February 2024

On February 26, AERA submitted comments on three areas of proposed revisions to the Education Department General Administrative Regulations and Related Regulatory Provisions (EDGAR). The proposed revisions would update provisions related to the department’s direct grant programs, state-administered programs, and definitions that apply to the agency’s regulations. The regulations were last updated in 2013.

AERA’s comments noted support for the proposed authority for the department to require independent evaluations for direct grant programs and for making the data from independent evaluations available for use by researchers.

AERA Executive Director Felice Levine encouraged the department to implement a process for researchers’ access to restricted-use data from these evaluations that mirrors the current process in place for restricted-use access to data sets from longitudinal studies conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics and large-scale evaluations conducted by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.

The comments also provided two recommendations related to public access for scholarly publications and data supported by Department of Education grants. Levine urged the department to align the proposed new regulation that would enable public access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications from department-funded grants with the requirements of the 2022 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memorandum Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research. The OSTP memo includes requirements for federal agencies to update public access plans to make federally funded research available immediately upon publication. The proposed revisions would require that the department make publications available within 12 months, reflecting prior policy.

In addition, Levine encouraged the department to include language to implement the data access requirements of the 2022 OSTP memo. The comments include proposed language for department grantees to share scientific data that underlie department-funded scholarly publications in trusted repositories upon publication.

The comments also supported the new definition of “peer-reviewed scholarly publication” and encouraged the inclusion of a definition of “scientific data” that would apply to publications with funding support from Department of Education grants.