Theme 1 commitments

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed

Evidence: None.

Sec. 9 of President Biden’s February 16 Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal Government codifies the role of the Subcommittee on Equitable Data.

Progress toward implementing the 5 recommendations of the Equitable Data Working Group can be found in the following report. [PDF]

Progress update: The Department of Commerce, an active leading agency in the Subcommittee on Equitable Data, published the findings from the Working Group on Community Engagement for Equitable Data in their May 2024 “Equitable Data Playbook: Real-World Approaches to Improving Federal Program Design and Delivery".

Evidence:

• https://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/DOC-Equitable-Data-Playbook-2024.pdf (Pages 64-69)

Progress update: The findings are under development for public release in the next public report on the Subcommittee for Equitable Data, and have already influenced larger efforts, including OMB’s ongoing work to develop a government-wide framework, common guidelines, and leading practices for agencies to conduct public participation and community engagement.

Evidence:

• The Federal Register Request for Information on Methods and Leading Practices for Advancing Public Participation and Community Engagement With the Federal Government
• The new performance.gov page

The Subcommittee on Equitable Data is reviewing their findings with Federal agencies and preparing to make them publicly available.

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed

Evidence: See previous update

The Equitable Data Community of Practice was started in January 2023 and the listserv has ~530 members. The Community of Practice has held 6 learning sessions, has initiated a newsletter for agencies, and continues to foster collaboration among government agencies.

Progress update: The Subcommittee on Equitable Data piloted a new approach to feedback loops with the public. The results of that pilot have been posted on to the evidence section of this status update.

Evidence:

• Feedback pilot results [PDF]
• Case study on Advancing Federal Equitable Data Partnerships through public feedback loops

The Subcommittee on Equitable Data piloted a new approach to feedback loops with the public. The results of that pilot are expected to be released in Summer 2023 along with a narrative about the results.

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed

Evidence: See previous update

The Subcommittee on Equitable Data released the progress report in March 2023. [PDF]

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed

Evidence: See previous update

The Subcommittee on Equitable Data released the Federal Evidence Agenda on LGBTQI+ Equity [PDF] in January 2023.

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed

Evidence: See previous update

The Office of the Chief Statistician of the United States released recommendations on the best practices for collecting sexual orientation and gender identity data on federal statistical surveys. [PDF]

Progress update:
On March 28, 2024, OMB published a set of revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Directive No. 15): Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, the first since 1997. Thanks to the hard work of staff across dozens of federal agencies and input from thousands of members of the public, these updated standards will help create more useful, accurate, and up to date federal data on race and ethnicity. These revisions will enhance our ability to compare information and data across federal agencies, and also to understand how well federal programs serve a diverse America.

Evidence:
None.

Progress update:
The Office of the Chief Statistician of the United States at OMB is grateful for the level of public interest and participation in its initial public outreach efforts (White House blog posts, a dedicated public website, bi-monthly listening sessions, and a Federal Register Notice) which resulted in more than 20,000 public comments. The Office of the Chief Statistician is now carefully reviewing and considering all of the public feedback received on current and future policy.

Evidence:

• Statistical Policy Directive No. 15: Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity
• Initial Proposals For Updating OMB's Race and Ethnicity Statistical Standards

The Working Group is employing a variety of outreach and communications methods to offer diverse ways for the public to engage, and to ensure meaningful public participation in the review of the race and ethnicity standards. Outreach efforts to date include three White House blog posts, a dedicated public website, bi-monthly listening sessions where the public can share input with the members of the Working Group, participation in professional conferences and stakeholder convenings, and a 90-day Federal Register Notice that resulted in over 20,000 public comments.

Progress update:
The White House Made in America Office has achieved its goal of publicly reporting waivers submitted by agencies across the federal government through the GSA Made in America website. The site is moving into an iterative development phase, with future updates made to improve ease of use, to meet new legal or regulatory changes, or to address changes to business or functional requirements.

Evidence: Made in America waivers

The Made in America Office continues to publicly report waivers submitted by agencies across the federal government on the transparency website (see link below). GSA is required to build and maintain the transparency website on behalf of the federal government. The Made in America Office is on track to work with the GSA on additional waiver types, including adding a public interest waiver type on the site in 2023. This expansion and regular updates to the site aims to make searching for waivers easier for the public.

Progress update:
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy continues to coordinate development of agency public access plans providing immediate and free public access to federally funded research publications and data through the Subcommittee on Open Science. Since OSTP updated the Open Government Commitment Tracker in February 2024, agencies have continued to publicly post their plans for community engagement and comment as they work to translate plans into public access policies to be posted publicly by December 31, 2024. In addition, agencies have collaborated through the Subcommittee on Open Science to host or participate in joint public engagement opportunities. For example, NASA sponsored the Year of Open Science Culminating Conference in collaboration with the Center for Open Science in which several agencies and OSTP participated to share successes and opportunities arising from the 2023 Federal Year of Open Science. In addition, to share updates on agency efforts to coordinate open science and public access policies and programs, CENDI, an interagency working group of senior scientific and technical information managers, continues to update open.science.gov, a site developed and maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information.

Evidence (plans released since February 2024):

• U.S. Agency for International Development Plan 
• Department of Education Plan
• Social Security Administration Plan [PDF] 
• Request for Information: Social Security Administration’s Plan for Increasing Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research (also issued opportunity for public comment
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Plan
• National Endowment for the Humanities posted an overview of their plan

Draft policies released since February 2024:

• The National Institutes of Health released their draft public access policy for public comment in June 2024
• Joint public engagements on public access and open science: Year of Open Science Culminating Conference 

Progress update:
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) continues to coordinate development of agency public access plans providing immediate and free public access to federally funded research publications and data through the Subcommittee on Open Science. Since OSTP updated the Open Government Commitment Tracker in August 2023, agencies with research and development expenditures have submitted their updated or newly developed public access plans for OSTP review. Several agencies have publicly posted their plans for community engagement and comment. In addition, agencies have collaborated through the Subcommittee on Open Science to host joint public engagement opportunities, including through listening sessions, to share the status of public access policy development efforts and to receive input from the community. To provide updates on agency efforts to coordinate open science and public access policies and programs, CENDI, an interagency working group of senior scientific and technical information managers, has refreshed open.science.gov, a site developed and maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI).

Evidence (plans released since August 2023):

• U.S. Geological Survey Plan
• U.S. Department of Agriculture Plan
• Social Security Administration Plan [PDF]
• U.S. Census Bureau Plan
• Administration for Community Living Plan
• Additional plans can be found on open.science.gov

Examples of interagency public engagement efforts on public access policy development:

• “How can public access advance equity and learning?” webinar co-hosted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS), with representation from OSTP, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
• “Enhancing Public Access to the Results of Research Supported by the Department of Health and Human Services” National Academies workshop sponsored by NIH, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Administration for Community Living (ACL), and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) continues to coordinate development of agency public access plans through the Subcommittee on Open Science. All agencies with over $100 million in annual research and development expenditures have submitted their updated public access plans for OSTP review, with several publicly posting their plans for community engagement and comment.

• NIH Plan
• AHRQ Plan
• NASA Plan [PDF]
• NSF Plan [PDF]
• DOE Plan
• NIST Plan

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed.

Evidence: See previous update.

Included in the 2022 OSTP Public Access Memo is the guidance that, ‘In consultation with OMB, federal agencies should allow researchers to include reasonable publication costs and costs associated with submission, curation, management of data, and special handling instructions as allowable expenses in all research budgets.’ Agencies are now working on their public access policies that allow for these reasonable costs. These policies are expected to be publicly posted by December 31, 2024 and will go into effect by December 31, 2025. To date, the National Institute of Health released updated guidance for including these costs.

Progress update:
Since OSTP's February 2024 update, agencies continue to implement programs aimed at awarding more opportunities for early-stage investigators, as well as researchers from diverse backgrounds, to participate in open science. Programs include implementing mentorship programs to build open science skills at NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Fisheries science centers. In addition, agencies have continued to make awards for grant proposals focused on advancing and enhancing capacity for open science, such as the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Community for Data Integration's support for 11 proposals that advance training opportunities, as well as software and tools to promote use. Agencies have also hosted workshops to understand how to increase the reach of their open science resources, including open data, to diverse communities of users, such as the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Community Engagement Workshop hosted in July 2024.

Evidence:

• Mentorship programs, including NASA Openscapes
•  NOAA Fisheries Openscapes
• Environmental Protection Agency Openscapes
• U.S. Geological Survey Community for Data Integration announces 11 funded proposals for advancing open science and implementing the USGS Data Strategy
• NIH Community Engagement Workshop: A Discussion of NIH Common Fund Data Resources

Progress update:
In January 2023, the White House declared 2023 a Year of Open Science, a multi-agency initiative coordinated through the Subcommittee on Open Science to advance national open science policies (see links below). Several activities center on engaging early-stage researchers and researchers from historically excluded backgrounds. Since OSTP’s August 2023 update to the Open Government Commitment Tracker, and as part of a Year of Open Science, NSF issued a Request for Information on improving equity throughout the research lifecycle, making data and opportunities available to all researchers. Agencies have continued to advance training opportunities to diverse communities to promote open science skill building. For example, in December 2023, NASA released its openly available Open Science 101 curriculum with a goal to train 20,000 scientists and researchers over the next five years, while working to reduce barriers to entry.

Evidence:

• OSTP fact sheet celebrating the anniversary of the launch of the 2023 Year of Open Science
• NSF Request for Information on Ensuring Open, Immediate, and Equitable Access to National Science Foundation Funded Research
• NASA press release on Open Science 101’s release and building an open, inclusive science community

In January 2023, the White House declared 2023 a Year of Open Science, a multi-agency initiative coordinated through the Subcommittee on Open Science to advance national open science policies (see links below). Several activities center on engaging early-stage researchers and researchers from historically excluded backgrounds, including a series of listening sessions with early career researchers to understand and elevate their needs, priorities, and experiences in advancing open science.

• open.science.gov
• Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces New Actions to Advance Open and Equitable Research
• NASA Boosts Open Science through Innovative Training
• NSF Invests in 10 Open Science Research Coordination Networks to Promote Open Science

Progress update:
Since OSTP's February 2024 update, winners for the Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge were selected and announced, highlighting their contributions to advancing equitable open science. Agencies also continue to engage with higher education leaders seeking to increase adoption of open science through enhanced incentives and capacity-building efforts.

Evidence:

• The White House OSTP Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge Press Release

Progress update:
In January 2023, the OSTP announced 2023 as a Year of Open Science to advance national open science policies and promote the adoption of open science. Agency activities and engagements throughout the year focused on a number of key themes, including activities to incentivize the adoption of open science practices. To recognize stories of federally supported open science success, OSTP launched the Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge on Challenge.gov, which closed in December 2023. The Challenge received nearly 150 submissions and OSTP is in the process of evaluating responses. Agencies have also participated in discussions with the leaders in the academic research community around incentive structures to recognize and reward open research practices. In January 2024, NASA sponsored a workshop by the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS) on modernizing tenure, promotion, review, and hiring to reward open scholarship and public access.

Evidence:

• The White House Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge
• NASA Leadership Workshop

As part of a Year of Open Science, Government agencies continue to engage with their stakeholder communities on strategies to advance incentives to recognize and reward open science practices. OSTP hosts listening sessions with the early career researcher community.

Progress update:
The Standard Application Process launched and started accepting applications in 2022. It provides a repository of metadata describing confidential data assets from OMB-recognized federal statistical agencies and units—and offers a streamlined, standardized process to request access to those assets for evidence-building purposes. With the initial functionality made public, the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy and OMB is overseeing the application moving forward, in alignment with M-23-04.

Evidence:

• M-23-04: [PDF] Establishment of Standard Application Process Requirements on Recognized Statistical Agencies and Units
• NCSES: The Standard Application Process

The Standard Application Process was launched and application acceptance started in 2022. The Interagency Council on Statistical Policy continues to engage with SAP stakeholders and is adding new features and metadata to the SAP inventory. Regular updates on progress can be found on the NCSES website.

Progress update:

A National Archives Catalog user research effort was completed in March 2024, and the National Archives is prioritizing the implementation of improvement recommendations that will have the greatest impact. The first six-month sprint of Catalog improvements was started in December 2023 and was completed in June 2024. This included removing a click-to-interact overlay for digital objects and changing the default sort order for files within a series and items within a file to lowest Catalog identifier first, which in most cases puts them in their original order to support user browsing. Search enhancements began in July and will be completed by September 2024. The National Archives Catalog now includes the display of optical character recognition (OCR) text when available for digitized and born-digital documents. This increases accessibility in the Catalog and supports Citizen Archivist missions, where contributors can now copy extracted text and validate the transcription more quickly than before. Keyword highlighting has also been enabled, which makes it easier for users to quickly find search terms in multi-page archival records. In response to feedback from the Citizen Archivist community, the contribution panel has also been updated to incorporate more flexibility and user preferences within the portal. These changes make it easier than ever for volunteers to contribute to the online transcription program. Finally, in July 2024, NARA updated the Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide, adding a New Contributions Chapter. New contribution types will be added to the Catalog application programming interface (API). The new contribution types will be available in the Catalog in early 2026.

Evidence:

• Catalog updates in the Catalog newsletter 
• Catalog example of digitized record with extracted text 
• Catalog example of digitized record with transcription and extracted text side by side 
• New Contributions Chapter in the Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide 

Progress update:

The new Catalog and the new optical character recognition tool launched in Beta in September 2022 and in production in November 2022.The Catalog launched new improved logging and web analytics measurement features for improved insights into Catalog user behavior. A new Catalog customer experience survey launched in December 2023 to inform user experience enhancements under development.

The new Archivist of The United States, Colleen Shogan, has expressed her strong interest in digital public engagement and specifically the user experience with NARA’s online Catalog. She established an interoffice executive working group and charged them with 6 month improvement windows to ensure that NARA makes strides to substantially impact the user experience for the better. Our first 6 month sprint concludes in June 2024. Initial plans include user experience research, pilot projects that explore the use of artificial intelligence for improving digital access, and digital collaboration projects.

Evidence:

• New catalog
• Catalog survey

The new catalog and the new optical character recognition tool launched in beta in September 2022 and in production in November 2022. Additional user experience enhancements are under development.

Progress update:

Funding has been requested to support a full redesign of the Archives.gov website. At this time, funding for the project is still pending approval. The planned modernization of Archives.gov will include upgrading the website’s content management system to the latest version (i.e. Drupal 10), and redesigning the layout of the website (including the homepage and all interior pages) to meet modern web design, user experience, and information architecture best practices. The project will leverage agile and user centered design methodologies, whereby the design direction and functionality of the website will be significantly influenced by the continuous feedback of key internal and external stakeholders. Methods such as benchmarking, user research, user interviews, focus groups, and product demos will be used to gather feedback throughout the project lifecycle, in order to ensure that the end result meets the needs of website users and other key project stakeholders.

Evidence: None.

Funding has been requested for FY24 to support a full redesign of the website.

Progress update:

Since July 2021, the National Archives has updated outdated descriptive language. NARA’s Reparative Description and Digitization Working Group (RDDWG) was established to bring together subject matter experts from across the agency to identify records that are of highest interest to previously underserved communities for expedited review and digitization. The RDDWG is now working to integrate user feedback into mainstream agency practices.

Evidence:

Archival Description

• Guiding Principles for Reparative Description
• Appendix to NARA’s Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide for Preferred and non-preferred terms
• Preferred term
• NARA Strategic Goal 1.3

Stakeholder Engagement: Digitization

• 14,000 digital objects in RG 228 Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 1940–1946
• RG 105 Records of Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1861-1880
• National Archives Supports Efforts to Digitize Important Records from Puerto Rico (collaboration with Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña)

Stakeholder Engagement: Community Driven Missions

• All Citizen Archivist Missions
• Record Group 94: Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Volunteer Organizations During the American Civil War, 1890 - 1912 
• Subset of records labeled as “United States Colored Troops 
• Record Group 29 1935 Agricultural Census of Puerto Rico records enhanced description project
• African American Patriots Transcription Mission (records tagged ""RWAA-ts1"" in the catalog)
• Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice Transcription Mission (records tagged ""rpcfep-ts1"" in the catalog)
• President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services - Final Report Files Transcription Mission (records tagged ""finrpffc-ts1"" in the catalog)

Progress update:

Since July, 2021, NARA has chartered a Reparative Description and Digitization Working Group (RDDWG), composed of representative individuals from across the agency. In addition to its emphasis on supporting and enhancing NARA’s long standing archival descriptive program and best practices, the RDDWG was tasked with additional primary functions. Most significantly, those functions included working to establish ongoing relationships with external community representatives, in cooperation with the NARA Equity Team. They also included identifying records that are of highest interest to underserved communities for reparative and enhanced description, digitization, and community engagement.

The RDDWG has developed an engagement model to identify and collaborate with internal and external stakeholders. During FY 22 and FY 23, the group engaged in stakeholder meetings with representatives of the African American and Puerto Rican communities, and have since built project plans and descriptive goals utilizing input gathered. To date, the RDDWG has collaborated with offices at NARA to accomplish the following:

Archival description

• Created Guiding Principles for Reparative Description
• Created Appendix to NARA’s Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide for Preferred and non-preferred terms
• Created processes and training materials for NARA staff based on approved terms for reparative description, to be incorporated into NARA’s archival description program
• Published preferred term updates based on feedback from African American and Puerto Rican community stakeholders
• In its first year of pilot operations, NARA reviewed approximately 9,000 catalog descriptions, which contributed to achieving NARA Strategic Goal 1.3

Stakeholder engagement: Digitization

• Identified high priority records for digitization based on internal and external stakeholder engagement
• Created three digitization proposals for holdings from NARA’s Office of Research Services relating to the African American (14,000 digital objects in RG 228 Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 1940–1946 and RG 105 Records of Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1861-1880 digitization work in progress) and Puerto Rican communities (work continues into FY 24)

Stakeholder engagement: Community Driven Missions

• Monitored work on existing missions utilizing NARA’s pre-existing ‘Citizen Archivist’ program:
  • Record Group 94: Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Volunteer Organizations During the American Civil War, 1890 - 1912, a subset of records labeled as “United States Colored Troops (USCT),” documenting the military service of Black Union soldiers
  • Tagging and Transcription of Chinese Heritage Records
• Established new project/mission through University of Puerto Rico stakeholder collaborative efforts: Record Group 29 1935 Agricultural Census of Puerto Rico records enhanced description project. Bulk downloads of these records are available on Archives.gov,

Evidence:

Archival description

• Guiding Principles for Reparative Description
• Appendix to NARA’s Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide for Preferred and non-preferred terms
• Preferred term
• NARA Strategic Goal 1.3

Stakeholder engagement: Digitization

• 14,000 digital objects in RG 228 Records of the Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 1940–1946
• RG 105 Records of Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1861-1880

Stakeholder engagement: Community Driven Missions

• Record Group 94: Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Volunteer Organizations During the American Civil War, 1890 - 1912
• Subset of records labeled as “United States Colored Troops (USCT),”
• Record Group 29 1935 Agricultural Census of Puerto Rico records enhanced description project

NARA reached out and engaged with internal and external stakeholders in the African American and Puerto Rican communities and established effective channels of communication to get their feedback on NARA services related to the description of holdings, digitization, and collaborative projects. NARA used that feedback to develop digitization and collaboration projects to enhance content and services.

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed.

Evidence: See previous update.

The Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget continue to post regular updates on agency performance in implementing Executive Order 14057 at sustainability.gov/progress.html.

Progress update: This commitment was previously completed.

Evidence: See previous update.

The Phase One Environmental Justice Scorecard was released in April 2023. The Phase One Scorecard provides a baseline assessment of the Federal Government’s efforts to secure environmental justice. It outlines steps taken, processes implemented, and other actions taken by Federal agencies in 2021 and 2022 to help achieve the Biden-Harris Administration’s environmental justice goals. The Phase One Scorecard reports progress in the following areas — advancing the Justice40 Initiative, implementing and enforcing environmental and civil rights law, and embedding environmental justice throughout the Federal Government.