Fundamental Science Practices Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, all scientific information products, including those submitted to an agency that has provided funding to the USGS to carry out scientific research, assessments, or investigations reporting final technical outcomes (new interpretive information) of a project must be peer reviewed and receive Bureau approval.

Abstracts may be for scientific conference or meeting sessions or they can be extended abstracts. Science Center Director determines need for peer review of short abstracts and grants Bureau approval. Extended abstracts have the same approval requirements as journal articles and require approval by an OSQI Bureau Approving Official. Abstracts must be tracked in the IPDS. [Read more]

Presentation materials and poster sessions presented once and not left for conference dissemination or posted on a public website do not require peer review; however, the Science Center Director has discretion to require peer review. Poster session/presentation materials requiring Bureau approval must be tracked and approval documented in the IPDS. [Read more]

If previously approved abstract, poster session, or presentation is reused in a different meeting venue, additional Bureau approval is not required as long as the content has not substantially changed. Authors should always ensure that supervisors and management are informed whenever USGS scientific information is presented, even if the material has been presented in a prior venue. [Read more]

No, working notes, field notes, and other related material that have not met FSP requirements of peer review and Bureau approval cannot be publicly posted. These materials are considered predecisional and are protected from public disclosure, unless materials have been specifically included for publication as part of the approved manuscript or are subject to a FOIA request.

The USGS OCAP provides policy direction for audiovisual products, including video productions, motion picture films, public service announcements, video news features, and electronic/satellite transmissions that are produced by or attributed to the USGS. OCAP reviews, approves, and certifies these products for approval by DOI Office of Communications. [Read more]

The intent of the book review is to address the content, not advance the notion of purchase. Book reviews are, by definition, new interpretive content. As for other new interpretive science information, two peer reviews are required and Bureau approval by a BAO is required for the book review prior to it being submitted to the journal for publication. [Read more]

Upon completion of the dissemination task for an information product in IPDS, bibliographic metadata are transferred from IPDS to Publications Warehouse for creating product citation pages. Accurate and complete bibliographic information must be entered in the IPDS and the dissemination task must be completed in a timely manner to catalog and index product in the Publications Warehouse.[Read more]

The Publications Warehouse catalog includes, but is not limited to, citation pages for USGS publication series, outside publications (such as journal articles, books, book chapters, other government and nongovernment publications, cooperator publications, and conference proceedings) prepared by USGS and other authors, and extramural publications (produced by non-USGS authors funded by USGS). [Read...

Information products outside the scope of the Publications Warehouse, such as abstracts, posters, presentations, data releases, and software releases, are not cataloged in the Publications Warehouse.

Full text information products published by the USGS, such as USGS series publications, are provided for download from the Publications Warehouse. The Publications Warehouse also provides links to cooperators' and external publishers’ websites that provide the full text of USGS-authored publications when the links are available. [Read more]

Data release information product records are not cataloged as standalone citation pages in the Publications Warehouse. The official catalog for USGS data releases is the USGS Science Data Catalog. However, links to data releases associated with a companion publication are added to the associated publication’s citation page in the Publications Warehouse. [Read more]

No, the Publications Warehouse only contains information products prepared by authors who were affiliated with the USGS when the work was performed. USGS authors can capture their entire body of work on their ORCID profiles. [Read more]

Data collected on behalf of the USGS or by using USGS funds belong to the USGS and not to the individual who collected the data. The DMP should specify data ownership, the data preservation responsibilities, and party responsible for providing the data to the public. [Read more]

All supporting digital research data approved for release for final accepted manuscripts or final publications must be freely available for public access at the same time as or before the official publication date, with some exceptions allowed. [Read more]

Cooperator publications are scientific information products funded and released by an external cooperator to which USGS authors contribute. Cooperator publications are prepared under formal collaborative agreements between the USGS and Federal, Tribal, State, local, academia or other parties. [Read more]

To comply with FSP, the requirements for release of the publication, and any associated data release, must be specified in a signed agreement between USGS and the cooperator, the publication must be reviewed and approved through the USGS Information Product Data System (IPDS), and be made available on a publicly accessible website by the cooperator. [Read more]

Cooperator publications are released on cooperator websites. Because the results of Federal Government scientific research must be made publicly available, these publications must be hosted on a publishing platform with continued persistent public accessibility. [Read more]

Editing and formatting requirements are applied to cooperator publications according to the cooperator’s publishing standards. Although cooperator publications are not required to follow the editorial requirements for USGS series publications, Bureau writing quality and standards must be met. [Read more]

Citations for cooperator publications may list USGS authors by individual names or by using the Bureau name (U.S. Geological Survey). In all cases, the citation must include the cooperator’s name as the publisher. For examples [Read more]

The cooperator determines use and placement of the trademarked USGS identifier or a text identification line (such as "Prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey") based on their own visual identity/logo requirements. To acknowledge the Bureau’s contribution, USGS authors should request that USGS be prominently displayed. [Read more]