White House issues Open Access directive

In response to the 2012 White House Petition that has gathered more than 65,000 signatures, the Obama administration has issued a directive that will require that federal agencies "with more than $100 million in research and development expenditures to develop plans to make the results of federally-funded research publically available free of charge within 12 months after original publication." The memorandum document outlines the specific steps that will need to be taken by the affected agencies. Each agency is required to "develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government" within 6 months.