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Open Recommendations (12 total)

Research Reliability: Federal Actions Needed to Promote Stronger Research Practices

GAO-22-104411
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of NSF should collect information on relevant indicators of rigor to assess the research projects the agency funds, and implement steps, as needed, to promote strong research practices in future work. (Recommendation 3)
Open
NSF agreed with this recommendation. On January 17, 2023, NSF stated that it will support research and workshops aimed at developing an understanding of possible candidates for robust indicators of rigor in different types of science and engineering research. The information gathered from the workshops, and research on scientific rigor indicators, will inform the policies and procedures that NSF can use to enhance the rigor of the research projects the agency funds and promote the use of sound and improved research practices. This work will take place between September 2023 and September 2025.

Research Reliability: Federal Actions Needed to Promote Stronger Research Practices

GAO-22-104411
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of NSF should take steps to collect information to determine whether current policies and requirements are adequate to achieve transparency by ensuring research results and data are findable, accessible, and usable, and implement programmatic or policy changes, if needed. (Recommendation 4)
Open
NSF agreed with this recommendation. On January 17, 2023, NSF stated that it will conduct a study to assess the degree to which current policies and practices are ensuring that research results and data are findable, accessible, and reusable. NSF will explore strategies to improve public access to research outputs. The information gathered from these efforts will inform potential updates to policies and procedures which support transparency and public access to the products of research made possible through NSF awards. As part of this activity, NSF anticipates that the next update to its Public Access Plan will occur in FY 2023.

Cybersecurity Workforce: Actions Needed to Improve Cybercorps Scholarship for Service Program

GAO-22-105187
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of the National Science Foundation, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, should periodically evaluate and make public, information on how long CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service Program scholarship recipients stay in the positions they enter upon graduation. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The National Science Foundation (NSF), concurred with the recommendation and plans to implement it by April 30, 2024, but as of April 2024 has not provided sufficient evidence that it has implemented the recommendation. We will continue to monitor the situation.

Cybersecurity Workforce: Actions Needed to Improve Cybercorps Scholarship for Service Program

GAO-22-105187
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2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of the National Science Foundation should provide Congress with all required information in a timely manner for the CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service Program so Congress can use this information to make informed decisions regarding the SFS Program. (Recommendation 2)
Open
The National Science Foundation (NSF), concurred with the recommendation and plans to implement it by April 30, 2024, but as of April 2024 has not provided sufficient evidence that it has implemented the recommendation. We will continue to monitor the situation.
National Science Foundation The Director of the National Science Foundation should develop and implement a risk management strategy that includes a process to effectively identify, analyze, mitigate, and report CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service Program risks and challenges. (Recommendation 3)
Open
The National Science Foundation (NSF), concurred with the recommendation and plans to implement it by May 31, 2023, but as of April 2024 has not provided sufficient evidence that it has implemented the recommendation. We will continue to monitor the situation.

Data Center Optimization: Additional Agency Actions Needed to Meet OMB Goals

GAO-19-241
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of the National Science Foundation should take action to meet the data center optimization metric targets established under DCOI by OMB. (Recommendation 29)
Open
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has taken initial steps to implement our recommendation. As of December 2023, the Federal IT Dashboard showed that it had met two of its four fiscal year 2022 data center optimization targets tracked by OMB. We will continue to monitor its progress.

National Science Foundation: Additional Steps Would Improve Cost Estimate for Antarctic Research Infrastructure Project

GAO-24-106380
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of NSF should ensure that the Antarctic Infrastructure Modernization for Science cost estimate meets the well-documented characteristic of a reliable cost estimate, as defined in GAO's cost guide. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Data Governance: Agencies Made Progress in Establishing Governance, but Need to Address Key Milestones

GAO-21-152
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of the National Science Foundation should direct the Chief Data Officer to conduct a gap analysis between the current staff's skills and the skills the agency requires, and establish a baseline performance plan to close the identified data skills and literacy gaps. (Recommendation 9)
Open
In October 2021, National Science Foundation (NSF) officials said that NSF completed its skills gap analysis as part of its initial data maturity and capacity assessment. In February 2023, NSF reported that it is currently addressing the Evidence Act gap activities and anticipates it will have an updated timeline by the 3rd quarter of fiscal year 2023. We will continue to monitor NSF's develop of its performance plans.

Earthquakes: Opportunities Exist to Further Assess Risk, Build Resilience, and Communicate Research

GAO-22-105016
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of NSF should, in collaboration with NIST, develop strategies to better communicate NEHRP's priorities to research entities. (Recommendation 4)
Open
As of October 2023, NSF officials report that they are developing strategies to better communicate NEHRP priorities and relevant research findings to appropriate audiences. These strategies may include 1) adding information about research priorities to relevant solicitations; 2) adding information about priorities to NSF web pages; and 3) discussing the priorities during outreach events attended by relevant research entities.

Federal Research: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Public Access to Research Results

GAO-20-81
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
National Science Foundation The Director of the National Science Foundation should fully implement plans to ensure appropriate agency-funded research data are readily findable and accessible to the public. (Recommendation 7)
Open – Partially Addressed
NSF concurred with this recommendation. According to its response to our report, NSF is expanding its public access repository to include metadata records about data that support publications resulting from NSF-funded research. NSF's response stated that, by storing metadata records for supporting datasets alongside metadata records for publications, the public will be able to more easily find and access appropriate agency funded research data. In an NSF update as of March 2022, NSF stated that, in December 2021, it implemented NSF-PAR version 2.0 which enables the system to accept dataset records and ensure agency-funded research data are readily findable and accessible to the public. NSF provided evidence of dataset availability through the NSF-PAR system in March 2023 indicating that 577 datasets were available as of that time. NSF provided additional information in July 2023 describing the new features in NSF-PAR 2.5, such as enhanced search and filtering capabilities. According to the information NSF provided in July 2023, it is optional for researchers to add datasets to the PAR. NSF is working on developing guidance for researchers in advance of a January 31, 2025, effective date for agency requirements that researchers add datasets to the PAR. NSF expects to complete the guidance by December 31, 2024. An NSF official reconfirmed this in March 2024 and added that NSF is working to modify its annual reporting systems and the NSF PAR to remove embargo periods. We will continue to monitor NSF's actions to implement this recommendation and will provide an update when we obtain additional information.
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