Implementing the RDA Research Data Policy Framework in Slovenian Scientific Journals

Authors: Janez Štebe, Maja Dolinar, Sonja Bezjak, Ana Inkret

The paper aims to present the implementation of the RDA research data policy framework in Slovenian scientific journals within the project RDA Node Slovenia. The activity aimed to implement the practice of data sharing and data citation in Slovenian scientific journals and was based on internationally renowned practices and policies, particularly the Research Data Policy Framework of the RDA Data Policy Standardization and Implementation Interest Group.

Following this, the RDA Node Slovenia coordination prepared a guidance document that allowed the four pilot participating journals (from fields of archaeology, history, linguistics and social sciences) to adjust their journal policies regarding data sharing, data citation, adapted the definitions of research data and suggested appropriate data repositories that suit their disciplinary specifics.

The comparison of results underlines how discipline-specific the aspects of data-sharing are. The pilot proved that a grass-root approach in advancing open science can be successful and well-received in the research community, however, it also pointed out several issues in scientific publishing that would benefit from a planned action on a national level.

The context of an underdeveloped data sharing culture, slow implementation of open data strategy by the national research funder and sparse national data service infrastructure creates a unique environment for this study, the result of which can be used in similar contexts worldwide.

URL : Implementing the RDA Research Data Policy Framework in Slovenian Scientific Journals

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-049

Enforcing public data archiving policies in academic publishing: A study of ecology journals

Authors : Dan Sholler, Karthik Ram, Carl Boettiger, Daniel S Katz

To improve the quality and efficiency of research, groups within the scientific community seek to exploit the value of data sharing. Funders, institutions, and specialist organizations are developing and implementing strategies to encourage or mandate data sharing within and across disciplines, with varying degrees of success.

Academic journals in ecology and evolution have adopted several types of public data archiving policies requiring authors to make data underlying scholarly manuscripts freely available. The effort to increase data sharing in the sciences is one part of a broader “data revolution” that has prompted discussion about a paradigm shift in scientific research.

Yet anecdotes from the community and studies evaluating data availability suggest that these policies have not obtained the desired effects, both in terms of quantity and quality of available datasets.

We conducted a qualitative, interview-based study with journal editorial staff and other stakeholders in the academic publishing process to examine how journals enforce data archiving policies.

We specifically sought to establish who editors and other stakeholders perceive as responsible for ensuring data completeness and quality in the peer review process. Our analysis revealed little consensus with regard to how data archiving policies should be enforced and who should hold authors accountable for dataset submissions.

Themes in interviewee responses included hopefulness that reviewers would take the initiative to review datasets and trust in authors to ensure the completeness and quality of their datasets.

We highlight problematic aspects of these thematic responses and offer potential starting points for improvement of the public data archiving process.

URL : Enforcing public data archiving policies in academic publishing: A study of ecology journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951719836258

Research Data Sharing in Spain: Exploring Determinants, Practices, and Perceptions

Authors : Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent, Antonio Vidal-Infer, Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo, Fernanda Peset, Antonia Ferrer Sapena

This work provides an overview of a Spanish survey on research data, which was carried out within the framework of the project Datasea at the beginning of 2015. It is covered by the objectives of sustainable development (goal 9) to support the research.

The purpose of the study was to identify the habits and current experiences of Spanish researchers in the health sciences in relation to the management and sharing of raw research data. Method: An electronic questionnaire composed of 40 questions divided into three blocks was designed.

The three Section s contained questions on the following aspects: (A) personal information; (B) creation and reuse of data; and (C) preservation of data. The questionnaire was sent by email to a list of universities in Spain to be distributed among their researchers and professors. A total of 1063 researchers completed the questionnaire.

More than half of the respondents (54.9%) lacked a data management plan; nearly a quarter had storage systems for the research group; 81.5% used personal computers to store data; “Contact with colleagues” was the most frequent means used to locate and access other researchers’ data; and nearly 60% of researchers stated their data were available to the research group and collaborating colleagues.

The main fears about sharing were legal questions (47.9%), misuse or interpretation of data (42.7%), and loss of authorship (28.7%).

The results allow us to understand the state of data sharing among Spanish researchers and can serve as a basis to identify the needs of researchers to share data, optimize existing infrastructure, and promote data sharing among those who do not practice it yet.

URL : Research Data Sharing in Spain: Exploring Determinants, Practices, and Perceptions

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/data5020029

Reading the fine print: A review and analysis of business journals’ data sharing policies

Authors : Brianne Dosch, Tyler Martindale

Business librarians offer many data services to their researchers. These services are often focused more on discovery, visualization, and analysis than general data management. But, with the replication crisis facing many business disciplines, there is a need for business librarians to offer more data sharing and general data management support to their researchers.

To find evidence of this data need, 146 business journal’s data sharing policies were reviewed and analyzed to uncover meaningful trends in business research. Results of the study indicate data sharing is not mandated by business journals.

However, data sharing is often encouraged and recommended. This journal policy content analysis provides evidence that business researchers have opportunities to share their research data, and with the right data management support, business librarians can play a significant role in improving the data sharing behaviors of business researchers.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1080/08963568.2020.1847549

Opening Pandora’s Box: Peeking inside Psychology’s data sharing practices, and seven recommendations for change

Authors : John N. Towse, David A Ellis, Andrea S Towse

Open data-sharing is a valuable practice that ought to enhance the impact, reach, and transparency of a research project.

While widely advocated by many researchers and mandated by some journals and funding agencies, little is known about detailed practices across psychological science. In a pre-registered study, we show that overall, few research papers directly link to available data in many, though not all, journals.

Most importantly, even where open data can be identified, the majority of these lacked completeness and reusability—conclusions that closely mirror those reported outside of Psychology.

Exploring the reasons behind these findings, we offer seven specific recommendations for engineering and incentivizing improved practices, so that the potential of open data can be better realized across psychology and social science more generally.

URL : Opening Pandora’s Box: Peeking inside Psychology’s data sharing practices, and seven recommendations for change

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01486-1

The views, perspectives, and experiences of academic researchers with data sharing and reuse: A meta-synthesis

Authors : Laure Perrier, Erik Blondal, Heather MacDonald

Background

Funding agencies and research journals are increasingly demanding that researchers share their data in public repositories. Despite these requirements, researchers still withhold data, refuse to share, and deposit data that lacks annotation.

We conducted a meta-synthesis to examine the views, perspectives, and experiences of academic researchers on data sharing and reuse of research data.

Methods

We searched the published and unpublished literature for studies on data sharing by researchers in academic institutions. Two independent reviewers screened citations and abstracts, then full-text articles.

Data abstraction was performed independently by two investigators. The abstracted data was read and reread in order to generate codes. Key concepts were identified and thematic analysis was used for data synthesis.

Results

We reviewed 2005 records and included 45 studies along with 3 companion reports. The studies were published between 2003 and 2018 and most were conducted in North America (60%) or Europe (17%).

The four major themes that emerged were data integrity, responsible conduct of research, feasibility of sharing data, and value of sharing data. Researchers lack time, resources, and skills to effectively share their data in public repositories.

Data quality is affected by this, along with subjective decisions around what is considered to be worth sharing. Deficits in infrastructure also impede the availability of research data. Incentives for sharing data are lacking.

Conclusion

Researchers lack skills to share data in a manner that is efficient and effective. Improved infrastructure support would allow them to make data available quickly and seamlessly. The lack of incentives for sharing research data with regards to academic appointment, promotion, recognition, and rewards need to be addressed.

URL : The views, perspectives, and experiences of academic researchers with data sharing and reuse: A meta-synthesis

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234275.s002

ODDPub – a Text-Mining Algorithm to Detect Data Sharing in Biomedical Publications

Authors: Nico Riedel, Miriam Kip, Evgeny Bobro

Open research data are increasingly recognized as a quality indicator and an important resource to increase transparency, robustness and collaboration in science. However, no standardized way of reporting Open Data in publications exists, making it difficult to find shared datasets and assess the prevalence of Open Data in an automated fashion.

We developed ODDPub (Open Data Detection in Publications), a text-mining algorithm that screens biomedical publications and detects cases of Open Data. Using English-language original research publications from a single biomedical research institution (n = 8689) and randomly selected from PubMed (n = 1500) we iteratively developed a set of derived keyword categories.

ODDPub can detect data sharing through field-specific repositories, general-purpose repositories or the supplement. Additionally, it can detect shared analysis code (Open Code).

To validate ODDPub, we manually screened 792 publications randomly selected from PubMed. On this validation dataset, our algorithm detected Open Data publications with a sensitivity of 0.73 and specificity of 0.97.

Open Data was detected for 11.5% (n = 91) of publications. Open Code was detected for 1.4% (n = 11) of publications with a sensitivity of 0.73 and specificity of 1.00. We compared our results to the linked datasets found in the databases PubMed and Web of Science.

Our algorithm can automatically screen large numbers of publications for Open Data. It can thus be used to assess Open Data sharing rates on the level of subject areas, journals, or institutions. It can also identify individual Open Data publications in a larger publication corpus. ODDPub is published as an R package on GitHub.

URL : ODDPub – a Text-Mining Algorithm to Detect Data Sharing in Biomedical Publications

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-042