Category: Open Science

"Research Library Associations Endorse Open Data Accord"

ARL has released "Research Library Associations Endorse Open Data Accord."

Here's an excerpt:

IARLA [International Alliance of Research Library Associations] views the Science International accord on "Open Data in a Big Data World" as an important step towards creating and enabling this common vision of the importance of open data. In setting out principles for open data that are derived from emerging practices within the scientific community, the accord lends the voice of a key stakeholder to the case for open data and provides a practical road map for the implementation of open data at the global level.

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"Are Scientific Data Repositories Coping with Research Data Publishing?"

Massimiliano Assante et al. have published "Are Scientific Data Repositories Coping with Research Data Publishing?" in Data Science Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

This study analyses the solutions offered by generalist scientific data repositories, i.e., repositories supporting the deposition of any type of research data. These repositories cannot make any assumption on the application domain. They are actually called to face with the almost open ended typologies of data used in science. The current practices promoted by such repositories are analysed with respect to eight key aspects of data publishing, i.e., dataset formatting, documentation, licensing, publication costs, validation, availability, discovery and access, and citation. From this analysis it emerges that these repositories implement well consolidated practices and pragmatic solutions for literature repositories. These practices and solutions can not totally meet the needs of management and use of datasets resources, especially in a context where rapid technological changes continuously open new exploitation prospects.

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"The Open Access Interviews: Sir Timothy Gowers, Mathematician"

Richard Poynder has published "The Open Access Interviews: Sir Timothy Gowers, Mathematician " in Open and Shut?.

Here's an excerpt:

The idea of arXiv overlay journals was in the air for a long time. I think one impulse behind Discrete Analysis was the very hostile reaction from many people to the setting up of the open access journal Forum of Mathematics by Cambridge University Press, which (after a three-year free period) charges £750 per article.

It seems that a large proportion of mathematicians are implacably opposed to article processing charges, no matter what assurances are given that authors themselves will never be expected to pay out of their own pocket, and that ability to pay will not affect the choice of which articles to publish.

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"Congress Wants to Turn Obama’s Open Data Actions into Law"

Representative Derek Kilmer has released "Congress Wants to Turn Obama's Open Data Actions into Law."

Here's an excerpt:

A new bill introduced Thursday would give a legislative basis to a number of open data initiatives already underway in the federal government under executive order.

The Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act, introduced by Reps. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, would build upon a number open data policies from the Obama administration that push federal agencies to make as much data as possible free for the public to use.

A Senate version of the bill will also soon be introduced by Sens. Brian Schatz, D-HI, and Ben Sasse, R-Neb.

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"The Academic, Economic and Societal Impacts of Open Access: An Evidence-Based Review"

Jonathan P. Tennant et al. have published an e-print for review of "The Academic, Economic and Societal Impacts of Open Access: An Evidence-Based Review" in F1000 Research.

Here's an excerpt:

This review presents published evidence of the impact of Open Access on the academy, economy and society. Overall, the evidence points to a favorable impact of OA on the scholarly literature through increased dissemination and reuse. OA has the potential to be a sustainable business venture for new and established publishers, and can provide substantial benefits to research- and development-intensive businesses, including health organisations, volunteer sectors, and technology. OA is a global issue, highlighted by inequalities beset at all levels between developing and developed nations, and largely fueled by financial inequality. Current levels of access in the developing world are insufficient and unstable, and only OA has the potential to foster the development of stable research ecosystems. While predatory publishing remains an ongoing issue, particularly in the developing world, increasing public engagement, development of OA policies, and discussion of sustainable and ethical publishing practices can remove this potential threat to OA.

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Springer Will Automatically Deposit MIT-Authored Papers in DSpace@MIT

Springer and MIT have reached an agreement that will result in Springer automatically depositing MIT-authored papers in DSpace@MIT nine months after publication.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The MIT Faculty Open Access Policy, one of the first initiatives of its kind in the United States, made a bold commitment to disseminate the results of MIT research and scholarship as widely and openly as possible. Recently, the MIT Libraries affirmed this commitment by signing an innovative agreement with Springer, one of the world's largest scholarly publishers. Springer will send manuscripts of MIT-authored scholarly papers directly to the Open Access Articles Collection of DSpace@MIT, the Institute's open access repository.

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"Transparency: The Emerging Third Dimension of Open Science and Open Data"

Liz Lyon has published "Transparency: The Emerging Third Dimension of Open Science and Open Data" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper presents an exploration of the concept of research transparency. The policy context is described and situated within the broader arena of open science. This is followed by commentary on transparency within the research process, which includes a brief overview of the related concept of reproducibility and the associated elements of research integrity, fraud and retractions. A two-dimensional model or continuum of open science is considered and the paper builds on this foundation by presenting a three-dimensional model, which includes the additional axis of 'transparency'. The concept is further unpacked and preliminary definitions of key terms are introduced: transparency, transparency action, transparency agent and transparency tool.

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"Open Access, Open Science, Open Society"

Thomas Margoni et al. have self-archived "Open Access, Open Science, Open Society."

Here's an excerpt:

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that Open Access is a key enabler of Open Science, which in turn will lead to a more Open Society. Furthermore, the paper argues that while legislative interventions play an important role in the top-down regulation of Open Access, legislators currently lack an informed and systematic vision on the role of Open Access in science and society. In this historical phase, other complementary forms of intervention (bottom-up) appear much more "informed" and effective. This paper, which intends to set the stage for future research, identifies a few pieces of the puzzle: the relationship between formal and informal norms in the field of Open Science and how these impact on intellectual property rights, the protection of personal data, the assessment of science and the technology employed for the communication of science.

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"Fostering Open Science Practice through Recognising and Rewarding Research Data Management and Curation Skills"

Joy Davidson has self-archived "Fostering Open Science Practice through Recognising and Rewarding Research Data Management and Curation Skills."

Here's an excerpt:

Researchers will need to acquire new research data management and curation skills that enable them to undertake a broader range of tasks along the entire research lifecycle—from undertaking new means of collaboration, to implementing data management and sharing strategies, to understanding how to amplify and monitor research outputs and to assess their value and impact. In parallel, information professionals who work to support researchers and the open science process will also need to expand their research data management and curation skillsets. It will be equally important that current recognition and reward systems are amended to reflect the application of such skillsets within a range of disciplines. This paper will explore the potential role that librarians can play in supporting and progressing open science and discuss some of the new skills that librarians may require if they are to fulfil this role effectively.

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"The FAIR Guiding Principles for Scientific Data Management and Stewardship"

Mark D. Wilkinson et al. have published "The FAIR Guiding Principles for Scientific Data Management and Stewardship" in Scientific Data.

Here's an excerpt:

A diverse set of stakeholders-representing academia, industry, funding agencies, and scholarly publishers-have come together to design and jointly endorse a concise and measurable set of principles that we refer to as the FAIR Data Principles. The intent is that these may act as a guideline for those wishing to enhance the reusability of their data holdings.

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"Three Years after the OSTP Public Access Directive: A Progress Report"

Fred Dylla has published "Three Years after the OSTP Public Access Directive: A Progress Report" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

So three years out from the directive, 1) public access policy is in place for 98% of the research funding from US federal agencies starting in the last year, 2) a robust article identification system is in place from Crossref that is already tracking more than 11,000 funding agencies worldwide, 3) CHORUS, a public-private partnership, is actively assisting the agencies with implementing their public access plans, 4) TDM solutions are beginning to appear, and 5) agencies, supported by various stakeholders, are making some headway on data management.

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"Developing Infrastructure to Support Closer Collaboration of Aggregators with Open Repositories"

Nancy Pontika et al. have published "Developing Infrastructure to Support Closer Collaboration of Aggregators with Open Repositories" in Liber Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

The COnnecting REpositories (CORE) project has been dealing with these challenges by aggregating and enriching content from hundreds of open access repositories, increasing the discoverability and reusability of millions of open access manuscripts. As repository managers and library directors often wish to know the details of the content harvested from their repositories and keep a certain level of control over it, CORE is now facing the challenge of how to enable content providers to manage their content in the aggregation and control the harvesting process. In order to improve the quality and transparency of the aggregation process and create a two-way collaboration between the CORE project and the content providers, we propose the CORE Dashboard.

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"Making Sense of Journal Research Data Policies"

Linda Naughton and David Kernohan have published "Making Sense of Journal Research Data Policies" in Insights: The UKSG Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

This article gives an overview of the findings from the first phase of the Jisc Journal Research Data Policy Registry pilot (JRDPR), which is currently under way. . . . The project undertook an analysis of 250 journal research data policies to assess the feasibility of developing a policy registry to assist researchers and support staff to comply with research data publication requirements. The evidence shows that the current research data policy ecosystem is in critical need of standardization and harmonization if such services are to be built and implemented. To this end, the article proposes the next steps for the project with the objective of ultimately moving towards a modern research infrastructure based on machine-readable policies that support a more open scholarly communications environment.

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"Beams of Particles and Papers. The Role of Preprint Archives in High Energy Physics"

Alessandro Delfanti has self-archived "Beams of Particles and Papers. The Role of Preprint Archives in High Energy Physics."

Here's an excerpt:

The role of preprint archives is also highlighted by the existence of viXra.org, arXiv's evil twin. This dissenting and independent archive, that mimics the appearance and functioning of the original one, is aimed at overcoming the forms of policing that keep undesired papers outside of arXiv. ViXra claims to be " truly open" and to serve "the whole scientific community." In fact, the review processes enforced by arXiv are seen as failing to meet the standards of openness preprint archives are supposed to live up to.

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Webinar Recording: "VIVO plus SHARE: Closing the Loop on Tracking Scholarly Activity"

DuraSpace has released "VIVO plus SHARE: Closing the Loop on Tracking Scholarly Activity."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

On February 24, 2016, Rick Johnson (Program Co-Director, Digital Initiatives and Scholarship Head, Data Curation and Digital Library Solutions Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame; Visiting Program Officer for SHARE at the Association of Research Libraries) and Mike Conlon (VIVO Project Director, DuraSpace; Professor Emeritus, University of Florida) presented, "VIVO plus SHARE: Closing the Loop on Tracking Scholarly Activity."

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"An Update on Peer Review and Research Data"

Fiona Murphy has published "An Update on Peer Review and Research Data" in Learned Publishing.

Here's an excerpt:

As has been outlined here, the question of how to review research data and incorporate this into the publication process remains a knotty one. Various groups have made a certain amount of progress with potential recommendations, and domain-related and technical support functions are also emerging. However, the critical mass of active researchers has so far failed to engage.

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Open Science, Open Data, Open Access

UKeiG has released Open Science, Open Data, Open Access for non-members.

Here's an excerpt:

Open Science is shown to be moving centre-stage, with a rationale of improving efficiency in science; increasing transparency and quality in the research validation process; speeding the transfer of knowledge; increasing knowledge spill-overs to the economy; addressing global challenges more effectively; and promoting citizens' engagement in science and research.

Open Data is shown to have undergone a surge in practical development, mirroring the well established repositories for research outputs. The development and application of model policies and of principles is also discussed.

The current major developments in Open Access are discussed in detail, including the identification and mirroring of success factors in funders' and institutions' policies and mandates for driving Open Access deposits and the growth in Gold Open Access.

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"Open Data in Global Environmental Research: The Belmont Forum’s Open Data Survey"

Birgit Schmidt, Birgit Gemeinholzer, and Andrew Treloar have published "Open Data in Global Environmental Research: The Belmont Forum's Open Data Survey" in PLOS ONE.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper presents the findings of the Belmont Forum's survey on Open Data which targeted the global environmental research and data infrastructure community. It highlights users' perceptions of the term "open data", expectations of infrastructure functionalities, and barriers and enablers for the sharing of data. A wide range of good practice examples was pointed out by the respondents which demonstrates a substantial uptake of data sharing through e-infrastructures and a further need for enhancement and consolidation. Among all policy responses, funder policies seem to be the most important motivator. This supports the conclusion that stronger mandates will strengthen the case for data sharing.

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Making Open Science a Reality

The OECD has released Making Open Science a Reality.

Here's an excerpt:

This report, Making open science a reality reviews the progress in OECD countries in making the results of publicly funded research, namely scientific publications and research data openly accessible to researchers and innovators alike. The report i) reviews the policy rationale behind open science and open data; ii) discusses and presents evidence on the impacts of policies to promote open science and open data; iii) explores the legal barriers and solutions to greater access to research data; iv) provides a description of the key actors involved in open science and their roles; and finally v) assesses progress in OECD and selected non-member countries based a survey of recent policy trends.

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"Data Rights and Responsibilities: A Human Rights Perspective on Data Sharing"

Theresa L. Harris and Jessica M. Wyndham have published "Data Rights and Responsibilities: A Human Rights Perspective on Data Sharing " in the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics.

Here's an excerpt:

A human-rights-based analysis can be a useful tool for the scientific community and policy makers as they develop codes of conduct, harmonized standards, and national policies for data sharing. The human rights framework provides a shared set of values and norms across borders, defines rights and responsibilities of various actors involved in data sharing, addresses the potential harms as well as the benefits of data sharing, and offers a framework for balancing competing values. The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications offers a particularly helpful lens through which to view data as both a tool of scientific inquiry to which access is vital and as a product of science from which everyone should benefit.

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"Open Access to a High-Quality, Impartial, Point-of-Care Medical Summary Would Save Lives: Why Does It Not Exist?"

James Heilman has published "Open Access to a High-Quality, Impartial, Point-of-Care Medical Summary Would Save Lives: Why Does It Not Exist?" in PLOS Medicine.

Here's an excerpt:

Summary Points

  • Currently no open access point-of-care (POC) medical summary aimed at a professional audience exists.
  • Some nonprofit and multiple professional, for-profit POC medical summaries are frequently accessed by clinicians and policymakers.
  • Efforts to create open access POC summaries have been stymied by the difficulty of attracting high-quality contributors.
  • The open access medical publishing community can create this resource with engaged donors, crowd-sourcing, and technology.

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Open Science, Open Questions

IBICT and Unirio have released Open Science, Open Questions.

Here's an excerpt:

It is hoped that this publication will provide an overview of topics and issues that both trace and permeate the topic of open science nowadays from different perspectives and points of view. Above all, it is hoped that it might instigate further reflection and foster new ways of producing and circulating knowledge. Thus, it is geared not only towards the academic world, but also to a broader range of social actors that concern themselves with the democratisation of knowledge and information.

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Take Action: Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act Being Marked Up

The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act is being marked up.

Here's an excerpt from the SPARC announcement:

After a month of intense conversations and negotiations, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) will bring the "Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act" up for mark-up on Wednesday, July 29th. The language that will be considered is an amended version of FASTR, officially known as the 'Johnson-Carper Substitute Amendment,' which was officially filed by the HSGAC leadership late on Friday afternoon, per committee rules.

There are two major changes from the original bill language to be particularly aware of. Specifically, the amendment

  • Replaces the six month embargo period with "no later than 12 months, but preferably sooner," as anticipated; and
  • Provides a mechanism for stakeholders to petition federal agencies to 'adjust' the embargo period if the 12 months does not serve "the public, industries, and the scientific community."

To support the bill and communicate your concerns, see: "Help Move FASTR" "Secure Open Access to Taxpayer-Funded Research"

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"Accelerating Scientific Publication in Biology"

Ronald D Vale has self-archived "Accelerating Scientific Publication in Biology."

Here's an excerpt:

Our analysis suggests that publication practices have changed considerably in the life sciences over the past thirty years. Considerably more experimental data is now required for publication, and the average time required for graduate students to publish their first paper has increased and is approaching the desirable duration of Ph.D. training. Since publication is generally a requirement for career progression, schemes to reduce the time of graduate student and postdoctoral training may be difficult to implement without also considering new mechanisms for accelerating communication of their work. The increasing time to publication also delays potential catalytic effects that ensue when many scientists have access to new information. The time has come for the life scientists, funding agencies, and publishers to discuss how to communicate new findings in a way that best serves the interests of the public and scientific community.

See also: "Thoughts on Ron Vale's 'Accelerating Scientific Publication in Biology'" by Michael Eisen.

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"When Data Sharing Gets Close to 100%: What Human Paleogenetics Can Teach the Open Science Movement"

Paolo Anagnostou et al. have published "When Data Sharing Gets Close to 100%: What Human Paleogenetics Can Teach the Open Science Movement" in .

Here's an excerpt:

This study analyzes data sharing regarding mitochondrial, Y chromosomal and autosomal polymorphisms in a total of 162 papers on ancient human DNA published between 1988 and 2013. The estimated sharing rate was not far from totality (97.6% ± 2.1%) and substantially higher than observed in other fields of genetic research (evolutionary, medical and forensic genetics). Both a questionnaire-based survey and the examination of Journals' editorial policies suggest that this high sharing rate cannot be simply explained by the need to comply with stakeholders requests. Most data were made available through body text, but the use of primary databases increased in coincidence with the introduction of complete mitochondrial and next-generation sequencing methods. Our study highlights three important aspects. First, our results imply that researchers' awareness of the importance of openness and transparency for scientific progress may complement stakeholders' policies in achieving very high sharing rates. Second, widespread data sharing does not necessarily coincide with a prevalent use of practices which maximize data findability, accessibility, useability and preservation. A detailed look at the different ways in which data are released can be very useful to detect failures to adopt the best sharing modalities and understand how to correct them. Third and finally, the case of human paleogenetics tells us that a widespread awareness of the importance of Open Science may be important to build reliable scientific practices even in the presence of complex experimental challenges.

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