EU FP-7 project RECODE has released findings of its case studies in open access to research data
The EU FP-7 project RECODE has released findings of its case studies in open access to research data. RECODE (Policy RECommendations for Open Access to Research Data in Europe) held its final conference last week in Athens, coinciding with publication of a short booklet summarising the project findings and the following ten over-arching recommendations:
-Develop aligned and comprehensive policies for open access to research data
-Ensure appropriate funding for open access to research data
-Develop policies and initiatives that offer researchers rewards for open access to high quality data
-Identify key stakeholders and relevant networks and foster collaborative work for a sustainable ecosystem for open access to research data
-Plan for the long-term, sustainable curation and preservation of open access data
-Develop comprehensive and collaborative technical and infrastructure solutions that afford open access to and long-term preservation of high-quality research data
-Develop technical and scientific quality standards for research data
-Require the use of harmonized open licensing frameworks
-Systematically address legal and ethical issues arising from open access to research data
-Support the transition to open research data through curriculum-development and training
The RECODE publication offers more specific recommendations aimed at each of the key stakeholders it has targeted, namely research funders, research institutions, data managers, and publishers. The project recommendations were informed by five disciplinary case studies (physics, health, bioengineering, environment and archaeology). These drew comparisons across four “grand challenges”:
-stakeholders values and ecosystems
-legal and ethical concerns
-infrastructure and technology challenges, and
-institutional challenges
Case studies identified two overarching issues in the mobilisation of open access to research data; firstly a “lack of a coherent open data ecosystem”, and secondly; “lack of attention to the specificity of research practice, processes and data collections”.
Source: RECODE
UNESCO Unvails Open Access (OA) Curriculum
“Building inclusive Knowledge Societies through information and communication” is one of the key objectives for UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strategy. By adopting this objective, UNESCO Member States have recognized that knowledge plays a key role in economic growth, social development, cultural enrichment and democratic empowerment. This decision of the Members States has influenced UNESCO‘s Open Access program, through which the organization received a unique mandate to work on OA policy issues; bridge knowledge pools on OA across the world and build capacities to better understand Open Access.
Within the overall framework of the organization’s strategy on OA, the recent launch of OA curricula for Researchers and Library Schools by UNESCO highlights its efforts for enhancing capacities to deal with Open Access issues. The carefully designed and developed sets of OA curricula for researchers and library and information professionals are based on two needs assessment surveys, and several rounds of face-to-face and online consultations with relevant stakeholders.
These curricula will soon be converted into self-directed e-learning tools, which will enable users to self-assess their knowledge on Open Access and take a learning pace that is initiated and directed by the learners themselves. UNESCO also aims to strengthen this initiative by translating the OA curricula into several languages that will increase their reach and impact.
The complete set of five OA modules for researchers and four OA modules for library schools is now available online and can be downloaded by clicking the following links:
Curriculum for Library Schools
Module 1: Introduction to Open Access
Module 2: Open Access Infrastructure
Module 3: Resource Optimization
Module 4: Interoperability and Retrieval
Curriculum for Researchers
Module 1: Scholarly Communications
Module 2: Concepts of Openness and Open Access
Module 3: Intellectual Property Rights
Module 4: Research Evaluation Metrics
Module 5: Sharing your Work in Open Access
UNESCO promotes Open Access (OA), with particular emphasis on scientific information (journal articles, conference papers and datasets of various kinds) emanating from publicly funded research. Working with partners, UNESCO works to improve awareness about the benefits of OA among policy makers, researchers and knowledge managers. Through its global network of Field Offices, Institutes and Centers, UNESCO facilitates the development and adoption of OA-enabling policies. In addition, UNESCO engages in global OA debates and cooperates with local, regional and global initiatives in support of OA.
Sorce: UNESCO
Dubai to adopt mandatory open data policy
Sharing data sets of public and private information will become mandatory in Dubai. A bill in this regard will be made into law later this year.
With the exception of private, restricted and classified data and information that threatens national security, all data must be made available in public domains, officials said on Monday. The data will be made available in a centralised platform such as federal websites, or a decentralised manner like in the websites of various government entities, depending on the volume and size of data available. Open data is government, private or individual data that is shared internally or among various sectors partially or completely without restrictions.
Abdullah Madani, Chairman of Dubai Open Data Committee formed on scientific information (journal articles, conference papers and datasets of various kinds) emanating from publicly funded research. Working with partners, UNESCO works to improve awareness about the benefits of OA among policy makers, researchers and knowledge managers. Through its global network of Field Offices, Institutes and Centers, UNESCO facilitates the development and adoption of OA-enabling policies. In addition, UNESCO engages in global OA debates and cooperates with local, regional and global initiatives in support of OA.
Source communication in December 2014 to ensure that open access data is readily available for Dubai residents, said: “The committee is outlining a strategy for Dubai’s open data policy. After the required research has been done, we will propose a bill on implementing open data and provide an action plan for enforcing it in coordination with all parties concerned.
Madani added that as of now the committee is focusing on amassing large quantities of data and streamlining that data based on quality. Committee members are hoping that stakeholders with access to data will voluntarily submit their data sets for presentation.
Sorce: Khaleej Times
Canada’s three largest government-funding agencies have released joint guidelines effective May 1, 2015, to ensure open-access publication of the research they support.
Entitled the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications, the guidelines require that all peer-reviewed publicly funded research be made freely available online within 12 months of publication.
The policy includes research supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
“We applaud the Tri-Agency for adopting these guidelines,” says University Librarian and Dean of Libraries, Gwen Bird. “They will significantly increase access to Canadian-funded research publications and data and enable Canadians and researchers worldwide to use and build on this information.
“SFU librarians already work closely with scholars to make their research available through open access, so we’re well-equipped to assist faculty, researchers and students in meeting the new policy.”
SFU researchers funded by any of the three agencies can meet the required guidelines in one of two ways:
Publish in a journal that allows open access within 12 months of initial publication.
Deposit the final, peer-reviewed author version of the article in an online open-access repository such as Summit, the SFU research repository.
The library-administered SFU Central Open Access Fund covers article-processing charges for SFU authors including faculty, staff and graduate students who publish in eligible open-access publications and do not have grant funds available to cover the fees.
The library also has memberships or invoicing arrangements with prominent open- access publishers including BioMed Central, Hindawi Publishing, Public Library of Science, SAGE Open and Springer Open. Eligible authors who submit an article to any of these publishers can arrange direct payment of their article processing charges by the library.
Open-access publications are free to read on the Internet and can be downloaded, copied and distributed as long as credit is given to the authors. Readers do not require a subscription or any form of payment, either personally or through the University or library.
Sorce: SFU News
Open knowledge Released 2014 Global 0pen Data Index
The Global Open Data Index ranks countries based on the availability and accessibility of information in ten key areas, including government spending, election results, transport timetables, and pollution levels.
The UK tops the 2014 Index retaining its pole position with an overall score of 96%, closely followed by Denmark and then France at number 3 up from 12th last year. Finland comes in 4th while Australia and New Zealand share the 5th place. Impressive results were seen from India at #10 (up from #27) and Latin American countries like Colombia and Uruguay who came in joint 12th .
Map legend: green= highest score and red= lowest score
The Sierra Leone, Mali, Haiti and Guinea rank lowest of the countries assessed, but there are many countries where the governments are less open but that were not assessed because of lack of openness or a sufficiently engaged civil society.
Overall, whilst there is meaningful improvement in the number of open datasets (from 87 to 105), the percentage of open datasets across all the surveyed countries remained low at only 11%.
Even amongst the leaders on open government data there is still room for improvement: the US and Germany, for example, do not provide a consolidated, open register of corporations. There was also a disappointing degree of openness around the details of government spending with most countries either failing to provide information at all or limiting the information available – only two countries out of 97 (the UK andGreece) got full marks here. This is noteworthy as in a period of sluggish growth and continuing austerity in many countries, giving citizens and businesses free and open access to this sort of data would seem to be an effective means of saving money and improving government efficiency.
Sorce: Open Knowledge Foundation