Étiquette : open research data

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Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata

Author : Ana Trisovic

Research data are often released upon journal publication to enable result verification and reproducibility. For that reason, research dissemination infrastructures typically support diverse datasets coming from numerous disciplines, from tabular data and program code to audio-visual files. Metadata, or data about data, is critical to making research outputs adequately documented and FAIR.

Aiming to contribute to the discussions on the development of metadata for research outputs, I conducted an exploratory analysis to determine how research datasets cluster based on what researchers organically deposit together. I use the content of over 40,000 datasets from the Harvard Dataverse research data repository as my sample for the cluster analysis.

I find that the majority of the clusters are formed by single-type datasets, while in the rest of the sample, no meaningful clusters can be identified. For the result interpretation, I use the metadata standard employed by DataCite, a leading organization for documenting a scholarly record, and map existing resource types to my results.

About 65% of the sample can be described with a single-type metadata (such as Dataset, Software orReport), while the rest would require aggregate metadata types. Though DataCite supports an aggregate type such as a Collection, I argue that a significant number of datasets, in particular those containing both data and code files (about 20% of the sample), would be more accurately described as a Replication resource metadata type. Such resource type would be particularly useful in facilitating research reproducibility.

URL : Cluster Analysis of Open Research Data: A Case for Replication Metadata

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v17i1.833

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EN

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

Catégories
EN

Exploring the social activity of open research data on ResearchGate: implications for the data literacy of researchers

Authors : Juliana Elisa Raffaghelli, Stefania Manca

Purpose

Although current research has investigated how open research data (ORD) are published, researchers’ behaviour of ORD sharing on academic social networks (ASNs) remains insufficiently explored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the connections between ORDs publication and social activity to uncover data literacy gaps.

Design/methodology/approach

This work investigates whether the ORDs publication leads to social activity around the ORDs and their linked published articles to uncover data literacy needs. The social activity was characterised as reads and citations, over the basis of a non-invasive approach supporting this preliminary study.

The eventual associations between the social activity and the researchers’ profile (scientific domain, gender, region, professional position, reputation) and the quality of the ORD published were investigated to complete this picture.

A random sample of ORD items extracted from ResearchGate (752 ORDs) was analysed using quantitative techniques, including descriptive statistics, logistic regression and K-means cluster analysis.

Findings

The results highlight three main phenomena: (1) Globally, there is still an underdeveloped social activity around self-archived ORDs in ResearchGate, in terms of reads and citations, regardless of the published ORDs quality; (2) disentangling the moderating effects over social activity around ORD spots traditional dynamics within the “innovative” practice of engaging with data practices; (3) a somewhat similar situation of ResearchGate as ASN to other data platforms and repositories, in terms of social activity around ORD, was detected.

Research limitations/implications

Although the data were collected within a narrow period, the random data collection ensures a representative picture of researchers’ practices.

Practical implications

As per the implications, the study sheds light on data literacy requirements to promote social activity around ORD in the context of open science as a desirable frontier of practice.

Originality/value

Researchers data literacy across digital systems is still little understood. Although there are many policies and technological infrastructure providing support, the researchers do not make an in-depth use of them.

URL : Exploring the social activity of open research data on ResearchGate: implications for the data literacy of researchers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-05-2021-0255