) to gather community input on specific topics for the development of open-source science guidance. The guideline on registration of DOIs for data citation is one such example of guidance developed following an RFC. The process for developing additional guidelines is still being refined, but this presentation provides an overview.

Please contact the maintainers or send an email to [email protected] with any questions.

Limitations

This repository does not establish policy requirements related to SMD funded activities. While this guidance is consistent with SPD-41a: Scientific Information Policy for the Science Mission Directorate, it may not be comprehensive or complete, and there may be other ways in which to comply with existing or future agreements or requirements not described here. For specific requirements related to scientific information produced from SMD-funded scientific activities, please see SPD-41a, NASA policies, and/or any requirements in the solicitation or agreement associated with the activity.

This repository will be updated as new information becomes available.

smd-open-science-guidelines's Issues

Software guidance expansion

• List examples of journals for open source software (e.g. Software Heritage, ACL); similar to how we give suggestions for selecting external data repositories
• Examples of a software code of conduct / contributing guide; guidance on what should be included in these

Update links to division OSDMP templates

Following web modernization, update links to the division OSDMP templates to ensure that any future updates will be captured. The best approach may be to link to template pages on science.nasa.gov: example

Further examples of Scientific Information, expanding those in SPD-41a Appendices E and F

From SPD-41a implementation plan:
CSDO: Provide further examples on Scientific Information as part of the Open Science Guidelines. This would expand on Appendix E and Appendix F.

Discuss with @nasacrawford - What types of examples are desired here?

Data guidance expansion

Expand current guidance on data management and sharing to include:

• Which NASA Science Data Archives are already equipped to host research data?
• How to share very large research data sets. Include @paigem in discussions.
• Expectations for data interoperability. See SPD-41a FAQ on this topic and develop guidance in terms of FAIR principles.

update guidance to encourage data citation

As requested in https://mastodon.social/@crawfordsm/109676705818114890, I'm creating this issue to suggest that while the current guidelines for data generally require making data CC0 licensed, and encourage metadata and identifiers that make the data citable, the guidance does not actually require or encourage citation of the data when it is used. One could argue that existing scholarly norms already do this, but it would be useful if NASA at least encouraged this as well.

update guideline when final policy is release

The RFC you are commenting on: Registration of DOIs for data citation

Type of comment:

• Editorial - grammar, spelling, word choice, etc.
• Minor - would not affect the overall direction of the guideline but could provide clarity, a small correction, a minor change to process, etc.
• Substantive - objection to the guideline or change to its intent; recommendation to use another standard or service than what the guideline suggests; a major change to a process; etc. a major change to a process or or use of a particular standard the
• Question - Any question for clarity, scope, purpose, etc.

Section(s) of document referenced: C.1.

Comment/Question: Reference to SPD-41a should be updated when the policy is approved.

Remove old guidance on publication sharing

The original guidance on publications
smd-open-science-guidelines/guidance/research_publications.md

has now been replaced with
smd-open-science-guidelines/OSS_Guidance/Publications.md

We should remove the old guidance or somehow indicate that it has been replaced since it is less comprehensive than the new version. For review by @nasacrawford

Background on NASEM reports

Add background on relevant NASEM reports: example.

Data guidance on training data for AI/ML

Develop guidance on sharing training data, including:

• build on existing SPD-41a FAQ on this topic
• Training data is in scope of SPD-41a, especially if needed to validate the results of a scientific finding (e.g., would need training data used to reproduce findings resulting from AI/ML models).
• In general, you should provide all training data. However, there are considerations (list examples) for why it would not be appropriate to share complete training data. In that case, what can you share? Work with Manil on this.
• Recommendations on how/where to share training data (repository selection), and considerations based on size of training dataset
• commercial data used for training and implications for sharing
• Examples of how training data are being shared openly - ESDS ACCESS projects - work with Cerese and Manil on this.

Add resource to "Generalist Repositories"

Add this USDA list of data repos to the Generalist Repositories section of the OSS Guidance.

Guidance on restricted data and software

Expand upon existing guidance on restricted information given in data and software sections.
Add more background on the restrictions that generate exceptions to information sharing (e.g. ITAR, EAR, HIPAA).

Flow charts for compliant publications, data, software

Develop flow charts to guide researchers/proposers/reviewers through set of questions to ask when considering whether an OSDMP is compliant with the policy at the proposal stage, and/or whether actions taken to manage and share scientific information are compliant with the policy.
PSD created a nice set of these that have been shared internally within the OSSI. A public version of this information may be a helpful addition to this guidance.

Guidance on holding open meetings

Expand current guidance on sharing materials from scientific events to include broader recommendations on how to hold events openly (focus on accessibility and inclusion).
See if TOPS OS 101 has any guidance on this that we can link to once it's released.

Publications guidance expansion

Expand publications guidance to include:

• guidance on how to share materials other than journal articles (e.g., technical reports, conference materials, and books)
• specific guidance for mission publications
• sharing preprints; may want to meet with arXiv to discuss how potential added functionality could address SMD requirements
• guidance on what constitutes the author’s accepted manuscript; see DOE PAGES example; address formatting requirements (e.g. question about files generated with a LateX template)
• guidance for researchers on their rights to share an author’s accepted manuscript (for civil servants and non-CS). What do authors need to know about copyright, licensing, agreements with journals? What if a publisher tells them that they cannot share their accepted manuscript without a 12 month embargo? See some related Q&A(https://www.osti.gov/pages/faqs#what-about-copyright-transfer-and-government-rights and https://publicaccess.nih.gov/faq.htm#779) from OSTI.