Federal mandates and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS, also known as the Bureau) Fundamental Science Practices (FSP) policies require that publicly funded scientific data, publications, and derivative works be openly accessible to researchers and the public. Open access helps to leverage the public investment by making the acquired data and published information products-collectively referred to as "data assets"-easier to locate, reproduce, and reuse. Open access also provides transparency to the processes used to acquire and analyze the data, thereby helping to ensure the scientific integrity of USGS data and products. The data assets produced by USGS programs, science centers, and projects are preserved digitally in various USGS and non-USGS repositories (see, for example, fig. 1). To capitalize on the investment expended for data collection, analysis, and interpretation, these systems must remain useful and meaningful. For USGS repositories, the Bureau FSP Advisory Committee (FSPAC) has implemented an evaluation process to ensure that the systems being used to preserve these data assets are trustworthy, reliable, and secure. A system that is found to meet the reliability and suitability requirements is certified as a USGS Trusted Digital Repository (TDR).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.