Open research data: A case study into institutional and infrastructural arrangements to stimulate open research data sharing and reuse

Authors : Thijmen van Gend, Anneke Zuiderwijk

This study investigates which combination of institutional and infrastructural arrangements positively impact research data sharing and reuse in a specific case. We conducted a qualitative case study of the institutional and infrastructural arrangements implemented at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

In the examined case, it was fundamental to change the mindset of researchers and to make them aware of the benefits of sharing data. Therefore, arrangements should be designed bottom-up and used as a “carrot” rather than as a “stick.” Moreover, support offered to researchers should cover at least legal, financial, administrative, and practical issues of research data management and should be informal in nature.

Previous research describes generic institutional and infrastructural instruments that can stimulate open research data sharing and reuse. This study is among the first to analyze what and how infrastructural and institutional arrangements work in a particular context. It provides the basis for other scholars to study such arrangements in different contexts.

Open data policymakers, universities, and open data infrastructure providers can use our findings to stimulate data sharing and reuse in practice, adapted to the contextual situation. Our study focused on a single case and a particular part of the university.

We recommend repeating this research in other contexts, that is, at other universities, faculties, and involving other research data infrastructure providers.

URL : Open research data: A case study into institutional and infrastructural arrangements to stimulate open research data sharing and reuse

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006221101200

How transformative agreements are actually transforming the subscription system: a society publisher’s perspective

Authors : Graham Anderson, Jade Heyman, Maggie Simmons

Transformative agreements (TAs) are useful tools to accelerate the growth in open access (OA) for small publishers with limited resources, such as the three discussing the advantages and impact of TAs in this article.

The Royal Society, the Microbiology Society and the Geological Society observe an uptake in OA output with the increase in demand for TAs. While TA models differ across publishers, successful and sustainable models are characterized by transparency in pricing and data, simplicity, equitability and above all a transformation objective of achieving full OA.

Collaboration with institutions and consortia is key to realizing mutual goals and managing the agreement and implementation of complex arrangements with limited resources. The Royal Society, with over 320 institutions opted in, the Microbiology Society with over 250 and the Geological Society with over 40, are all mobilizing their resources and improving their systems to move away from paywall and subscription models.

URL : How transformative agreements are actually transforming the subscription system: a society publisher’s perspective

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.579

Implementing the Declaration on Research Assessment: a publisher case study

Authors : Victoria Gardner, Mark Robinson, Elisabetta O’Connell

There has been much debate around the role of metrics in scholarly communication, with particular focus on the misapplication of journal metrics, such as the impact factor in the assessment of research and researchers.

Various initiatives have advocated for a change in this culture, including the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which invites stakeholders throughout the scholarly communication ecosystem to sign up and show their support for practices designed to address the misuse of metrics.

This case study provides an overview of the process undertaken by a large academic publisher (Taylor & Francis Group) in signing up to DORA and implementing some of its key practices in the hope that it will provide some guidance to others considering becoming a signatory.

Our experience suggests that research, consultation and flexibility are crucial components of the process. Additionally, approaching signing with a project mindset versus a ‘sign and forget’ mentality can help organizations to understand the practical implications of signing, to anticipate and mitigate potential obstacles and to support cultural change.

URL : Implementing the Declaration on Research Assessment: a publisher case study

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.573

Open access through Subscribe to Open: a society publisher’s implementation

Authors: Sara Bosshart, Rod Cookson, Philipp Hess

As pressures mount from global funding mandates and initiatives like Plan S, publishers are seeking sustainable solutions to transition their subscription portfolios to open access.

For self-publishing societies with niche portfolios and low publication volumes, traditional transition options such as article processing charge models or transformative agreements are limited or out of reach and often involve significant financial risk.

In this article, we focus on one society publisher’s implementation of Subscribe to Open (S2O): an emerging open access model that moves away from article-level charges, instead leveraging existing subscription revenues and infrastructure to achieve seamless and sustainable open access.

We outline the advantages of this model for society publishers, the parameters to consider when implementing the model, the initial community response to a successful implementation and some early data highlighting the effect of the S2O model on our journals.

URL : Open access through Subscribe to Open: a society publisher’s implementation

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.567

Research data management and services: Resources for different data practitioners

Author : Gilbert Mushi

The emergence of data-driven research and demands for the establishment of Research Data Management (RDM) has created interest in academic institutions and research organizations globally.

Some of the libraries especially in developed countries have started offering RDM services to their communities. Although lagging behind, some academic libraries in developing countries are at the stage of planning or implementing the service. However, the level of RDM awareness is very low among researchers, librarians and other data practitioners.

The objective of this paper is to present available open resources for different data practitioners particularly researchers and librarians.

It includes training resources for both researchers and librarians, Data Management Plan (DMP) tool for researchers; data repositories available for researchers to freely archive and share their research data to the local and international communities.

A case study with a survey was conducted at the University of Dodoma to identify relevant RDM services so that librarians could assist researchers to make their data accessible to the local and international community.

The study findings revealed a low level of RDM awareness among researchers and librarians. Over 50% of the respondent indicated their perceived knowledge as poor in the following RDM knowledge areas; DMP, data repository, long term digital preservation, funders RDM mandates, metadata standards describing data and general awareness of RDM.

Therefore, this paper presents available open resources for different data practitioners to improve RDM knowledge and boost the confidence of academic and research libraries in establishing the service.

URL : Research data management and services: Resources for different data practitioners

DOI : https://doi.org/10.29173/iq995

Extraction and validation of scientific data for the identification of publications in open access journals

Authors : Patrícia Mascarenhas Dias, Thiago Magela Rodrigues Dias, Gray Farias Moita, Adilson Luiz Pinto

This work aims to identify articles published in open access journals registered in the Lattes Platform curricula. Currently, the curricular data from the Lattes Platform has been the source of several studies that adopt bibliometric metrics to understand scientific evolution in Brazil. However, when registering a publication in a curriculum, only basic information from the magazine is informed.

Therefore, to quantify the publications made in open access journals, a strategy is proposed that uses data from the Directory of Open Access Journals, validating the publications and, thus, obtaining a process that allows identifying which publications were made in this communication format.

Therefore, using the proposed methodology, which has a low computational cost, it was possible to quantify in an unprecedented way the publications of Brazilians in open access journals registered in the curricula of the Lattes Platform.

In addition, having the authors’ data of the publications, it was possible to understand how these authors are geographically distributed in the country, what their areas of operation are and how they have published the results of their research in open access.

It is noteworthy that they are generally published in Portuguese and English. Over the last few years, the representativeness of publications in open access journals has increased.

URL : Extraction and validation of scientific data for the identification of publications in open access journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1590/2318-0889202234e210040

To protect and to serve: developing a road map for research data management services

Authors: Andrea Chiarelli, Neil Beagrie, Lotte Boon, Ruth Mallalieu, Rob Johnson, Amy Warner May, Rowan Wilso

Research Data Management (RDM) has become a major issue for universities over the last decade. This case study outlines the review of RDM services carried out at the University of Oxford in partnership with external consultants between November 2019 and November 2020.

It aims to describe and discuss the processes in undertaking a university-wide review of services supporting RDM and developing a future road map for them, with a strong emphasis on the design processes, methodological approaches and infographics used. The future road map developed is a live document, which the consulting team handed over to the University at the end of the consultation process.

It provides a suggested RDM action plan for the University that will continue to evolve and be iterated in the light of additional internal costings, available resources and reprioritization in the budget cycle for each academic year.

It is hoped that the contents of this case study will be useful to other research-intensive universities with an interest in developing and planning RDM services to support their researchers.

URL : To protect and to serve: developing a road map for research data management services

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.566