Leeds University Library have won the very first Research Data Management (RDM) Engagement Award, sponsored by the University of Cambridge, SPARC Europe and Jisc. The competition was held in order to elicit new and imaginative ideas for engaging researchers in the practices of good RDM.
Their proposal involves linking RDM with the open science movement via the Wikimedia suite of tools.
Jisc has collaborated with RDM practitioners, UX experts and developers to build an RDM resource for the research community.
In the RDM Toolkit, researchers can discover hot topics in RDM including data management planning and policy compliance. RDM experts in research support roles such as research managers, librarians and archivists will find resources on RDM in an institutional context. A page prepared for IT specialists links to resources around topics including active data storage and backup, security and preservation.
One of the challenges in shifting to more open research practices is finding examples to give you an idea of where to start. To address this challenge, the Open Science Framework (OSF) - which last month surpassed 100,000 active users - is introducing a new series of example projects to illustrate some of their capabilities and to collect tips and tricks from researchers in different fields. The first of these is the 'OSF Example Lab project' that demonstrates how researchers from multiple fields are using OSF to tie together and organise entire labs.
The Jisc Research Data Shared Service (RDSS) project team spent the first part of this year visiting different parts of the country (and world) to provide updates on the RDSS project.
Tamsin Burland has now blogged about all these updates: she looks back over the project, introduces the Repository and outlines what lies ahead as they progress towards a service date of November 2018.
Wellcome and Springer Nature are running a pilot supporting researchers to make their research datasets discoverable and available to the wider research community.
The pilot is expected to run over six to twelve months, and is open for datasets underpinning research articles from Wellcome-funded studies and from researchers at Wellcome-funded institutes.
Data can be associated with a submission or publication to any peer reviewed journal, and is not limited to Springer Nature journals; authors will remain in control of their data, including choice of Creative Commons licence which ensure datasets are open access and available for reuse.
As part of the pilot, Wellcome and Springer Nature will also work with Wellcome Open Research, Wellcome’s publishing platform.
Robert Allen and David Hartland have produced a report for Jisc to provide a better understanding of current practice with regard to the use of FAIR principles in the UK and the potential these principles have to enhance research operations and output. They have been working in close collaboration with UK experts Simon Coles, Susanna Sansone and Melissa Terras, and have investigated practices and views in various research disciplines.
The first formally published version of the Open Scholarship Strategy is available, providing a concise analysis of where the global Open Scholarship movement currently stands. The document was inspired by the Foundations for Open Educational Resources Strategy Development and work in the FORCE11 Scholarly Commons Working Group, and has been developed by an open contribution working group.
It highlights what the common threads and strengths of the movement are, where the greatest opportunities and challenges lie, and how the global community can work together more effectively to recognise the top strategic priorities.
The main document is available in a range of formats: markdown, R markdown, Epub, iPython notebook, open document text, PDF, rich-text format, LaTeX, plain text, xml, and html. Comments and contributions to the next version are welcome through this markdown file, or, if you are uncomfortable with traditional Git-based workflows, through the issue tracker.
Academia has become increasingly reliant on third-party tools and technologies to carry out many of the processes throughout the research lifecycle. However, there are genuine concerns about the sustainability of some of these tools and what the implications would be for users in the event they were discontinued.
In a blog post for LSE Impact, Andy Tattersall suggests a series of straightforward questions researchers should ask themselves before choosing a new technology for use in their research. Can you export your content? Is there an alternative? After all, there is no guarantee your favourite tool will still be around tomorrow.
Data Tree, the NERC-funded online course that covers all you need to know for research data management, along with ways to engage and share data with business, policymakers, media and the wider public, has made even more modules freely available online:
Data management: context
Data management: practicalities
Data management: NERC
Data application: analysis
Data & research: working with policy
Data & research: working with the media & public
If you have signed up and logged in to the course, you can also access presentations from the Data Tree workshops. Even if you didn't attend, they provide useful additional information such as the basics of getting a paper published (from the London workshop), and presenting your research to policymakers (from the Bristol event). Worth a look!
Access the course and learn more about the funders and supporters who are involved in Data Tree on the website.
The Digital Preservation Coalition and the Software Preservation Network invite you to watch their software preservation webinar series, which explores different software preservation contexts through discussion with guest speakers and attendees.
The recording of 'Episode 7: software preservation and public accountability - moving the needle' is now available. It explores the role of software preservation and curation in ensuring algorithmic transparency, and considers the complementary roles of community governance and tech alongside formal legal mechanisms for ensuring long-term access to software and software-dependent materials.
An increasing number of research organisations and funding bodies have mandatory requirements for data management plans to be implemented and considered as part of grant applications, yet there is still disparity amongst these institutions.
The Jisc-funded ‘Funder Requirements for Datasets project’ aims to create community resources which will support institutions offering guidance on what a researcher might have to do in terms of RDM activities, on costing RDM activities, and on how money for RDM activities can be used. At the workshop, the outcomes from the initial phase of information gathering will be presented, and feedback sought on the format and content for the community resources which will be developed from this work.
Another aim of this project is to collect case studies on how different institutions have gone about paying for RDM and making their RDM services sustainable. A selection of these case studies will be presented, representing different approaches to costing and paying for RDM activities.
Finally, there will be opportunities to discuss ongoing difficulties in costing and paying for RDM activities and getting these included in grant applications.
The School of Psychological Science at the University of Bristol is offering a 6-day residential course on advanced methods for reproducible science, in association with the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology and BBSRC.
The course is tailored for early-career researchers and intended to raise awareness of the problem of low reproducibility across many scientific disciplines, and various methods that can be used to address this problem.
Priority will be given to BBSRC-funded early career researchers, but is open to all early career researchers subject to availability.
The new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enforced on 25 May 2018. But what does it practically mean for research institutions and in particular, for researchers working with personal research data?
During this event, legal changes will be discussed, focussing on practical consequences for research involving personal data and implications for service providers. There will also be an exploration of services which should be provided to effectively support research community and how to implement them.
The new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enforced on 25 May 2018 and it defines new rules for processing personal data. But what does it mean in practice for researchers and their workflows? What do they need to do? How to do it? Where to look for support? Do they need to change their practices?
During this event, legal changes to handling personal data will be discussed, focussing on practical implications for research involving personal data and what needs to be done. The afternoon part of the event will consist of practical exercises with data encryption and data anonymisation, so that the attendees can start implementing their learning into their daily practices.
Cambridge Digital Library is hosting a two-day conference, 'Building Sustainable Digital Pedagogy', in collaboration with the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and Cambridge Digital Humanities Learning.
The provisional programme is now available and registration is open.
Research Data Alliance Europe (RDA Europe) has opened two calls for grant applications to facilitate early career researchers and expert European RDA members to attend the upcoming 12th RDA Plenary meeting.
The Plenary, part of International Data Week 2018, will bring together data professionals and researchers from all disciplines and from all parts of the globe. Co-organized by the ICSU World Data System, the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology and the Research Data Alliance, this landmark event will address the theme of ‘The Digital Frontiers of Global Science’ and will combine the 12th RDA Plenary Meeting, the biannual meeting of the research data community, and SciDataCon 2018, the scientific conference addressing the frontiers of data in research.
Up to seven grants will be made available for students and early career professionals from higher education or research institutions with studies focusing on research data sharing and exchange challenges. Further details
The RDA Plenaries are working events built around the RDA Working Group and Interest Group meetings. If you are a mid-career or senior data professional or scientist, interested or already committed to RDA activities you can apply for one of five grants to support your participation to the Plenary meeting. Further details
The application period for both Calls closes 30 August 2018.
Proposals are invited for the 10th Annual European Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) User Conference (EDDI18).
The DDI is an international standard for describing the data produced by surveys and other observational methods in the social, behavioral, economic, and health sciences. EDDI18 will bring together DDI users and professionals from all over Europe and the world. Anyone interested in developing, applying, or using DDI is invited to attend and present talks, papers and posters on all things DDI:
case studies
mature implementations
early implementations
interplay of DDI with other standards or technologies
projects in early phases in which DDI is under consideration
critiques of DDI.
The topics of the conference include, but are not limited to:
user needs, efficient infrastructures and improved quality
Office of Scholarly Communication, University of Cambridge
We are recruiting! Apply by 15 August to join our team.
Working within the Office of Scholarly Communication at the University Library, the Open Access Deposit Coordinator will be responsible for coordinating the deposit of research papers into the repository, ensuring funder requirements (especially REF) are met, and supporting researchers in meeting their funder expectations.
They will oversee the deployment of services across the University, to contribute to work of Open Access compliance amongst librarians and other administrative staff. The role holder will also be expected to contribute to ongoing discussions about workflows and to create reports on their activities. There will be an expectation to correspond with and train the academic and library communities across the University. The role incorporates other tasks such as occasional secretariat and technical support for meetings and events, preparation of materials for newsletter, assisting with outreach activities and a range of activities that arise as part of a dynamic and fast changing environment.
The Office of Scholarly Communication sends this Newsletter to its subscribers in order to disseminate information relevant to research data management topics. For further information on our privacy policy please visit the University Information Compliance website.
When you book an event run by the Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC), you will automatically be added to our mailing lists to receive both the 'Research Data Management' and the OSC 'Kaleidoscope' monthly newsletters.
To unsubscribe or update your preferences, please visit the links at the bottom of this email.
