Monthly Archives: March 2018

Online drop-in – find out about ORDO, the OU’s research data repository

ORDO (Open Research Data Online) is the OU’s research data repository, where OU research staff and students can upload their data, for:

  • secure long-term storage
  • sharing with others, by creating a metadata record describing it and, where appropriate, making the data itself accessible.

You can use it to publish data supporting a publication, or to archive at the end of a project.

“ORDO has proved incredibly useful for hosting sound clips generated by acoustic simulations and experiments, enabling us to provide a link to those clips within conference papers and journal publications” (Professor David Sharp)

We’ll be having an online drop-in next week on Tuesday 27TH March at 11:00-12:00, where we’ll show you how it works and be on hand to answer any questions you have. Feel free to join us at any time during the hour.

To join the session, go to our Adobe Connect online room page and click on “join room”.

If that time doesn’t work for you, or if you want to get started, you can find ORDO at ou.figshare.com and log in with your OU credentials.

For more information, see the ORDO information on our website or get in touch at library-research-support@open.ac.uk

 

UK Data Service training – GDPR and research data

The UK Data Service is running a training session on Friday 4th May, on Managing and sharing research data: What is new with the GDPR?

“In this hands-on workshop you will learn best practices for managing and publishing research data resulting from research with participants. Specific attention will be paid to new requirements of the GDPR when gaining consent, processing and de-identifying data and sharing them for future use”

The UK Data Service is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to meet the data needs of researchers, students and teachers from all sectors – but you don’t need to be an ESRC funded researcher to attend. It takes place at the University of Essex and the costs are £30 for UK registered students, £60 for staff from UK academic institutions.

Full details and the link for bookings are on the UK Data Service website.

Access to library resources directly from publishers’ websites

Do you want to access library resources directly from publishers’ websites? If so the Library access browser extension is for you.

How does it work?

The Library Access browser extension makes it simple to access academic articles, journals and databases licensed by The Open University Library, wherever you are and whenever you need it.

After downloading, the extension will notify you when you’re on a website that The Open University Library has a subscription for. Then, it’s just a single click to open the site through the library’s systems and get access to all licensed material on that site. Install the browser extension once and enjoy a simpler, faster way to get access.

The browser extension shows an icon in the bookmarks bar. It works almost like a traffic light. If the icon is green, then you have access. A grey icon means that access is denied. If the material you’d like to use doesn’t seem accessible, Library Access will automatically check for open access versions of the article.

Download the Library Access browser extension

Are you interested in downloading the extension? The Library Access page on the Library website has all the information you need.

 What about my privacy?  

By using the Library Access extension you will remain completely anonymous. The Library Access browser extension doesn’t collect any personal information unless you actively share it. And it doesn’t collect your IP address or your device’s unique device IDs.

Do you want to know more? The privacy statement for the extension contains the information you need.

 

REF 2021 Open Access Policy – Update

The Open Access policy for the next REF has been amended.

To be eligible for submission to the next REF, HEFCE now requires that the full-text of journal articles and published, peer-reviewed conference proceedings (with an ISSN) are deposited in an open access repository within 3 months from acceptance. This is a change from the previous timeframe of 3 months from first publication (in place since 1st April 2016).

A new deposit exception to the policy has been created to cater for publications being added to an open access repository in accordance with the old timeframe.  Any publication that misses the new timeframe (3 months from acceptance) but meets the old timeframe (3 months from first publication) will be eligible to claim this exception.  This exception will remain in place for the whole of the REF2021 publication period.

This change is required for all eligible publications accepted for publication on or after 1st April 2018.  The version of the publication required by HEFCE to be deposited in an open access repository is the author’s accepted manuscript.

Further details can be found at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/rsrch/oa/Policy/.

 

ORCID Training

Earlier in the week Alan and I did some more training on ORCID IDs for researchers here at the OU.  ORCID IDs are persistent identifiers for researchers and can be used to:

  • Aid disambiguation in researcher platforms to ensure accurate ownership of research outputs
  • Make connections across researcher platforms to save time

Slides are available:

https://www.slideshare.net/ctb44/orcid-at-the-ou-march-2018

 

Further notes from the presentation : ORCIDs at the OU – Notes

Research Support Website: ORCID

Guest post: Dr Marc Cornock on GDPR

You may have noticed increasing mentions of GDPR lately. The General Data Protection Regulation is the new EU-wide Regulation that will replace the UK Data Protection Act. It’s something we have been reading up on as part of our work supporting researchers in managing their data, and came across an editorial by Dr Marc Cornock, Senior Lecturer in Health at the OU, which neatly summarises GDPR and its implications for research. 

We thought Marc’s piece well worth sharing and invited him to be a guest blogger, to talk about GDPR and link to his editorial. Look out for further information here on GDPR over the next couple of months, but now, over to Marc…

In less than 3 months on 25th May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016/679/EU comes into force. This is a major piece of legislative reform for 2 reasons: firstly it is the biggest change in data protection law and the rules surrounding the use, storage and dissemination of personal data in over twenty years; and secondly, the actual legislation itself is huge. The Regulation runs to 11 Chapters, 99 Articles and 173 Recitals. A Recital sets out the reasoning within a specific Article or clarifies as aspect of the Regulation.

The GDPR aims to harmonise data protection and privacy laws across all member states of the European Union. Although the United Kingdom has set out its desire to leave the European Union through the Brexit process; at the point at which the GDPR comes into force the United Kingdom will still be a part of the European Union, and as Regulations of the European Union are directly applicable in all member states without the need for further legislation, the GDPR will become law in the United Kingdom as well as the rest of the European Union.

The United Kingdom is making provision for the continued effect of the GDPR after Brexit through the introduction of the Data Protection Bill 2017, which is currently going through Parliament.

One headline fact that has been mentioned numerously is the size of the fine that can be applied for a breach of the GDPR principles. Article 83 provides for fines of €20 Million or 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of an organization, whichever is higher, for a serious breach. This figure is enough to concentrate the mind and because of its importance, and its size and complexity, a lot of people are worried about the implementation of the GDPR and their preparedness for it.

At The Open University, various individuals and departments have been working on the implementation of the GDPR for some time and ensuring that all OU processes are compliant with the Regulation. Because of the issues around Brexit, the Information Commissioner’s Office does not presently have a definitive guide to the GDPR but rather has a living document that provides guidance as it is available. This does mean that organisations are not expected to have every procedure and process in place on 25th May 2018; rather they need to be able to demonstrate that they are working toward it.

The GDPR will affect research and individual researchers. For some of the issues affecting researchers I would direct you to my recent editorial in Maturitas available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2018.01.017

 

Understanding Plagiarism training session

This afternoon I ran a training session on plagiarism for research students. The session gave an overview on what plagiarism is and how to recognise it. We also had a discussion around why plagiarism could occur and came up with some tips on how to avoid it. The slides can be found at https://www.slideshare.net/NicolaDowson/understanding-plagiarism-89922940

This session will be re-run 10-11am on Thursday 12th April in the Library Presentation Room, please email library-training@open.ac.uk if you would like to attend.

 

Using Zenodo to share your research data? Join our community!

Zenodo is a repository for preserving and sharing research data (one of many, like our own repository, ORDO).  

Zenodo logo and link

Created by OpenAIRE and CERN, and supported by the European Commission, Zenodo holds data from all fields of research, preserving it for the long term and making it discoverable, accessible and citable. 

Open University Zenodo Community

Everyone at the OU is of course welcome to use ORDO, but if Zenodo is your repository of choice, you can now add your data to the Open University Zenodo Community, which we have created to showcase OU research data held there. Just go to the community page and click on the green ‘New upload’ link. 

 

Online training – Data sharing: legal and ethical issues

Yesterday I ran an online training session on sharing research data. This session covered:

  • Rights and data sharing
  • Ethics and data sharing
  • Re-using data

The slides from the session are below. OU staff and students can access a recording of the session on Adobe Connect and anyone can access it on You Tube.

This concludes the current batch of online training sessions but we aim to run more in future.

If you have any feedback or if there’s any other training you’d like us to deliver online, feel free to let us know by emailing or commenting below