Dissimuler ou disséminer ? Une étude sur le sort réservé aux résultats négatifs

Auteures/Authors : Marie-Emilia Herbet, Jérémie Leonard, Maria Santangelo, Lucie Albaret

Une enquête composée de 34 questions a été adressée à des chercheurs en chimie, physique, sciences de l’ingénieur et de l’environnement, en vue d’identifier leur rapport aux résultats de recherche infructueux ainsi que les freins et les leviers de leur diffusion.

L’étude se fonde sur 310 réponses complètes émanant de participants affiliés à des établissements de recherche et d’enseignement français. Menée dans le cadre du projet Datacc, porté par les bibliothèques universitaires de Lyon et Grenoble Alpes, engagées dans l’accompagnement des chercheurs à l’ouverture des données de recherche, notre étude permet de combler le déficit de données sur le sujet au regard des disciplines concernées.

Elle relève que 81% des chercheurs interrogés ont déjà produit des résultats négatifs pertinents et 75% se disent prêts à publier ce type de données. Pourtant, seuls 12,5% des répondants ont déjà eu l’occasion de le faire dans une revue scientifique. Ce contraste béant entre l’intention et la pratique soulève des interrogations sur les obstacles en présence et les solutions potentielles à apporter.

URL : Dissimuler ou disséminer ? Une étude sur le sort réservé aux résultats négatifs

Original location : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03371040

Faculty Use of Open-Access Journals: A Case Study of Faculty Publications and Cited References at a California University

Author : Kendall Faulkner

Many in the library world see open-access (OA) publishing as the way of the future, necessary to combat ever-rising costs, expand knowledge and information production, and level the playing field for researchers and students across the world.

However, ingrained notions of the publishing process in academia, and concerns over OA journals’ quality and costs often make researchers less enthusiastic. This study takes a close look at faculty habits at the college-department level by reviewing faculty publishing habits and cited references in those publications.

Results show that the faculty in the Psychology Department at California State University, Los Angeles regularly publish at all OA levels, but utilize formal self-archiving less than what is found in their cited references. Furthermore, the department faculty cite fully OA (Gold) journals less than they publish in them.

URL : Faculty Use of Open-Access Journals: A Case Study of Faculty Publications and Cited References at a California University

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9030039

Knowledge and Attitudes Among Life Scientists Toward Reproducibility Within Journal Articles: A Research Survey

Authors : Evanthia Kaimaklioti Samota, Robert P. Davey

We constructed a survey to understand how authors and scientists view the issues around reproducibility, focusing on interactive elements such as interactive figures embedded within online publications, as a solution for enabling the reproducibility of experiments.

We report the views of 251 researchers, comprising authors who have published in eLIFE Sciences, and those who work at the Norwich Biosciences Institutes (NBI). The survey also outlines to what extent researchers are occupied with reproducing experiments themselves. Currently, there is an increasing range of tools that attempt to address the production of reproducible research by making code, data, and analyses available to the community for reuse. We wanted to collect information about attitudes around the consumer end of the spectrum, where life scientists interact with research outputs to interpret scientific results.

Static plots and figures within articles are a central part of this interpretation, and therefore we asked respondents to consider various features for an interactive figure within a research article that would allow them to better understand and reproduce a published analysis.

The majority (91%) of respondents reported that when authors describe their research methodology (methods and analyses) in detail, published research can become more reproducible. The respondents believe that having interactive figures in published papers is a beneficial element to themselves, the papers they read as well as to their readers.

Whilst interactive figures are one potential solution for consuming the results of research more effectively to enable reproducibility, we also review the equally pressing technical and cultural demands on researchers that need to be addressed to achieve greater success in reproducibility in the life sciences.

URL : Knowledge and Attitudes Among Life Scientists Toward Reproducibility Within Journal Articles: A Research Survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.678554

Introducing a data availability policy for journals at IOP Publishing: Measuring the impact on authors and editorial teams

Authors : Jade Holt, Andrew Walker, Phill Jones

As the open research movement continues to gather pace, a number of publishers, funders, and institutions are mandating the sharing of underlying research data. At the same time, concerns about introducing extra quality control steps around data availability statements (DAS) are driving a discussion about the best way to make data more open without slowing down publication.

This article describes a pilot project to introduce a new Open Data policy to three IOP Publishing (IOPP) journals as part of IOPP’s commitment to increasing transparency and support for open science.

An investigation was undertaken using an automated workflow monitoring tool to understand the impact of this change on authors and the editorial staff. Changes in revised submission processing times and how often manuscripts were returned to the author were measured.

An overall increase in the time editorial staff spent processing manuscripts was found as well as an increase in the number of times manuscripts were returned to authors. Detailed analysis shows that manuscripts in which authors claim in the DAS to have included data within the manuscript were the most strongly affected. Steps to mitigate the effects through improved author communication were found to be effective.

URL : Introducing a data availability policy for journals at IOP Publishing: Measuring the impact on authors and editorial teams

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1386

Between administration and research: Understanding data management practices in an institutional context

Authors : Stefan Reichmann, Thomas Klebel, Ilire Hasani-Mavriqi, Tony Ross-Hellauer

Research Data Management (RDM) promises to make research outputs more transparent, findable, and reproducible. Strategies to streamline data management across disciplines are of key importance.

This paper presents results of an institutional survey (N = 258) at a medium-sized Austrian university with a STEM focus, supplemented with interviews (N = 18), to give an overview of the state-of-play of RDM practices across faculties and disciplinary contexts.

RDM services are on the rise but remain somewhat behind leading countries like the Netherlands and UK, showing only the beginnings of a culture attuned to RDM. There is considerable variation between faculties and institutes with respect to data amounts, complexity of data sets, data collection and analysis, and data archiving.

Data sharing practices within fields tend to be inconsistent. RDM is predominantly regarded as an administrative task, to the detriment of considerations of good research practice. Problems with RDM fall in two categories: Generic problems transcend specific research interests, infrastructures, and departments while discipline-specific problems need a more targeted approach.

The paper extends the state-of-the-art on RDM practices by combining in-depth qualitative material with quantified, detailed data about RDM practices and needs. The findings should be of interest to any comparable research institution with a similar agenda.

URL : Between administration and research: Understanding data management practices in an institutional context

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24492

Research Data Management Challenges in Citizen Science Projects and Recommendations for Library Support Services. A Scoping Review and Case Study

Authors: Jitka Stilund Hansen, Signe Gadegaard, Karsten Kryger Hansen, Asger Væring Larsen, Søren Møller, Gertrud Stougård Thomsen, Katrine Flindt Holmstrand

Citizen science (CS) projects are part of a new era of data aggregation and harmonisation that facilitates interconnections between different datasets. Increasing the value and reuse of CS data has received growing attention with the appearance of the FAIR principles and systematic research data management (RDM) practises, which are often promoted by university libraries.

However, RDM initiatives in CS appear diversified and if CS have special needs in terms of RDM is unclear. Therefore, the aim of this article is firstly to identify RDM challenges for CS projects and secondly, to discuss how university libraries may support any such challenges.

A scoping review and a case study of Danish CS projects were performed to identify RDM challenges. 48 articles were selected for data extraction. Four academic project leaders were interviewed about RDM practices in their CS projects.

Challenges and recommendations identified in the review and case study are often not specific for CS. However, finding CS data, engaging specific populations, attributing volunteers and handling sensitive data including health data are some of the challenges requiring special attention by CS project managers. Scientific requirements or national practices do not always encompass the nature of CS projects.

Based on the identified challenges, it is recommended that university libraries focus their services on 1) identifying legal and ethical issues that the project managers should be aware of in their projects, 2) elaborating these issues in a Terms of Participation that also specifies data handling and sharing to the citizen scientist, and 3) motivating the project manager to good data handling practises.

Adhering to the FAIR principles and good RDM practices in CS projects will continuously secure contextualisation and data quality. High data quality increases the value and reuse of the data and, therefore, the empowerment of the citizen scientists.

URL : Research Data Management Challenges in Citizen Science Projects and Recommendations for Library Support Services. A Scoping Review and Case Study

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2021-025

Doctoral Students’ Educational Needs in Research Data Management: Perceived Importance and Current Competencies

Author : Jukka Rantasaari

Sound research data management (RDM) competencies are elementary tools used by researchers to ensure integrated, reliable, and re-usable data, and to produce high quality research results.

In this study, 35 doctoral students and faculty members were asked to self-rate or rate doctoral students’ current RDM competencies and rate the importance of these competencies.

Structured interviews were conducted, using close-ended and open-ended questions, covering research data lifecycle phases such as collection, storing, organization, documentation, processing, analysis, preservation, and data sharing.

The quantitative analysis of the respondents’ answers indicated a wide gap between doctoral students’ rated/self-rated current competencies and the rated importance of these competencies.

In conclusion, two major educational needs were identified in the qualitative analysis of the interviews: to improve and standardize data management planning, including awareness of the intellectual property and agreements issues affecting data processing and sharing; and to improve and standardize data documenting and describing, not only for the researcher themself but especially for data preservation, sharing, and re-using. Hence the study informs the development of RDM education for doctoral students.

URL : Doctoral Students’ Educational Needs in Research Data Management: Perceived Importance and Current Competencies

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v16i1.684