Improving Access to Research Data: What does changing legislation mean for you?

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UKOLN is supported by:

Improving Access to Research Data: What does changing legislation mean for you?

Marieke Guy, Institutional Support Officer, Digital Curation Centre, UKOLN, University of Bath, UK

Email: [email protected] Twitter Id: mariekeguyWeb: http://www.dcc.ac.uk

Technology in Higher Education, 31st January 2013

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons LicenceAttribution-ShareAlike 2.0

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Research Data

3What Kinds of Data?

…whatever is produced in research or evidences its outputs

What is Research Data?

• Facts • Statistics• qualitative • quantitative• Not published

research output• Discipline specific

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“Data underpins our economy and our society - data about how much is being spent and where, data about how schools, hospitals and police are performing, data about where things are and data about the weather.”

Tim Berners Lee, director of W3C.

A Data Present

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• Big data• DIY data• Consumer data• Crowd Sourced data• Linked data• Open data• Databases• Learning data• Administrative data

Big Data…and Small Data

JISC MaRDI-Gross project: “data

volume is the least significant

(issue) in the present context,

since it is ‘only’ a technical

problem”

“Volume, velocity and variety”

“The 1000 Genomes Project generated more DNA sequence data in its first 6 months than GenBank had accumulated in its entire 21 year existence”

“The 1000 Genomes Project generated more DNA sequence data in its first 6 months than GenBank had accumulated in its entire 21 year existence”

6Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google

“We need to move away from a culture of secrecy and towards a world where researchers can benefit from sharing expertise throughout the research lifecycle”

Dr Malcolm Read, then executive secretary of JISC, 2011

Away from Secrecy

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“We have opened up much public data already, but need to go much further in making this data accessible. We believe publicly funded research should be freely available. We have commissioned independent groups of academics and publishers to review the availability of published research, and to develop action plans for making this freely available”

Making Public Data Accessible

The Open Data Institute (ODI) will be the first of its kind, a pioneering centre of innovation, driven by the UK Government’s Open Data policy

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• Report by Royal Society, June 2012• Analyses the impact of new and

emerging technologies that are transforming the conduct and communication of research

• Recommendations:• Scientists should make data

available in data repositories• Universities have a major role to

play in supporting open data• Learned societies and academic

bodies should promote open science

• Science journals should require data underpinning article

• Industry sector and regulators should work together to share data in public interest

Science as an Open Enterprise

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Finch Report

• June 2012: Finch report: Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications

• Funded by BIS, HEFCE, RCUK & Publishers association• Addresses question how to achieve “better, faster

access to research publications” • Recommends that UK should embrace the transition to

open access• Recommends ‘gold’ open access journals (over ‘green’)• Government accepted all recommendations • HEFCE endorsed report – making open access

published research the basis for the REF from 2014• Cost of the transition (up to £50m a year) must be

covered by the existing science budget• Main concerns: cost, repository use, reduction in niche

funding, jobs?

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Funding: RCUK

• RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy – Public good: Publicly funded research should be

made openly available with as few restrictions as possible

– Planning for preservation– Discovery: Metadata should be available and

discoverable– Confidentiality: Ensure legal, ethical and

commercial constraints assessed– First use: Provision for a period of exclusive use– Recognition: Acknowledge data sources – Public funding: Must be efficient and cost-

effective• 16th July 2012 new ‘Access to Research Outputs’ policy

based on Finch report• All publications submitted from 1 April 2013 must be

published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access

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http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-and-legal/overview-funders-data-policies

Data Policies of Funders

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Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) expects all those institutions it funds•to develop a roadmap that aligns their policies and processes with EPSRC’s expectations by 1st May 2012;•to be fully compliant with these expectations by 1st May 2015.

•Compliance will be monitored and non-compliance investigated.•Failure to share research data could result in the imposition of sanctions.

Funders Policies: EPSRC

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Funders Policies: AHRC

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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development describes data as a public good that should be made available

European Commission Statement on open accessJuly 2012•All research funded through its Horizon 2020 programme (2014 – 2020) must be made open access.•The commission wants to see 60% of publicly-funded research articles in Europe available for free by 2016.

Other Moves Towards Openness

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David says…

Government Open Agenda

FOI 'furs up' government with repeated requests about processes. Open data is better.

We need to shine the light of transparency on everything we do

We need to shine the light of transparency on everything we do

We recognise that transparency and open data can be a powerful

tool to help reform public services, foster innovation

and empower citizens.

We recognise that transparency and open data can be a powerful

tool to help reform public services, foster innovation

and empower citizens.

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• Government Open Agenda• Public pressure – data as a public good• Changes in funders’ data policies• Research now becoming more global and more

‘data Intensive’ – Riding the Wave report• Institutional need for better research integrity - REF• Best practice• Desire to be ‘good researcher’ and a well-cited

researcher

Research Data Management Drivers

External

Internal

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Institutional Reputation

CC image by Sharyn Morrow on Flickr

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“Employers must take responsibility for the integrity of their employees' research. However, we question who would oversee the employer and make sure that they are doing the right thing. In the same way that there is an external regulator overseeing health and safety, we consider that there should be an external regulator overseeing research integrity.”

Research Integrity

House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology. Eighth Report: Peer Review in Scientific Publications. Published 28 July 2011

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Data for Impact

• Research Excellence Framework (REF) measures researcher contributions and their impact

• Has struggled in terms of its breadth when it comes to extending beyond paper-based metrics

• Wariness of researchers to spend time on activity that doesn’t count to the REF

• REF panels now allow submission of “a substantial, coherent and widely admired data set or research resource”

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Research Data and FOI

• Recent years - some high profile cases of FOI requests

• 3 Dec 2012 announced “Universities are not compelled to release unpublished research data”

• Recommendation by a House of Commons Justice Committee report in July 2012

• Dedicated exemption, subject to both a prejudice and public interest test

Vivienne Stern, head of political affairs at the vice-chancellors’ group, Universities UK

“This isn’t about transparency, it’s about timing,”

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Data Citation

•Data access raises visibility•Data with DOI = citeable research output•Data citations are good for researchers

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To Recap…

• The age of open access publishing and open data has finally arrived

• Most research outputs, including underlying data, will soon have to be published in open access format whether or not the research has been funded externally

• Not making data accessible could result in loss of funding, legal issues (FOI), loss of funding, reputational issues, research integrity issues (inability to verify, scrutinise), lack of visibility, data loss …

It is impossible to make data openly accessible unless they have been properly managed

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• Scale, volume – data deluge• Complexity of data –

heterogeneous in nature• Pace of data• Management – storage,

infrastructure, sustainability• Quality of data• Reputation – FOI, DPA,

computer misuse • Selection and appraisal• Preservation implications• Partnerships• Resourcing and cost

Challenges caused by Access

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Caring for, facilitating access

preserving and adding value

to research data throughout its lifecycle.

Organisation, Resources and Technology required to support and sustain.

What is Research Data Management?

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RDM Activities

• Producing and sharing of data with research colleagues in collaborative environments (internal and external)

• File naming • Applying metadata for context and

discovery • Caring for sensitive data • Cleaning data for longer-term use • Selecting mechanisms for data capture

and storage • Selecting and appraising data for short

and longer-term retention • Licensing data for reuse • Developing data management plans

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The Digital Curation Centre

• A consortium comprising units from the Universities of Bath (UKOLN), Edinburgh (DCC Centre) and Glasgow (HATII)

• launched 1st March 2004 as a national centre for solving challenges in digital curation that could not be tackled by any single institution or discipline

• Funded by JISC with additional HEFCE funding from 2011 for the provision of support to national cloud services

• Targeted institutional development• http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

27How to cite data

Advocacy and Training

• Informatics: disciplinary metadata schema, standards, formats, identifiers, ontologies

• Storage: file-store, cloud, data centres, funder policy

• Access: embargoes, FOI• How to: appraise and select,

cite data sets, develop a data management plan, licence research data

New: How to set a RDM service – coming soon!

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DCC Tools

• Suite of tools to help with digital curation

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• Funded by the HEFCE through its Universities Modernisation Fund (UMF)

• Intensive, tailored support to increase research data management capability

• Originally 18 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) between Summer 2011 and Spring 2013

• Can help: – win the support of senior management – understand current data practices– redesign data support services– Help with policy development and training

Institutional Engagement Work

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• Think about who you need involved• Carry out audits to assess current assets, practices

and requirements, gaps in provision• Identifying quick wins while developing long-term

plan• Avoid reinventing: try integrating, adapting,

augmenting– e.g. policies, training, storage

• Raise awareness and looking at training• Look at current support available

• Take it step by step

So Where do I Start?

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• Funders• Archive / long-term data

repository• Senior management• Others...

• Researcher(s)• Research support officers /

project staff• Lab technicians• Librarians / Data Centre

staff• Faculty ethics committees• Institutional legal/IP

advisors• FOI officer / DPA officer /

records manager• Computing support• Institutional compliance

officers

Who Do I Involve?

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•Step 1: Take stock•Step 2: Let research needs drive your strategy•Step 3: Re-evaluate your existing infrastructure and data architecture•Step 4: Get to know the new technologies and standards•Step 5: Bring your staff up to speed

5 Steps to Research Data Readiness

34Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google

“The ability to take data - to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualise it, to communicate it -that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades.”

Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist.

A Data Future

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Thank You

• Thanks to DCC colleagues for contributing to slide material.

Any questions?

[email protected]