Data Curation, Open Data, and Research Data Management

"Rethinking Transparency and Rigor from a Qualitative Open Science Perspective"

To further complicate matters, many qualitative researchers would posit that while secondary data are a combination of the researcher’s perceptions and observations, even primary data, such as interview transcripts, are filtered to some extent through the researcher. This is because, in qualitative research, the researcher is an instrument of both data collection and analysis . . . .

The researcher-as-instrument tradition also complicates discussions around reproducibility (i.e., the ability for another researcher to look at someone’s data and reproduce the analyses), one of the key components of rigor as it is currently discussed in the open science movement (NIH, n.d.). Quantitative researchers’ focus on reproducibility is often contrary to the tenets of qualitative research, particularly in methodologies aiming to uncover new ways of knowing, such as constructivist and grounded theory approaches. If one understands the researcher as a data collection instrument and a filter through which data is processed, strict quantitative-focused reproducibility becomes less likely—not through misconduct or error, but because ultimately, people conduct research, and people are not likely to have exactly the same perspectives. Guidelines that reinforce reproducibility without addressing this tension are not going to be useful for all researchers.

https://bit.ly/3MEbtnk

"A Pilot Study to Locate Historic Scientific Data in a University Archive"

Historic data in analog (or print) format is a valuable resource that is utilized by scientists in many fields. This type of data may be found in various locations on university campuses including offices, labs, storage facilities, and archives. This study investigates whether biological data held in one institutional university archives could be identified, described, and thus made potentially useful for contemporary life scientists. Scientific data was located and approximately half of it was deemed to be of some value to current researchers and about 20% included enough information for the study to be repeated. Locating individual data sets in the collections at the University Archives at the University of Minnesota proved challenging. This preliminary work points to possible ways to move forward to make raw data in university archives collections more discoverable and likely to be reused. It raises questions that can help inform future work in this area.

https://bit.ly/41JBMNb

"Initial Insight Into Three Modes of Data Sharing: Prevalence of Primary Reuse, Data Integration and Dataset Release in Research Articles"

While data sharing has received research interest in recent times, its real status remains unclear, owing to its ambiguous concept. To understand the current status of data sharing, this study examined primary reuse, data integration, and dataset release as the actual practices of data sharing. A total of 963 articles, chosen from those published in 2018 and registered in the Web of Science global citation database, were manually checked. Existing data were reused in the mode of data integration (13.3%) as frequently as they were for the mode of primary reuse (12.1%). Dataset release was the least common mode (9.0%). The results show the variation in data sharing and indicate the need for standardization of data description in articles based on thorough registration and expansion in public data archives to close the loop that results in the virtuous cycle of research data.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1546

"’We Share All Data with Each Other’: Data-Sharing in Peer-to-Peer Relationships"

The analysis identifies three social forms of data-sharing in peer-to-peer relationships: (a) closed communal sharing, which is based on a feeling of belonging together; (b) closed associative sharing, in which the participants act on the basis of an agreement; and (c) open associative sharing, which is oriented to “institutional imperatives” (Merton) and to formal regulations. The study shows that far more data-sharing is occurring in scientific practice than seems to be apparent from a concept of open data alone.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-023-09487-y

Open Science: A Practical Guide for Early-Career Researchers

Beginning researchers are an important link in the transition to Open Science, so this guide is aimed at PhD candidates, Research Master Students, and early-career researchers from all disciplines at Dutch universities and research institutes. [This guide will be very useful to non-Dutch researchers.] It is designed to accompany researchers in every step of their research, from the phase of preparing your research project and discovering relevant resources (chapter 2) to the phase of data collection and analysis (chapter 3), writing and publishing articles, data, and other research output (chapter 4), and outreach and assessment (chapter 5). Every chapter provides you with the best tools and practices to implement immediately.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7716152

Digital Scholarship Has Released Digital Curation Certificate and Master’s Degree Programs

Digital Scholarship has released Digital Curation Certificate and Master’s Degree Programs. This document describes digital curation certificate and master’s degree programs in North America, identifying those that are online. It does not cover individualized certificate programs, such as those at Indiana University Bloomington or the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Nor does it cover digital curation specializations within MLS and other master’s degree programs in iSchools. It is available as a website and a website PDF with live links.

"Spain Adopts National Open Access Strategy"

Spain has approved a four-year national strategy for open science, under which all outputs of publicly financed research will made available free upon publication.

Under the strategy open access will become the default mode for all research funded directly or indirectly, with public funds. . . .

A budget of €23.8 million in 2023 will be maintained annually until 2027.

https://bit.ly/414w2gY

"How and Why Do Researchers Reference Data? A Study of Rhetorical Features and Functions of Data References in Academic Articles"

Data reuse is a common practice in the social sciences. While published data play an essential role in the production of social science research, they are not consistently cited, which makes it difficult to assess their full scholarly impact and give credit to the original data producers. Furthermore, it can be challenging to understand researchers’ motivations for referencing data. Like references to academic literature, data references perform various rhetorical functions, such as paying homage, signaling disagreement, or drawing comparisons. This paper studies how and why researchers reference social science data in their academic writing. We develop a typology to model relationships between the entities that anchor data references, along with their features (access, actions, locations, styles, types) and functions (critique, describe, illustrate, interact, legitimize). We illustrate the use of the typology by coding multidisciplinary research articles (n = 30) referencing social science data archived at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). We show how our typology captures researchers’ interactions with data and purposes for referencing data. Our typology provides a systematic way to document and analyze researchers’ narratives about data use, extending our ability to give credit to data that support research.

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2023-010

Common Scholarly Communication Infrastructure Landscape Review

Scholarly communication is a complicated sector, with numerous participants and multiple mechanisms for communicating and reviewing materials created in an increasing variety of formats by researchers across the globe.[1] In turn, the researcher who seeks to use the products of this system wishes to discover, access, and use relevant and trustworthy materials as effortlessly as possible. The work of driving efficiency into this complex sector while bringing its multiple strands together seamlessly for the reader (or, increasingly, for a computational user) rests on a foundation of infrastructure, much of it shared across multiple publishers. In this landscape review, we seek to provide a high-level overview of the shared infrastructure that supports scholarly communication.

https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.318775

"Data Sharing in the Context of Community-Engaged Research Partnerships"

Over the past 20 years, the National Institutes for Health (NIH) has implemented several policies designed to improve sharing of research data, such as the NIH public access policy for publications, NIH genomic data sharing policy, and National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Moonshot public access and data sharing policy. . . . Important questions that we must consider as data sharing is expanded are to whom do benefits of data sharing accrue and to whom do benefits not accrue? In an era of growing efforts to engage diverse communities in research, we must consider the impact of data sharing for all research participants and the communities that they represent.

We examine the issue of data sharing through a community-engaged research lens, informed by a long-standing partnership between community-engaged researchers and a key community health organization (Kruse et al., 2022). We contend that without effective community engagement and rich contextual knowledge, biases resulting from data sharing can remain unchecked. We provide several recommendations that would allow better community engagement related to data sharing to ensure both community and researcher understanding of the issues involved and move toward shared benefits. By identifying good models for evaluating the impact of data sharing on communities that contribute data, and then using those models systematically, we will advance the consideration of the community perspective and increase the likelihood of benefits for all.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115895

"Estimating Social Bias in Data Sharing Behaviours: An Open Science Experiment"

Open data sharing is critical for scientific progress. Yet, many authors refrain from sharing scientific data, even when they have promised to do so. Through a preregistered, randomized audit experiment (N = 1,634), we tested possible ethnic, gender and status-related bias in scientists’ data-sharing willingness. 814 (54%) authors of papers where data were indicated to be ‘available upon request’ responded to our data requests, and 226 (14%) either shared or indicated willingness to share all or some data. While our preregistered hypotheses regarding bias in data-sharing willingness were not confirmed, we observed systematically lower response rates for data requests made by putatively Chinese treatments compared to putatively Anglo-Saxon treatments. Further analysis indicated a theoretically plausible heterogeneity in the causal effect of ethnicity on data-sharing. In interaction analyses, we found indications of lower responsiveness and data-sharing willingness towards male but not female data requestors with Chinese names. These disparities, which likely arise from stereotypic beliefs about male Chinese requestors’ trustworthiness and deservingness, impede scientific progress by preventing the free circulation of knowledge.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02129-8

"Building a Large-Scale Digital Library Search Interface Using the Libraries Online Catalog"

The Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program (KDNP) was born out of the University of Kentucky Libraries’ (UKL) work in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) that began in 2005. In early 2021, a team of specialists at UKL from library systems, digital archives, and metadata management was formed to explore a new approach to searching this content by leveraging the power of the library services platform (Alma) and discovery system (Primo VE) licensed from Ex Libris. The result was the creation of a dedicated Primo VE search interface that would include KDNP content as well as all Kentucky newspapers held on microfilm in the UKL system. This article will describe the journey from the question of whether we could harness the power of Alma and Primo VE to display KDNP content, to the methodology used in creating a new dedicated search interface that can be replicated to create custom search interfaces of your own.

https://journal.code4lib.org/articles/17257

Paywall: "We Need a Plan D"

Researchers, institutions and funders should collaborate to develop an overarching strategy for data preservation — a plan D. There will doubtless be calls for a ‘PubMed Central for data’. But what we really need is a federated system of repositories with functionality tailored to the information that they archive. This will require domain experts to agree standards for different types of data from different fields: what should be archived and when, which format, where, and for how long.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01817-y

"Science Journals Integrate Dryad to Simplify Data Deposition and Strengthen Scientific Reproducibility"

The Science family journals have announced a partnership with the nonprofit data repository Dryad that simplifies the process by which authors deposit data underlying new work — a critical step to facilitating data’s routine reuse. The partnership is yet another step taken by the Science journals to ensure data the scientific community requires to verify, replicate and reanalyze new research is openly available. . . .

Because the partnership with Dryad integrates Dryad’s platform with the Science family journal’s submission process, authors will have the option to deposit data at Dryad directly from the submission site of any Science family journal. As authors submit research to the journals, they will be prompted about data availability and welcome to deposit their data to any suitable disciplinary repository. But, if data do not yet have a home, authors will have the opportunity to upload their data to Dryad. . . .

To ensure that this service is widely available, the Science journals will cover costs of Dryad data publication for accepted papers.

http://bit.ly/43wtVoD

"Guest Post — Why Interoperability Matters for Open Research — And More Than Ever"

The question remains, why have we not achieved more in delivering connectivity across the research system? While funding for this kind of underpinning infrastructure is notable in its absence (or where it is available it is often too temporary in nature), the other major challenge is in securing adoption among the service providers (funders, publishers, and institutions among the key players) that would maximize the use and potential of building those connections. It is notoriously hard for organisations to tweak or adapt existing workflows and legacy systems and to demonstrate the benefits (and hence prioritise the work) at an individual organisation level that may seem obvious at a system level.

https://cutt.ly/K7hxFQz

Accessibility Data Curation Primer

Data curators are uniquely positioned to help improve access not just to individual datasets, but to the world of research data at large. As guides to and stewards of data, curators can counsel researchers on how to build accessibility into data planning, collection, analysis, and archiving. This primer is intended as a starting point for data curators who are invested in improving the accessibility of individual files or datasets, rather than as definitive guide. There is far more work to be done than can be addressed in the scope of this primer. Disability is also a complex concept with a diversity of possible presentations, which will present varying (sometimes even conflicting) accessibility needs.

https://hdl.handle.net/11299/253392

Digital Scholarship Releases New PDF Versions of Its Bibliographies

This spring, Digital Scholarship’s bibliographies in the HTML format were reformatted as single page files with internal navigation. This included all bibliographies that were in HTML format only as well as the HTML versions of paperback books. These new PDFs are in a 12 point font and are designed for printing; however, they also have live links for immediate access. There were no content changes. For a list of all Digital Scholarship publications, see the site map.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography, v. 3

Altmetrics Bibliography

Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography, v. 2

Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works

Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works, 2012 Supplement

Digital Curation Resource Guide

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, v.7

E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography

Google Books Bibliography, v. 7

Institutional Repository Bibliography, v. 4

Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals

Open Access Journals Bibliography

Open Access Webliography

Research Data Curation Bibliography, v. 10

Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography

Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, v. 80

Transforming Peer Review Bibliography

Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography

"Scaling Identifiers and their Metadata to Gigascale: An Architecture to Tackle the Challenges of Volume and Variety"

Persistent identifiers are applied to an ever-increasing variety of research objects, including software, samples, models, people, instruments, grants, and projects, and there is a growing need to apply identifiers at a finer and finer granularity. Unfortunately, the systems developed over two decades ago to manage identifiers and the metadata describing the identified objects no longer scale. Communities working with physical samples have grappled with these three challenges of the increasing volume, variety, and variability of identified objects for many years. To address this dual challenge, the IGSN 2040 project explored how metadata and catalogues for physical samples could be shared at the scale of billions of samples across an ever-growing variety of users and disciplines. In this paper, we focus on how we scale identifiers and their describing metadata to billions of objects and who the actors involved with this system are. Our analysis of these requirements resulted in the definition of a minimum viable product and the design of an architecture that not only addresses the challenges of increasing volume and variety but, more importantly, is easy to implement because it reuses commonly used Web components. Our solution is based on a Web architectural model that utilises Schema.org, JSON-LD, and sitemaps. Applying these commonly used architectural patterns on the internet allows us to not only handle increasing variety but also enable better compliance with the FAIR Guiding Principles.

http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2023-005

"Interoperable Infrastructure for Software and Data Publishing"

Achieving scalable, high-quality, interoperable data and software publishing is possible. There are already builders, some represented by the authorship of this article, that are on the right path, building tools that effectively meet the needs of researchers in an open and pluggable way. One example is InvenioRDM, a flexible and turn-key next-generation research data management repository built by CERN and more than 25 multi-disciplinary partners world-wide; InvenioRDM leverages community standards and supports FAIR practices out of the box. Another example of agnostic, pluggable tooling, in this case for software submission, are the submission workflow tools currently developed in the HERMES project. These allow researchers to automate the publication of software artifacts together with rich metadata, to create software publications following the FAIR Principles for Research Software.

http://bit.ly/42Lc5Oe

"Springer Nature Makes Data Sharing Easier with Single Data Policy across All Journals and Books"

Springer Nature has taken a further step forwards in its commitment to open science by requiring mandatory data availability statements (DAS) across its journals portfolio, and introducing its first unified data policy across the books portfolio.

Despite researchers’ support for open data sharing, less than 40% of authors actively make their data available. Researchers tell us this can be down to practical challenges, including a lack of clarity about what is required. Increasingly, governments, funders and research institutes are adopting data sharing requirements in their policies. Encouraging data sharing across all publishing formats recognises this growing need for clearer, more accessible, actionable and measurable data policies. As a longstanding supporter of Open Research, Springer Nature is Introducing DAS as standard for its journal portfolio to promote greater transparency and reproducibility. Adopting a unified policy for books for the first time, is a further exciting step towards encouraging open research practices across all publications and driving forward open science for all.

http://bit.ly/3FNihv9

Study on the Readiness of Research Data and Literature Repositories to Facilitate Compliance With the Open Science Horizon Europe MGA Requirement

In this study we analysed 220 repositories and, via a structured methodology, we identified 165 trusted repositories and tested their readiness to facilitate the compliance with the HE MGA Open Science requirements.

We show that it is not straightforward to assess whether a given repository is suitable to facilitate compliance with the HE MGA requirements. This is mainly due to varying interpretations of definitions and requirements, whether information on repository specifications is publicly available, and the high level of technical expertise needed to assess all requirements.

We highlight that repository registries, such as FAIRsharing, re3data or the CoreTrustSeal (CTS) website, are not sufficient on their own to assess the readiness of repositories to facilitate compliance with the HE MGA requirements, as the definition of what constitutes a trusted repository is subtle and varied and needs to be carefully interpreted and applied to repositories. This is also the case for related concepts such as community endorsement or for policy requirements in terms of preservation, curation and security of the repository contents.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7728016

Paywall: "Characterizing Data Practices in Research Papers Across Four Disciplines"

In this paper, we focus on the five most common types of RDP — collecting data, processing data, analyzing data, representing data, and publishing or citing data. First, we compared the distributions of the five types of RDP across disciplines and observed noticeable differences between disciplines. In addition, we examined the characteristics of each type of RDP under different disciplinary contexts, by developing discipline-specific RDP vocabulary employing the tf-idf approach. Based on the common terms as well as the discipline-specific ones, we found that the five types of RDP can be distinctly conceptualized, while each type of RDP varies by disciplines in terms of their action, object, and instrument.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28035-1_26

Paywall: "Trustworthy Digital Repository Certification: A Longitudinal Study"

To understand the impact of certification on repositories’ infrastructure, processes, and services, we analyzed a sample of publicly available TDR audit reports (n = 175) from the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) and Core Trust Seal (CTS) certification programs. This first longitudinal study of TDR certification over a ten-year period (from 2010 to 2020) found that many repositories either maintain a relatively high standard of trustworthiness in terms of their compliance with guidelines in DSA or CTS standards or improve their trustworthiness by raising their compliance levels with these guidelines each time they get recertified.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28032-0_42

"Evolution of Research Data Management in Academic Libraries: A Review of the Literature"

The study is qualitative in nature and based on an extensive literature review survey. The analysis of the reviewed literature reveals that the idea of RDM has emerged as a new addition to library research support services. The more recent literature clearly established the pivotal role of libraries and librarians in developing and managing RDM services. However, data sharing practices and the development of RDM services in libraries are more prevalent in developed countries. While these trends are still lacking among researchers and libraries in developing countries.

https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669231157405

Are the Humanities Ready for Data Sharing?

To get a sense of trends in data sharing within the humanities, we conducted semi-structured interviews with key personnel at several humanities projects with strong data components. The interviews focused on identifying where and how they planned to share their research data, how they imagined it might be used by others, and their perspective on barriers and opportunities to data sharing in the humanities. The research agendas, skills, and perspectives of the people we spoke with are not representative of most humanities-oriented research. However, the interviews provide important insight into the thinking of humanists who are already working across the cultural divide around data that separate the humanities from most other academic disciplines. We use them here as a springboard for consideration of what humanities data is, how to access and preserve it, and how it fits into the larger goals of creating an open research culture.

https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.318526