Supporting emerging researchers in data management and curation

While scholarly publishing remains the key means for determining researchers’ impact, international funding body requirements and government recommendations relating to research data management (RDM), sharing and preservation mean that the underlying research data are becoming increasingly valuable in their own right. This is true not only for researchers in the sciences but also in the humanities and creative arts as well. The ability to exploit their own - and others’ - data is emerging as a crucial skill for researchers across all disciplines. However, despite Generation Y researchers being ‘highly competent and ubiquitous users of information technologies generally’ they appears to be a widespread lack of understanding and uncertainty about open access and self-archived resources (Jisc study, 2012). This chapter will consider the potential support that academic librarians might provide to support Generation Y researchers in this shifting research data landscape and examine the role of the library as part of institutional infrastructure. The changing landscape will impact research libraries most keenly over the next few years as they work to develop infrastructure and support systems to identify and maintain access to a diverse array of research data outputs. However, the data that are being produced through research are no different to those being produced by artists, politicians and the general public. In this respect, all libraries - whether they be academic, national, or local - will need to be gearing up to ensure they are able to accept and provide access to an ever increasing range of complex digital objects

Fostering open science practice through recognising and rewarding research data management and curation skills

In a bid to improve research integrity, drive innovation, increase knowledge and to maximize public investment, researchers are increasingly under pressure to work in a more open and transparent way. This movement has been referred to as open science. Open science offers a range of potential and measurable benefits – for researchers and the institutions that employ them as well as for society more generally. However, to realise these benefits, we must work towards changing current research practices and behaviours. 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. Citing examples from the current UK research landscape, this paper will map these skills to the Wellcome Trust and Digital Science’s CRediT Taxonomy which was developed in 2013 to enable the broad range of contributions involved in producing research outputs to be more consistently described and rewarded

Investing in Curation: A Shared Path to Sustainability

No abstract available

Big data: the potential role of research data management and research data registries

Universities generate and hold increasingly vast quantities of research data – both in the form of large, well-structured datasets but more often in the form of a long tail of small, distributed datasets which collectively amount to ‘Big Data’ and offer significant potential for reuse. However, unlike big data, these collections of small data are often less well curated and are usually very difficult to find thereby reducing their potential reuse value. The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) works to support UK universities to better manage and expose their research data so that its full value may be realised. With a focus on tapping into this long tail of small data, this presentation will cover two main DCC, services: DMPonline which helps researchers to identify potentially valuable research data and to plan for its longer-term retention and reuse; and the UK pilot research data registry and discovery service (RDRDS) which will help to ensure that research data produced in UK HEIs can be found, understood, and reused. Initially we will introduce participants to the role of data management planning to open up dialogue between researchers and library services to ensure potentially valuable research data are managed appropriately and made available for reuse where feasible. DMPs provide institutions with valuable insights into the scale of their data holdings, highlight any ethical and legal requirements that need to be met, and enable planning for dissemination and reuse. We will also introduce the DCC’s DMPonline, a tool to help researchers write DMPs, which can be customised by institutions and integrated with other systems to simplify and enhance the management and reuse of data. In the second part of the presentation we will focus on making selected research data more visible for reuse and explore the potential value of local and national research data registries. In particular we will highlight the Jisc-funded RDRDS pilot to establish a UK national service that aggregates metadata relating to data collections held in research institutions and subject data centres. The session will conclude by exploring some of the opportunities we may collaboratively explore in facilitating the management, aggregation and reuse of research data

Needs Assessment Report: Gap Analysis

The Research Output Management through Open Access Institutional Repositories in Palestinian Higher Education Institutions (ROMOR) project aims to improve the management, visibility, and accessibility of scientific research outputs in Palestinian HEIs by establishing new or enhancing existing Open Access Institutional Repositories (OAIRs), improving institutional capacity for the management and sharing of research outputs held within the repositories, and developing and/or refining curricula to ensure that emerging researchers are better able to manage their work across the entire research lifecycle. Planning for Open Access Institutional Repositories (OAIRs) requires identifying key stakeholders who would support us in realizing the objectives of the project. There are so many layers of work to manage institutional repositories. Universities libraries, research offices, information technology departments, academic departments, university administration work together side by side to make sure that the OAIR process proceeds smoothly and sustainably over time. They share the responsibility of capturing the research output, organizing it and ensuring that long term availability and preservation are maintained, educating the scholars and the researchers about their privileges and rights as the authors of those works, and helping them understand the larger information policy and the copyright issues that touch their works. In the first four months of the project, the Palestinian partners conducted two surveys. The first aimed to assess researchers’ current practices, and the second explored institutional support staff capacity. The four participating institutions include: The Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) Al-Quds Open University (QOU) Birzeit University (BZU) Palestine Technical University-Kadoori (KAD) The EU partners have conducted a survey based on a survey carried out by DCC in 2015, to assess the current practice of Open Access and Research Data Management (RDM) in the UK, Europe, Australia and USA. The four participating EU institutions include: Vienna University of Technology (TUWIEN) The University of Parma (PARMA) The University of Brighton (BU) The University of Glasgow (GLA) The main objectives of this workshop were: To present the findings of a needs assessment survey study that was carried out with researchers and support staff in four Palestinian Higher Education Institutions (PS HEIs) between December 2016 and February 2017 To present good practice in establishing RDM and OA services from the European partners universities To engage the stakeholders in discussions to identify their requirements, interests or concerns regarding the OAIRs To setup requirements for doing the gap analysis and the road map for Research Data Management in PS partners through OAIRs. This report discusses a number of gaps that were identified and presented at the Needs Assessment workshop

The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin (2009) Relationship: Book Review

The Other Side of Paradise is a memoir written by Staceyann Chin (2009) in which she portrays the true nature of being a woman of color. This coming of age memoir presents the attributes of black women who are at times devalued and negatively portrayed by Eurocentric critics. It is through her independent self-definition and her thoughts about racism and sexism that she is able to put an end to false Eurocentric assumptions. In Chin’s (2009) memoir, she explores the reality that women of color have strong personalities and powers through sisterhood and motherhood that are symbols of unity between black women. By using spirituality as an anodyne, she was able to achieve patience and inner strength, tested by a racist society

Emerging good practice in managing research data and research information within UK Universities

Sound data intensive science depends upon effective research data and information management. Efficient and interoperable research information systems will be crucial for enabling and exploiting data intensive research however it is equally important that a research ecosystem is cultivated within research-intensive institutions that foster sustainable communication, cooperation and support of a diverse range of research-related staff. Researchers, librarians, administrators, ethics advisors, and IT professionals all have a vital contribution to make in ensuring that research data and related information is available, visible, understandable and usable over the mid to long term. This paper will provide a summary of several ongoing initiatives that the Jisc-funded Digital Curation Centre (DCC) are currently involved with in the UK and internationally to help staff within higher education institutions prepare to meet funding body mandates relating to research data management and sharing and to engage fully in the digital agenda

FOSTER D2.1 - Technical protocol for rich metadata categorization and content classification

FOSTER aims to set in place sustainable mechanisms for EU researchers to FOSTER OPEN SCIENCE in their daily workflow, supporting researchers optimizing their research visibility and impact and the adoption of EU open access policies in line with the EU objectives on Responsible Research & Innovation.<p></p> More specifically, the FOSTER objectives are to:<p></p> • Support different stakeholders, especially young researchers, in adopting open access in the context of the European Research Area (ERA) and in complying with the open access policies and rules of participation set out for Horizon 2020;<p></p> • Integrate open access principles and practice in the current research workflow by targeting the young researcher training environment;<p></p> • Strengthen the institutional training capacity to foster compliance with the open access policies of the ERA and Horizon 2020 (beyond the FOSTER project); <p></p> • Facilitate the adoption, reinforcement and implementation of open access policies from other European funders, in line with the EC’s recommendation, in partnership with PASTEUR4OA project.<p></p> As stated in the project Description of Work (DoW) these objectives will be pursued and achieved through the combination of 3 main activities: content identification, repacking and creation; creation of the FOSTER Portal; delivery of training.<p></p> The core activity of the Task T2.1 will be to define a basic quality control protocol for content, and map available content by target group, and content type in parallel with WP3 Task 3.1.<p></p> Training materials include the full range of classical (structured presentation slides) and multi-media content (short videos, interactive e-books, ) that clearly and succinctly frames a problem and offers a working solution, in support of the learning objectives of each target group, and the range of learning options to be used in WP4 (elearning, blended learning, self-learning).<p></p> The map of existing content metadata will be delivered to WP3 for best choice of system requirements for continuous and sustainable content aggregation, enhancement and content delivery via “Tasks 3.2 e-Learning Portal” and “Task 3.4 Content Upload”. The resulting content compilation will be tailored to each Target Group and delivered to WP4

An Analysis of Open Science Policies in Europe, v6

This report is the sixth in a series of SPARC Europe and DCC analyses of national Open Science policies in Europe and covers the period between March 2020 and August 2020. This issue provides an update on activity across European Member States and relevant countries from the European Research Area. This issue includes a section on policy change related to Covid-19 and an overview of European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) policy-related activities among the European Commission supported INFRAEOSC 5b projects. To access previous versions of the analysis of Open Data and Open Science policies in Europe and other SPARC Europe reports related to Open Data please see https://sparceurope.org/what-we-do/open-data/sparc-europe-open-data-resources/

The Scottish Innovative Student Awards: preparing students to tackle wicked problems.

This session introduced the Scottish Innovative Student Awards (SISA), and gave an overview of how SISA helps students to tackle wicked problems with innovation and an orientation towards transforming the future. The session also presented two case studies of implementing SISA at the University of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon University