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Today, the White House responded to the We The People e-petition on open access.

John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, released a memorandum directing 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.”

Today’s White house #OA directive & #FASTR = watershed for US public’s right to access taxpayer-funded research bit.ly/VBnwC6

February 22, 2013

Great the Pres. is joining the fight to provide free & open access of taxpayer funded research to the American public 1.usa.gov/15Bsenx

February 22, 2013

As Hayley Tsukayama notes in the Washington Post, the White House acknowledged the open access policies of the National Institutes of Health as a successful model for sharing research.

Was this a policy change? An open question on Twitter received clear answers:

@digiphile definitely, and an exciting one. Wonder if DOD/DARPA will get a pass though. #opengov

— Joseph Mosby (@josephmosby) February 22, 2013

@digiphile it is a policy change.NIH PMC only provides articles for free.”And analyze” in OSTP policy implies broader usage rights.

— Richard Akerman (@scilib) February 22, 2013

@digiphile Definitely jives with what I’m hearing from @gbinal at #apistrat regarding forward movement on exposing fed data through APIs

— Jeremia Kimelman (@jeremiak) February 22, 2013

@digiphile It’s a change—expanding NIH model more Fed agencies (over $100mil budget, i.e. NSF, DARPA, etc.) Mentions data, not just pubs.

— Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc) February 22, 2013

@digiphile It’s a change—expanding NIH model more Fed agencies (over $100mil budget, i.e. NSF, DARPA, etc.) Mentions data, not just pubs.

— Zeynep Tufekci (@techsoc) February 22, 2013

@digiphile It’s a marked policy change — the administration hadn’t taken a stance previously.

February 22, 2013

From the day they were announced, one of the biggest question marks about We The People e-petitions has always been whether the administration would make policy changes or take public stances it had not before on a given issue.

ThThe Obama administration has been considering access to federally funded scientific research for years, including a report to Congress in March 2012. The relevant e-petition, which had gathered more than 65,000 signatures had gone unanswered since May of last year.

While the memorandum and the potential outcomes from its release come with caveats, from that $100M threshold to national security or economic competitions, an answer from the director of the White House Office of Science Policy accompanied by a memorandum directing agencies to make changes is a substantive outcome.

While there are many reasons to be critical of some open government initiatives, it certainly appears that today, We The People were heard in the halls of government.