IES Policy Regarding Public Access to Research

“Beginning in FY 2012, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) requires its grantees to submit their peer-reviewed research publications to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). Investigators are to submit the electronic version of their final manuscripts upon acceptance for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The author's final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all modifications from the peer review process. Posting for public accessibility through ERIC is strongly encouraged as soon as possible but must be within 12 months of the publisher's official date of final publication. This requirement applies to all research and evaluation activities supported through IES research and training grant awards, cooperative agreements, and contracts. The requirement applies to peer-reviewed, original research publications that have been supported, in whole or in part, with direct costs from IES, but it does not apply to book chapters, editorials, reviews, or conference proceedings. Publications resulting from IES contracts are already widely available through the IES website and through ERIC. Through this policy, IES requires grantees, beginning with those funded in FY 2012 grant competitions, to submit their peer-reviewed research publications to ERIC. This policy does not apply to publications resulting from previous support from IES or the U.S. Department of Education. However, prior grant recipients are encouraged to submit publications from IES-funded grants to ERIC. ERIC is a publicly accessible and searchable electronic database of education research that makes available full-text documents to the public for free. The ERIC database is available on the Internet at http://www.eric.ed.gov/. The system will collect certain identifying information, including title, authors, publication date, journal title, and associated IES award number(s). The system will also ask submitters to review and acknowledge the terms and conditions of their submission. Authors and/or their institutions should ensure that their ERIC submissions are consistent with any other agreements, including copyright assignments that they may have, or enter into, with publishers or other third parties. As additional details and instructions on the use of the ERIC manuscript submission system become available, these will be posted on the IES website at http://ies.ed.gov and on the ERIC website at http://www.eric.ed.gov/.”