Data Curation, Open Data, and Research Data Management – Page 38

"Librarians’ Perspectives on the Factors Influencing Research Data Management Programs"

College & Research Libraries has released an e-print of "Librarians' Perspectives on the Factors Influencing Research Data Management Programs."

Here's an excerpt:

This qualitative research study examines librarians' research data management (RDM) experiences, specifically the factors that influence their ability to support researchers' needs. Findings from interviews with 36 academic library professionals in the United States identify 5 factors of influence: 1) technical resources, 2) human resources, 3) researchers' perceptions about the library, 4) leadership support, and 5) communication, coordination, and collaboration. Findings show different aspects of these factors facilitate or constrain RDM activity. The implications of these factors on librarians' continued work in RDM are considered.

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W3C: Data on the Web Best Practices

W3C has released Data on the Web Best Practices.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

W3C is delighted to publish its Data on the Web Best Practices as a Recommendation. The document offers 35 Best Practices for sharing data, openly or not, in a way that maximizes the potential of the Web as a data platform rather than simply as a way to send data from A to B. The Best Practices are prescriptive in their intended outcomes but not in how those outcomes are achieved. They cover everything from the basics (provide metadata!) through nuance (provide structural metadata), to topics like licensing, provenance and basic information on providing APIs through to more advanced topics like data archiving, data enrichment and republishing data.

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PLOS: Response to NIH RFI—Strategies for NIH Data Management, Sharing, and Citation

PLOS has released Response to NIH RFI—Strategies for NIH Data Management, Sharing, and Citation.

Here's an excerpt:

We write to express the views of the Public Library of Science, a fully Open Access Publisher of seven Research Journals, in response to your RFI on Data Sharing, Management, and Citation. Open access to Research Articles is just the first step in what we consider should be the end state for all publicly funded research, and we support broader efforts towards open science. We are developing our own policies to help establish a new norm in which upon publication of a journal article, if not before, all of the underlying data (where ethically appropriate) is openly available to access and reuse without restriction according to the FAIR principles for data management to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable.

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"A Metadata-Driven Approach to Data Repository Design"

Matthew J. Harvey, Andrew McLean, and Henry S. Rzep have published "A Metadata-Driven Approach to Data Repository Design" in the Journal of Cheminformatics.

Here's an excerpt:

The design and use of a metadata-driven data repository for research data management is described. Metadata is collected automatically during the submission process whenever possible and is registered with DataCite in accordance with their current metadata schema, in exchange for a persistent digital object identifier. Two examples of data preview are illustrated, including the demonstration of a method for integration with commercial software that confers rich domain-specific data analytics without introducing customisation into the repository itself.

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"Preserving Transactional Data"

Sara Day Thomson has published "Preserving Transactional Data" in The International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper discusses requirements for preserving transactional data and the accompanying challenges facing the companies and institutions who aim to re-use these data for analysis or research. It presents a range of use cases—examples of transactional data—in order to describe the characteristics and difficulties of these 'big' data for long-term access. Based on the overarching trends discerned in these use cases, the paper will define the challenges facing the preservation of these data early in the curation lifecycle. It will point to potential solutions within current legal and ethical frameworks, but will focus on positioning the problem of re-using these data from a preservation perspective.

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"Uniform Resolution of Compact Identifiers for Biomedical Data"

Sarala Wimalaratne et al. have self-archived "Uniform Resolution of Compact Identifiers for Biomedical Data."

Here's an excerpt:

We report here on significant further work by our team toward making compact identifiers available for long-term use in an ecosystem supporting formal citation of primary research data. This approach is intended to be robust beyond the operational and funding scope of any one organization, enabling long-term resolution of cited persistent data in archives. We demonstrate that multiple resolvers with fundamentally different underlying code bases, organizational settings and international alignments, can readily support this approach. As part of this project we have deployed public, production-quality resolvers using a common registry and rules model. This harmonizes the work of n2t.net, based at the California Digital Library (CDL), University of California Office of the President, and identifiers.org, based at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). Both resolvers, while derived from independently developed code bases, with different features and objectives, can now uniformly resolve compact identifiers according to our rule set, using a set of common procedures and redirection rules. We believe these products and our approach will be of significant help to publishers and others implementing persistent, machine-resolvable citation of research data in compliance with emerging science policy body recommendations and funder requirements.

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"A Data Citation Roadmap for Scientific Publishers"

Helena Cousijn et al. have self-archived "A Data Citation Roadmap for Scientific Publishers."

Here's an excerpt:

This article presents a practical roadmap for scholarly publishers to implement data citation in accordance with the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles (JDDCP), a synopsis and harmonization of the recommendations of major science policy bodies. It was developed by the Publishers Early Adopters Expert Group as part of the Data Citation Implementation Pilot (DCIP) project, an initiative of FORCE11.org and the NIH BioCADDIE program. The structure of the roadmap presented here follows the 'life of a paper' workflow and includes the categories Pre-submission, Submission, Production, and Publication. The roadmap is intended to be publisher-agnostic so that all publishers can use this as a starting point when implementing JDDCP-compliant data citation.

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"The Research Life Cycle and the Health Sciences Librarian: Responding to Change in Scholarly Communication"

Andrea M. Ketchum has published "The Research Life Cycle and the Health Sciences Librarian: Responding to Change in Scholarly Communication" in the Journal of the Medical Library Association.

Here's an excerpt:

With so many areas within the librarian’s scope of expertise, it is not surprising that some medical libraries employ research life cycle analysis for strategic planning. Using a localized model, librarians can map resources and services to research tasks or needs specific to their institutions, highlighting the capabilities of their librarians to better attract and serve researchers. . . .

The clinical research life cycle, however, is more complex. A model must incorporate additional components for clinical studies and account for longer time frames, especially for multifaceted clinical trials or multicenter studies.

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COAR Survey of Research Data Management: Results

The Confederation of Open Access Repositories has released the COAR Survey of Research Data Management: Results.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Research data management is wide ranging and there are already many organizations active in this area. In December 2016, COAR conducted a survey in order to get a better understanding of the needs of our members in the area of research data management.

There were 43 responses to the survey from around the world. Just over half of respondents are already collecting research data, and about 80% of those who are not yet collecting data indicated that they intend to do so in the coming year.

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Version 7 of the Research Data Curation Bibliography Released

Digital Scholarship has released Version 7 of the Research Data Curation Bibliography. This selective bibliography includes over 620 English-language articles, books, and technical reports that are useful in understanding the curation of digital research data in academic and other research institutions.

The Research Data Curation Bibliography covers topics such as research data creation, acquisition, metadata, provenance, repositories, management, policies, support services, funding agency requirements, peer review, publication, citation, sharing, reuse, and preservation.

Most sources have been published from January 2009 through December 2016; however, a limited number of earlier key sources are also included. The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works. If such versions are unavailable, links to the publishers' descriptions are provided.

Abstracts are included in this bibliography if a work is under a Creative Commons Attribution License (BY and national/international variations), a Creative Commons public domain dedication (CC0), or a Creative Commons Public Domain Mark and this is clearly indicated in the work.

The Research Data Curation Bibliography is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Open Research Funders Group Launched

The Open Research Funders Group has been launched.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Eight highly-visible organizations today announced the launch of the Open Research Funders Group, a partnership designed to increase access to research outputs. With nearly $5 billion in combined annual grants conferred, these organizations are committed to using their positions to foster more open sharing of research articles and data. This openness, the members believe, will accelerate the pace of discovery, reduce information-sharing gaps, encourage innovation, and promote reproducibility.

Inaugural members of the Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the American Heart Association, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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Senate Unanimously Passes OPEN Government Data Act

The US Senate has passed the OPEN Government Data Act.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act, legislation introduced by U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai'i) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). The bipartisan bill will require public data to be accessible at Data.gov so individuals, organizations, and other government offices can utilize it.

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Keepers of Our Digital Future: An Assessment of the National Digital Stewardship Residencies, 2013-2016

CLIR has released Keepers of Our Digital Future: An Assessment of the National Digital Stewardship Residencies, 2013-2016.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In September 2015, IMLS awarded CLIR a grant to investigate the early impacts of the National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) programs, in order to inform subsequent development of similar programs by others with a vested interest in building professional capacity to preserve digital information. Keepers of Our Digital Future provides a formative evaluation of the early residencies, based on surveys and interviews with NDSR participants and supervisors from the Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston programs. The authors offer a series of findings and recommendations for future programs, noting that as the model is reproduced, there is a greater need for national-level coordination and communication across programs.

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iPRES 2016: 13th International Conference on Digital Preservation Proceedings

The iPRES 2016: 13th International Conference on Digital Preservation Proceedings is available as a 169-page PDF.

Here's an excerpt:

In keeping with previous years, the iPRES 2016 programme is organised into research and practice streams. This format ensures visibility and promotion of both academic research work and the projects and initiatives of institutions involved in digital preservation practices. Furthermore, work- shops and tutorials provide opportunities for participants to share information, knowledge and best practices, and explore opportunities for collaboration on new approaches.

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"Current Status of Scientific Data Curation Research and Practices in Mainland China"

Shiyan Ou and Yu Zhou have published "Current Status of Scientific Data Curation Research and Practices in Mainland China" in LIBRES.

Here's an excerpt:

With the rapid growth in the body of scientific data, scientific research depends more and more on finding theories and knowledge from the data, and thus data-intensive scientific discovery has become the fourth paradigm of scientific research. Therefore, it is urgent to develop and adopt methods to support the collection, collation, preservation and utilization of scientific data. This paper provides an overview of scientific data curation research and practices in mainland China. Firstly, it reviews Chinese research articles on data curation and outlines the research status and progress in this area. Secondly, it surveys existing scientific data repositories or platforms in mainland China, and analyzes the gaps between China's and other countries' data curation practices.

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"SHARE: Infrastructure for Open Scholarship"

Judy Ruttenberg has published "SHARE: Infrastructure for Open Scholarship" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

SHARE is a technology platform that aggregates free, open metadata about scholarship across the research life cycle (including proposals, registrations, data, publications, and more) from more than 125 sources, and is steadily adding more metadata providers. SHARE is discipline-agnostic in schema and in type of metadata source. With an application programming interface (API) and open metadata, SHARE can power or feed discovery services for new and emerging forms of scholarly expression in support of their exposure, recognition, and reuse.

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"Building Tools to Facilitate Data Reuse"

Stefanie Kethers, Andrew Treloar, and Mingfang Wu have published "Building Tools to Facilitate Data Reuse" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

The Australian National Data Service (ANDS) has been funded by the Australian Government since 2009, with a goal to increase the value of data to researchers, research institutions and the nation. To achieve this goal, ANDS has funded more than 200 projects under seven programs. This paper provides an overview of one of these programs, the Applications Program, which focused on funding software infrastructure to enable data reuse to demonstrate the value of making data available to researchers. The paper also presents some representative projects, a summary of what the program has achieved, and lessons learned.

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"Elsevier Implements Data Citation Standards to Encourage and Reward Authors for Sharing Research Data"

Elsevier has released "Elsevier Implements Data Citation Standards to Encourage and Reward Authors for Sharing Research Data."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced that it has implemented the FORCE11 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles for over 1800 journals. This means that authors publishing with Elsevier are now able to cite the research data underlying their article, contributing to attribution and encouraging research data sharing with research articles.

The FORCE11 data citation principles were launched in 2014 with the aim to make research data an integral part of the scholarly record.

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"The Durability and Fragility of Knowledge Infrastructures: Lessons Learned from Astronomy"

Christine L. Borgman, Peter T. Darch, Ashley E. Sands, and Milena S. Golshan have self-archived "The Durability and Fragility of Knowledge Infrastructures: Lessons Learned from Astronomy."

Here's an excerpt:

Infrastructures are not inherently durable or fragile, yet all are fragile over the long term. Durability requires care and maintenance of individual components and the links between them. Astronomy is an ideal domain in which to study knowledge infrastructures, due to its long history, transparency, and accumulation of observational data over a period of centuries. Research reported here draws upon a long-term study of scientific data practices to ask questions about the durability and fragility of infrastructures for data in astronomy. Methods include interviews, ethnography, and document analysis. As astronomy has become a digital science, the community has invested in shared instruments, data standards, digital archives, metadata and discovery services, and other relatively durable infrastructure components. Several features of data practices in astronomy contribute to the fragility of that infrastructure. These include different archiving practices between ground- and space-based missions, between sky surveys and investigator-led projects, and between observational and simulated data. Infrastructure components are tightly coupled, based on international agreements. However, the durability of these infrastructures relies on much invisible work—cataloging, metadata, and other labor conducted by information professionals. Continual investments in care and maintenance of the human and technical components of these infrastructures are necessary for sustainability.

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"Provenance in Support of ANDS’ Four Transformations"

Andrew E. Treloar and Mingfang Wu have published "Provenance in Support of ANDS' Four Transformations" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

This article introduces the provenance activities that are being carried out at the Australia National Data Services (ANDS). Since its beginning, ANDS has been promoting four data transformations so that Australia's research data become more valuable and reusable by researchers. Among many other activities that enable the four transformations, ANDS has been encouraging ANDS partners to capture and describe rich context at the time when a data collection is created. In 2015, ANDS funded a number of external projects that had provenance components. In addition, ANDS is working on the interoperability between the schema that is used by the ANDS research data registration and discovery service – Research Data Australia (RDA) – and the W3C recommended provenance standard, Provenance Ontology (PROV-O), and investigating how to enrich the schema to access provenance information. The article concludes by discussing the lessons we learnt and our future planned activity.

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"Towards a Collaborative National Research Data Management Network"

Chuck Humphrey, Kathleen Shearer, and Martha Whitehead have published "Towards a Collaborative National Research Data Management Network" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper describes the plans and strategies to develop Portage, a national network of sustainable, shared services for research data management (RDM) in Canada. A description of the RDM context in Canada is provided. This environment has heightened expectations around the Government of Canada's Open Science plans and includes deliverables aimed at improving access to publications and data resulting from federally funded scientific activities. At the same time, a recent environmental scan published by Canada's three federal research granting councils reveals significant gaps in services, infrastructure, and funding mechanisms to support RDM. In addition, Canada's RDM environment consists of stakeholders from a variety of communities with minimal ongoing coordination or cooperation.

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"The Location of the Citation: Changing Practices in How Publications Cite Original Data in the Dryad Digital Repository"

Christine Mayo, Todd J. Vision, and Elizabeth A. Hull have published "The Location of the Citation: Changing Practices in How Publications Cite Original Data in the Dryad Digital Repository" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

While stakeholders in scholarly communication generally agree on the importance of data citation, there is not consensus on where those citations should be placed within the publication – particularly when the publication is citing original data. Recently, CrossRef and the Digital Curation Center (DCC) have recommended as a best practice that original data citations appear in the works cited sections of the article. In some fields, such as the life sciences, this contrasts with the common practice of only listing data identifier(s) within the article body (intratextually). We inquired whether data citation practice has been changing in light of the guidance from CrossRef and the DCC. We examined data citation practices from 2011 to 2014 in a corpus of 1,125 articles associated with original data in the Dryad Digital Repository. The percentage of articles that include no reference to the original data has declined each year, from 31% in 2011 to 15% in 2014. The percentage of articles that include data identifiers intratextually has grown from 69% to 83%, while the percentage that cite data in the works cited section has grown from 5% to 8%. If the proportions continue to grow at the current rate of 19-20% annually, the proportion of articles with data citations in the works cited section will not exceed 90% until 2030.

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The State of Open Data

Figshare has released The State of Open Data.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The report gathers insights and narratives from leading professionals in the open data space from around the globe and a foreword from Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Chairman and co-founder of the Open Data Institute (ODI), UK.

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Research Data Services in Europe’s Academic Research Libraries

LIBER has released Research Data Services in Europe's Academic Research Libraries by Carol Tenopir et al.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Almost all of Europe's academic research libraries are working collaboratively, within and outside of their institutions, to help ensure that the scientific data of today is curated properly, so it can be accessed, shared and reused by future generations. . . .

The survey—which reflects answers from a representative sample of research libraries in 22 countries across Europe—also revealed that:

Libraries are currently offering more consultative-type RDS services (eg. how to find information on Data Management Plans, metadata standards, or data citation practices) than technological services (eg. own storage solutions);

Less than half of libraries say their institutions currently have policies relating to RDS;

Two-thirds of library directors express strongly that libraries need to offer RDS to remain relevant.

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"Developments in Research Data Management in Academic Libraries: towards an Understanding of Research Data Service Maturity"

Andrew M. Cox et al. have self-archived "Developments in Research Data Management in Academic Libraries: towards an Understanding of Research Data Service Maturity."

Here's an excerpt:

This paper reports an international study of research data management (RDM) activities, services and capabilities in higher education libraries. It presents the results of a survey covering higher education libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the UK. The results indicate that libraries have provided leadership in RDM, particularly in advocacy and policy development. Service development is still limited, focused especially on advisory and consultancy services (such as data management planning support and data-related training), rather than technical services (such as provision of a data catalogue, and curation of active data). Data curation skills development is underway in libraries, but skills and capabilities are not consistently in place and remain a concern. Other major challenges include resourcing, working with other support services, and achieving 'buy in' from researchers and senior managers.

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