Category: Data Curation, Open Data, and Research Data Management

Implementation Roadmap for the European Open Science Cloud

The European Commission has released Implementation Roadmap for the European Open Science Cloud.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Overall, the document presents the results and available evidence from an extensive and conclusive consultation process that started with the publication of the Communication: European Cloud initiative (COM(2016)178) in April 2016.

The consultation upheld the intervention logic presented in the Communication, to create a fit for purpose pan-European federation of research data infrastructures, with a view to moving from the current fragmentation to a situation where data is easy to store, find, share and re-use.

On the basis of the consultation, the implementation Roadmap gives and overview of six actions lines for the implementation of the EOSC:

a) architecture, b) data, c) services, d) access & interfaces, e) rules and f) governance.

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"Data Librarianship: A Path and an Ethic. A Conversation between Thomas Padilla and Vicky Steeves"

Thomas Padilla and Vicky Steeves have published "Data Librarianship: A Path and an Ethic. A Conversation between Thomas Padilla and Vicky Steeves" in dh+lib.

I think a lot about the corporate capture of the scholarly record, and how my work in data management and reproducibility can either contribute to or disrupt that. With the rise of reproducibility as a buzzword, there are plenty of commercial entities ready to profit from so-called 'reproducibility platforms'. This represents yet another corporate capture of scholarship. I try to disrupt this by advocating for community-run, open source software for reproducibility, such as ReproZip (which I work on), o2r, and Binder. The same goes for data management platforms. We're seeing a lot of new data services springing up from major publishers and this is also something I am actively trying to combat.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Data Policies of Highly-Ranked Social Science Journals"

Mercè Crosas et al. have self-archived "Data Policies of Highly-Ranked Social Science Journals."

Here's an excerpt:

By encouraging and requiring that authors share their data in order to publish articles, scholarly journals have become an important actor in the movement to improve the openness of data and the reproducibility of research. But how many social science journals encourage or mandate that authors share the data supporting their research findings? How does the share of journal data policies vary by discipline? What influences these journals’ decisions to adopt such policies and instructions? And what do those policies and instructions look like?

We discuss the results of our analysis of the instructions and policies of 291 highly-ranked journals publishing social science research, where we studied the contents of journal data policies and instructions across 14 variables, such as when and how authors are asked to share their data, and what role journal ranking and age play in the existence and quality of data policies and instructions. We also compare our results to the results of other studies that have analyzed the policies of social science journals, although differences in the journals chosen and how each study defines what constitutes a data policy limit this comparison. We conclude that a little more than half of the journals in our study have data policies. A greater share of the economics journals have data policies and mandate sharing, followed by political science/international relations and psychology journals.

Finally, we use our findings to make several recommendations: Policies should include the terms "data," "dataset" or more specific terms that make it clear what to make available; policies should include the benefits of data sharing; journals, publishers, and associations need to collaborate more to clarify data policies; and policies should explicitly ask for qualitative data.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"What Do Data Librarians Think of the MLIS? Professionals’ Perceptions of Knowledge Transfer, Trends, and Challenges"

Camille V.L. Thomas and Richard J. Urban have published "What Do Data Librarians Think of the MLIS? Professionals' Perceptions of Knowledge Transfer, Trends, and Challenges " in College & Research Libraries.

Here's an excerpt:

There are existing studies on data curation programs in library science education and studies on data services in libraries. However, there is not much insight into how educational programs have prepared data professionals for practice. This study asked 105 practicing professionals how well they thought their education prepared them for professional experience. It also asked supervisors about their perceptions of how well employees performed. After analyzing the results, the investigators of this study found that changing the educational model may lead to improvements in future library data services.

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"Archiving Large-Scale Legacy Multimedia Research Data: A Case Study"

Claudia Yogeswaran and Kearsy Cormier have published "Archiving Large-Scale Legacy Multimedia Research Data: A Case Study " in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

In this paper we provide a case study of the creation of the DCAL Research Data Archive at University College London. In doing so, we assess the various challenges associated with archiving large-scale legacy multimedia research data, given the lack of literature on archiving such datasets. We address issues such as the anonymisation of video research data, the ethical challenges of managing legacy data and historic consent, ownership considerations, the handling of large-size multimedia data, as well as the complexity of multi-project data from a number of researchers and legacy data from eleven years of research.

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Global Access to Research Software: The Forgotten Pillar of Open Science Implementation

The Global Young Academy has released Global Access to Research Software: The Forgotten Pillar of Open Science Implementation .

Here's an excerpt:

The Global Young Academy (GYA), in collaboration with the Oxford-based organisation INASP, carried out a pilot survey to assess the quantity and quality of access to proprietary and open source software among researchers from all disciplines. . . .Emphasis was placed on gathering data from researchers based in Bangladesh, Ghana and Nigeria, whose access to and use of research software had not yet been extensively documented.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Data Availability, Reusability, and Analytic Reproducibility: Evaluating the Impact of a Mandatory Open Data Policy at the Journal Cognition"

Tom Hardwicke et al. have self-archived "Data Availability, Reusability, and Analytic Reproducibility: Evaluating the Impact of a Mandatory Open Data Policy at the Journal Cognition."

Here's an excerpt:

Access to research data is a critical feature of an efficient, progressive, and ultimately self-correcting scientific ecosystem. But the extent to which in-principle benefits of data sharing are realized in practice is unclear. Crucially, it is largely unknown whether published findings can be reproduced by repeating reported analyses upon shared data ("analytic reproducibility"). To investigate, we conducted an observational evaluation of a mandatory open data policy introduced at the journal Cognition. Interrupted time-series analyses indicated a substantial post-policy increase in data available statements (104/417, 25% pre-policy to 136/174, 78% post-policy), and data that were in-principle reusable (23/104, 22% pre-policy to 85/136, 62%, post-policy). However, for 35 articles with in-principle reusable data, the analytic reproducibility of target outcomes related to key findings was poor: 11 (31%) cases were reproducible without author assistance, 11 (31%) cases were reproducible only with author assistance, and 13 (37%) cases were not fully reproducible despite author assistance. Importantly, original conclusions did not appear to be seriously impacted. Mandatory open data policies can increase the frequency and quality of data sharing. However, suboptimal data curation, unclear analysis specification, and reporting errors can impede analytic reproducibility, undermining the utility of data sharing and the credibility of scientific findings.

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"The State of Assessing Data Stewardship Maturity —An Overview"

Ge Peng has published "The State of Assessing Data Stewardship Maturity —An Overview" in Data Science Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

Data stewardship encompasses all activities that preserve and improve the information content, accessibility, and usability of data and metadata. Recent regulations, mandates, policies, and guidelines set forth by the U.S. government, federal other, and funding agencies, scientific societies and scholarly publishers, have levied stewardship requirements on digital scientific data. This elevated level of requirements has increased the need for a formal approach to stewardship activities that supports compliance verification and reporting. Meeting or verifying compliance with stewardship requirements requires assessing the current state, identifying gaps, and, if necessary, defining a roadmap for improvement. This, however, touches on standards and best practices in multiple knowledge domains. Therefore, data stewardship practitioners, especially these at data repositories or data service centers or associated with data stewardship programs, can benefit from knowledge of existing maturity assessment models. This article provides an overview of the current state of assessing stewardship maturity for federally funded digital scientific data. A brief description of existing maturity assessment models and related application(s) is provided. This helps stewardship practitioners to readily obtain basic information about these models. It allows them to evaluate each model’s suitability for their unique verification and improvement needs.

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Practical Challenges For Researchers in Data Sharing

Springer Nature has released Practical Challenges For Researchers in Data Sharing.

Here's an excerpt:

This survey aims to understand researcher activity around sharing data at a particular point in the research lifecycle—when they are preparing their work for publication. In this it builds on previously published studies that explore data sharing more generally during the research process. It explores attitudes briefly, but focuses on actions and challenges in sharing data. Responses from over 7,700 researchers enabled us to draw new insights across subject felds and, to a lesser extent, across geographies.

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"Data We Trust—But—What Data?"

Jennifer Golbeck has published "Data We Trust—But—What Data?" in Reference & User Services Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

In the last year, we have not seen a massive removal of government data. We have seen targeted suppression and a general lack of concern for having government data sources reflect objective truth. Fortunately, many organizations are monitoring, archiving, and analyzing changes to official data.

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"Identifying Potential Solutions to Increase Discoverability and Reuse of Analog Datasets in Various Campus Locations"

Shannon L. Farrell and Julia Ann Kelly have published "Identifying Potential Solutions to Increase Discoverability and Reuse of Analog Datasets in Various Campus Locations" in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Describing, preserving, and providing access to data is now the purview of many science librarians, although the emphasis has been on data in electronic format. Data in paper or analog format might be found in many places around our campuses. At the University of Minnesota we conducted a preliminary investigation of analog data through discussions with faculty, staff, and the University Archives. We identified data in numerous locations, including the University Archives, personal collections, departmental holdings, museums, and off-campus research stations. We discovered data in many formats and carried out a few initial projects including creating a detailed inventory of one research center's analog data and digitizing and depositing one individual's dissertation data in our institutional repository. We also examined University Archives and discovered substantial amounts of analog data along with problems such as incomplete description or context. Overall we have identified several challenges and directions that we could take to make analog data more findable and available for reuse, but there is no clear single path forward.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Data Engagement Opportunities Scaffold: Development and Implementation"

Abigail Goben and Megan R. Sapp Nelson have published "The Data Engagement Opportunities Scaffold: Development and Implementation" in the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

While interest in research data management (RDM) services have grown, clarifying the path between traditional library responsibilities and RDM remains a challenge. While the literature has provided ideas about services and student-/researcher-focused data information literacy (DIL) competencies, nothing has yet brought these skill sets together to provide a pathway for librarians engaging in RDM. The Data Engagement Opportunities scaffold was developed to provide a strategic trajectory relating information science skills, the DIL competencies, the stages of the data life cycle, three levels of RDM engagement activities, and potential measurable outcomes. This scaffold provides direction for librarians looking to identify their current abilities and explore new opportunities.

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"Relaunch: Open Data Goldbook for Data Managers and Data Holders"

The European Data Portal has released "Relaunch: Open Data Goldbook for Data Managers and Data Holders."

Here's an excerpt:

How to build an Open Data strategy? How to implement an Open Data initiative? What is needed to put in place an Open Data lifecycle? How to ensure and monitor Open Data success? The European Data Portal has updated its Open Data Goldbook for Data Managers and Data Holders to answer all of these questions.

Go to the report.

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"The Open Data Charter’s Measurement Guide Is Now Open for Consultation!"

Danny Lãmmerhirt et al. have published "The Open Data Charter's Measurement Guide Is Now Open for Consultation!" in the Open Knowledge International Blog.

Here's an excerpt:

The Measurement and Accountability Working Group (MAWG) is launching the public consultation phase for the draft Open Data Charter Measurement* Guide! . . . .

The Guide explains how the Open Data Charter principles can be measured. It provides a comprehensive overview of existing open data measurement tools and their indicators, which assess the state of open government data at a national level. Many of the indicators analysed are relevant for local and regional governments, too.

See also: Open Data Charter Measurement Guide.

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"Defining the Role of Libraries in the Open Science Landscape: A Reflection on Current European Practice"

Paul Ayris and Tiberius Ignat have self-archived "Defining the Role of Libraries in the Open Science Landscape: A Reflection on Current European Practice."

Here's an excerpt:

This collaborative paper looks at how libraries can engage with and offer leadership in the Open Science movement. It is based on case studies and the results of an EU-funded research project on Research Data Management taken from European research-led universities and their libraries. It begins by analysing three recent trends in Science, and then links component parts of the research process to aspects of Open Science. The paper then looks in detail at four areas and identifies roles for libraries: Open Access and Open Access publishing, Research Data Management, E-Infrastructures (especially the European Open Science Cloud), and Citizen Science. The paper ends in suggesting a model for how libraries, by using a 4-step test, can assess their engagement with Open Science. This 4-step test is based on lessons drawn from the case studies.

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"The Modern Research Data Portal: A Design Pattern for Networked, Data-Intensive Science"

Kyle Chard et al. have published "The Modern Research Data Portal: A Design Pattern for Networked, Data-Intensive Science" in PeerJ.

Here's an excerpt:

In this article, we first define the problems that research data portals address, introduce the legacy approach, and examine its limitations. We then introduce the MRDP design pattern and describe its realization via the integration of two elements: Science DMZs (Dart et al., 2013) (high-performance network enclaves that connect large-scale data servers directly to high-speed networks) and cloud-based data management and authentication services such as those provided by Globus (Chard, Tuecke & Foster, 2014). We then outline a reference implementation of the MRDP design pattern, also provided in its entirety on the companion web site, https://docs.globus.org/mrdp, that the reader can study—and, if they so desire, deploy and adapt to build their own high-performance research data portal. We also review various deployments to show how the MRDP approach has been applied in practice: examples like the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Research Data Archive, which provides for high-speed data delivery to thousands of geoscientists; the Sanger Imputation Service, which provides for online analysis of user-provided genomic data; the Globus data publication service, which provides for interactive data publication and discovery; and the DMagic data sharing system for data distribution from light sources. We conclude with a discussion of related technologies and summary.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Data Sustainability and Reuse Pathways of Natural Resources and Environmental Scientists"

Yi Shen has self-archived "Data Sustainability and Reuse Pathways of Natural Resources and Environmental Scientists."

Here's an excerpt:

This paper presents a multifarious examination of natural resources and environmental scientists' adventures navigating the policy change towards open access and cultural shift in data management, sharing, and reuse. Situated in the institutional context of Virginia Tech, a focus group and multiple individual interviews were conducted exploring the domain scientists' all-around experiences, performances, and perspectives on their collection, adoption, integration, preservation, and management of data. . . . Based on these findings, this study provides suggestions on data modeling and knowledge representation strategies to support the long-term viability, stewardship, accessibility, and sustainability of scientific data.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Portage Releases Draft Institutional RDM Strategy Template"

The Portage Network has released "Portage Releases Draft Institutional RDM Strategy Template."

Here's an excerpt:

In response to the anticipated Tri-Agency research data management (RDM) policy, the Portage Institutional RDM Strategy Working Group has released a draft template and supporting guidance document that are designed to assist Canadian research institutions in developing an overarching strategy for RDM. These resources will exist as living documents, to be updated by the Working Group as needed.

See also: Template—Institutional Research Data Management Strategy and Institutional Research Data Management Strategy: Guidance Document.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"From Passive to Active, From Generic to Focused: How Can an Institutional Data Archive Remain Relevant in a Rapidly Evolving Landscape?"

Maria Cruz et al. have self-archived "From Passive to Active, From Generic to Focused: How Can an Institutional Data Archive Remain Relevant in a Rapidly Evolving Landscape?."

Here's an excerpt:

Founded in 2008 as an initiative of the libraries of three of the four technical universities in the Netherlands, the 4TU.Centre for Research Data (4TU.Research Data) provides since 2010 a fully operational, cross-institutional, long-term archive that stores data from all subjects in applied sciences and engineering.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Digital Archives as Big Data"

Luis Martinez-Uribe has self-archived "Digital Archives as Big Data."

Here's an excerpt:

Digital archives contribute to Big data. Combining social network analysis, coincidence analysis, data reduction, and visual analytics leads to better characterize topics over time, publishers' main themes and best authors of all times, according to the British newspaper The Guardian and from the 3 million records of the British National Bibliography.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 8 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"’Natural Allies’: Librarians, Archivists, and Big Data in International Digital Humanities Project Work"

Alex H. Poole and Deborah A. Garwood have self-archived "'Natural Allies': Librarians, Archivists, and Big Data in International Digital Humanities Project Work."

Here's an excerpt:

This paper first reviews the literature, concentrating on the relationships among digital humanities (DH), Library and Information and Science (LIS), and libraries and librarians. Second, it explains and justifies the study’s qualitative approach. Third, it reports the findings of the study and discusses their ramifications, focusing on librarians’ and archivists’ official and unofficial involvement in projects and on their specific roles and responsibilities.

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"Stewardship in the ‘Age of Algorithms’"

Clifford Lynch has published "Stewardship in the 'Age of Algorithms'" in First Monday.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper explores pragmatic approaches that might be employed to document the behavior of large, complex socio-technical systems (often today shorthanded as "algorithms") that centrally involve some mixture of personalization, opaque rules, and machine learning components. Thinking rooted in traditional archival methodology–focusing on the preservation of physical and digital objects, and perhaps the accompanying preservation of their environments to permit subsequent interpretation or performance of the objects–has been a total failure for many reasons, and we must address this problem. The approaches presented here are clearly imperfect, unproven, labor-intensive, and sensitive to the often hidden factors that the target systems use for decision-making (including personalization of results, where relevant); but they are a place to begin, and their limitations are at least outlined. Numerous research questions must be explored before we can fully understand the strengths and limitations of what is proposed here. But it represents a way forward.

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The Evolving Landscape of Federated Research Data Infrastructures

The Knowledge Exchange has released The Evolving Landscape of Federated Research Data Infrastructures.

Here's an excerpt:

This report, commissioned from Knowledge Exchange (KE), is an overview and synthesis of the evolving landscape of Federated Research Data Infrastructures (FRDIs) in the six KE partner countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The fieldwork and study underlying the report were undertaken by InformAll CIC during the first half of 2017, on the basis of interviews with experts from a range of organisations that run federated infrastructures in the respective countries.

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"CLIR Receives Sloan Foundation Grants for Software and Data Curation Fellows, Energy Fellows"

CLIR has released "CLIR Receives Sloan Foundation Grants for Software and Data Curation Fellows, Energy Fellows."

Here's an excerpt:

A $521,200 grant from Sloan's Energy and Environment program—its first to CLIR—will create a cohort of CLIR/Digital Library Federation (DLF) Postdoctoral Fellows in Data Curation for Energy Economics, a new area of focus for the postdoctoral fellowship program. Energy fellows will have joint appointments between energy research centers and libraries at four major universities for two years starting in 2018.

A $925,361 grant from Sloan's Digital Information Technology program, which has funded research data curation fellowships since 2012, will help support eight new scholar-practitioners to take leading roles in the development of sustainable approaches to software and research data curation in the sciences and social sciences.

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