Common Ground

A Policy Framework for

Open Access to Research Data

Susan Reilly, LIBER Projects Managersusan.reilly@kb.nl

@skreilly

Overview

• Introduction: Policy RECommendations

for Open access to research Data in Europe (RECODE)

• The open research data agenda

• Environment and stakeholders

• The way forward

Project ReCODE

The project will leverage existing networks, communities and projects to

address challenges within the open access and data dissemination and

preservation sector and produce policy recommendations for open access to research data based on existing good

practice.

Project ReCODE Objectives

• Reduce stakeholder fragmentation• Identify stakeholder values and inter-

relationships• Identify gaps, tensions and good practices• Produce a set of guidelines for the sharing

of scientific data• Engagement of stakeholders• Use 5 cases from different disciplines

Why open research data?

By Ken Lund (Flickr: Why, Arizona (2)) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses

1. How can we define research data and what should we make open?2. When and how does openness need to be limited

3. How should the issue of data resuse be addressed4. Where should research data be stored and made accessible?

5. How can we enhance data awarenesss and a culture of sharing?

Clear benefits of open data

http://fav.me/d1y5efr

• For society– Solves global challenges e.g. hunger, pollution

• For researchers:– Data re-use, avoiding costly duplication– Data re-use,facilitate complex interdisciplinary enquiry– Validation of results – quality control

• For policy: – Inform decision making

• For industry:– In development of new products & services

But there are barriers too:

• Cultural differences

• Definition of research data

• Lack of skills/education

• Poorly defined roles and responsibilities

• Lack of infrastructure

• Lack of career incentives

How do we define open access to research data?

• We can define ‘open access’ (see Berlin Declaration): license to copy, use, distribute and display material subject to proper attribution of authorship and appropriate standard format, online repository, enable unrestricted distribution,interoperability, and long-term archiving.

• But how do we define research data?Data underlying publications, all experimental data?

The entire data lifecycle must be addressed

• Open access to data extends across the life cycle of the production of knowledge, from ethical concerns about data collection, characteristics of data collection, data analysis, data management, access to findings, and the status of findings.

• Although some developments are shared across research practices, these are adapted within specific disciplines in the physical sciences, social sciences and in the humanities.

Stakeholder fragmentation

• Universities, publishers, public and private research organizations, software developers, libraries, funding bodies and repositories within national, world regions and global science eco-systems

• High interdependency, but lack

of clarity around roles and

responsibilities

By Oneblackline (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Infrastructure & technologies

• Interoperability

• Scalability

• Data quality

• Automatically

executable policies

By Anonymous (Guillaume Blanchard, Juillet 2004, Fujifilm S6900.) [CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0), GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

Legal and ethical issues

• Intellectual property– the database directive, copyright agreements

with publishers, can we (libraries/repositories) change the format of data?

• Data protection– right to be forgotten

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84163423@N08/

Scientific discipline a key differentiator

• Different cultures of sharing and collaboration

• Types of data determine level of availability

• Differences in availability of appropriate infrastructure

• Data valued differently

5 case studies

• Particle physics

• Clinical science

• Human physiology

• Enviromental science

• Archeology and related disciplines

It seems a lot to do…

• Global context: Research Data Alliance, COAR, Open Knowledge Foundation

• European context: LERU, LIBER, SPARCEurope, OpenAire, Knowledge Exchange

…we’re just trying to bring it all together

So first things first…

• Define stakeholder values and ecosystem– Workshop at University of Sheffield,

September 4th 2013.

susan.reilly@kb.nl

www.recodeproject.eu

Thank you from the ReCODE partners!