Monthly Archives: June 2019

ORDO best practice #2 Archiving a website

Continuing my series on best practice in ORDO, this time I’m going to trumpet The Robert Minter Collection: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.rd.7258499.v1 which was deposited by Trevor Herbert in December 2018. According to the ORDO record:

This is a copy of the data underlying the website ‘The Robert Minter Collection: A Handlist of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Trumpet Repertory’ which contained a database of music collected by Robert L. Minter (1949-81).

Minter’s interest was in the collection of sources that contribute to our understanding of the trumpet at various points in its history before the twentieth century.

This is regarded as one of the world’s largest fully catalogued datasets about early trumpet repertoire.

The website in question was created in 2008 and is no longer active, however it had been archived by the Internet Archive, most recently in May 2017. In 2018, Trevor approached the Library for help archiving the data contained on the website because he was aware that although the Internet Archive had maintained much of the information, not all functionality and content had been preserved; most crucially the database itself is no longer searchable.               

ORDO was deemed a good fit for creating an archive of the content of the website. It allows the deposit of any file type and enables in-browser visualisation of many of these so it is not always necessary to download documents in order to view them. By depositing the material in ORDO, Trevor also obtained a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) – a persistent, reliable link to the record which will be maintained even if the materials are no longer available for any reason. Any materials added to ORDO are guaranteed to be maintained for a minimum of ten years.

Within the record there are four files – an access database, a csv copy of the data, a zip file containing information about the collection, database and website and a list of files in the zip file. The description in the record makes it clear to any potential users what they are accessing and how they can be used. Since it was deposited in December, the collection has been viewed 139 times and downloaded 18 times. Now that deserves a fanfare!

Plan S – a primer

What is Plan S?

Plan S is a radical proposal regarding open access (OA) to research publications.

It was created by cOAlition S, a group of research funders co-ordinated by Science Europe. It includes UKRI (UK Research and Innovation), Wellcome, the European Research Council (ERC), the European Commission and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

What does Plan S propose?

The crux of Plan S is that peer-reviewed research publications resulting from grants that the coalition allocate:

“must be fully and immediately open and cannot be monetised in any way”

cOAlition S believe they have a duty of care towards research as a whole. Thus they favour OA because it helps research function more efficiently and have greater impact on society. They feel there is no justification for keeping research publications behind paywalls and that progress towards OA needs accelerating.

More specifically, Plan S requires that all peer-reviewed research publications funded via calls posted from 1st January 2021 must be:

  • Published in an OA journal where the content is OA immediately (gold OA)

OR

OR

  • Published in an OA repository where the content is OA immediately (green OA with no embargo)
      • At The OU, authors could comply by depositing their work in ORO, as long as the work meets all other Plan S requirements

Making research data and other outputs OA is encouraged and a statement clarifying policy regarding monographs and book chapters is expected by the end of 2021.

Other headlines include:

  • Publication in hybrid journals (i.e. subscription-based journals that charge a fee to make articles OA) will not be supported…
    • …unless the journal moves towards becoming fully OA within a defined timeframe under a “transformative arrangement”
  • Authors or their institutions must retain copyright
    • CC-BY is the preferred license
  • Publishers should charge reasonable fees for OA and make the structure of these fees transparent
    • Funders may even standardise and cap the fees they pay
  • A commitment to the responsible evaluation of research when allocating funds
    • The coalition states it will judge research on its own merit and not on things like the journal it was published in or metrics such as Journal Impact Factor
  • Compliance with Plan S will be monitored and non-compliance will be sanctioned

However, the devil is in the detail – there are a lot of elements to Plan S and we recommend reading it yourself to see which aspects might impact you.

What are people saying about Plan S?

There have been a LOT of reactions to Plan S and these are, predicatably, mixed. Some of the themes I have noticed are:

  • Many people support the aims of Plan S
  • There is concern it is too STEM-focused and will negatively affect AHSS researchers
  • There is concern regarding some of the implementation detail
    • e.g. the technical specifications regarding publications, OA repositories and other OA platforms
  • Some believe it will impinge academic freedom
    • i.e. to choose where and how to publish
  • There is concern about the effects it will have on smaller publishers and learned societies
  • The timescale is too ambitious
  • We have been here before
    • There have been statements, reports and policies made in the past which did not push through the radical change anticipated

 

What is next for Plan S?

There is still a lot of uncertainty regarding the detail and implementation of Plan S, so all concerned will need to keep a watching brief.

Call for Data Champions!

The Library is launching a new Data Champions programme, and we are looking for PGR students and staff who are interested in taking part.

What would this involve?

Data Champions are expected to:

  • Lead by example – make data open (via ORDO or other data repositories); share best practice through case studies and blog posts, and share Data Management Plans on the Library Research Support website 
  • Promote OU Research Data Management (RDM) services and tools within your unit
  • Provide discipline specific data management advice and support to colleagues
  • Attend and contribute to Library-run events 
  • Contribute to The Orb, Open Research Blog 
  • Offer feedback to Library Services to support RDM service development

What’s in it for me?

Data Champions will benefit from the following: 

  • Boost CV – increase funding opportunities by having RDM “expert” status  
  • Increase visibility – dedicated profile on the Data Champions webpage, opportunity to contribute to the successful Open Research Blog 
  • Opportunity to network with colleagues from across the OU 
  • Be instrumental in developing the OU Research Data Management Service and improving the culture of data sharing at the OU 
  • Receive 100 GB of data storage on ORDO as default 
  • Attendance for one Data Champion per year to the annual Figshare Fest conference in London 

Do I need to be a data expert?

No  – we’re looking for a range of people from different disciplines who work in different ways with different types of data. You could be a research student, early career researcher, professor, member of research support staff or an IT specialist. You might have experience compiling surveys, collecting lab-based data, harvesting big data or creating video data. Whoever you are and whatever your area of interest, we’d love to hear from you.

Don’t worry if you don’t consider yourself a data expert, your knowledge in your specfic area is invaluable and training and support will be given.

What’s the time commitment?

We expect the Data Champion role to require a commitment of 1-3 hours a month, but this can be flexible according to the amount of time you are able to give.

How do I apply?

Send an email to library-research-support@open,ac,uk  by 31st July with the subject “Data Champions” stating what type of research you are involved with and whether there’s any particular contribution you’d like to make.

When do I start?

We are going to launch the programme with a Data Champions Forum in September. This will be an opportunity to meet the other Data Champions, find out more and help shape the Data Champions programme.

 

What are responsible metrics?

“Responsible metrics” refers to the ethical and appropriate use of citation-based metrics (e.g. citation counts, Journal Impact Factor, H-index), altmetrics (e.g. how many times research is mentioned, used, saved and shared on blogs, social media and social bookmarking services) and other quantitative means of evaluating research.

It applies to everyone involved in using or producing these metrics e.g.:

  • researchers
  • funders
  • institutions (i.e. universities and other bodies that employ researchers)
  • publishers
  • organisations that supply metrics

The idea is to offer guidelines for good practice that help prevent scenarios such as:

  • a journal article being judged solely on the journal it is published in rather than on its own merit
  • universities focusing on improving their place in a ranking list, when the completeness of data and appropriateness of measures the list uses are contested
  • employers using arbitrary metric thresholds to hire and/or fire staff
  • the assessment of research in general being skewed by the fact that metrics can be gamed and/or lead to unintended consequences

Adopting a responsible metrics approach is seen as good practice across the research community.

The Metric Tide is an important report published in 2015, which helped foreground and frame discussion of responsible metrics (in the UK at least). It states:

“Responsible metrics can be understood in
terms of a number of dimensions:

Robustness: basing metrics on the best possible data in terms of accuracy and scope;

Humility: recognising that quantitative evaluation should support – but not supplant– qualitative, expert assessment;

Transparency: keeping data collection and analytical processes open andtransparent, so that those being evaluated can test and verify the results;

Diversity: accounting for variation by field, and using a range of indicators to reflectand support a plurality of research and researcher career paths across the system;Reflexivity: recognising and anticipating the systemic and potential effects ofindicators, and updating them in response”

Other important milestones in responsible metrics include the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), formulated in 2012, and The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics, which was published in 2015.

Expect to hear more about this issue as research funders begin to implement the principles of responsible metrics and demand that organisations receiving grants from them do likewise – see Plan S and Wellcome’s Open access policy 2021.

ORCID Training

An ORCID is a 16 digit persistent identifier for researchers and contributors.  It’s purpose is to:

(1) disambiguate researchers with like names in any system (e.g. Web of Science, ORO or ORDO)

(2) aid data transfer across systems to stop you re-keying information (e.g. if your ORCID is related to a bunch of publication information in one system simply by adding your ORCID to another system all that information can be automatically pulled across without the need for re-keying).  That’s the idea, anyway! 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

…if you would like to know more – then come along to our re-scheduled training session on 3rd July 10.30-11.30; face to face at Library Seminar Room 1 4th July 10.30-11.30 Library Seminar Room 1, or online via Adobe Connect.

My Learning Centre Registration: Claiming your research publications: ORCIDs at the OU.

ORDO best practice #1 Documenting data

Over the coming months I’m going to focus on some examples of best practice on ORDO. The creators of all the items in this series will receive a reusable Figshare coffee cup as way of thanks and congratulations.

The first series of items I’m going to focus on are the OpenMARS Database datasets (https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.rd.c.4278950.v1) , deposited by James Holmes (STEM) earlier this year. From the data record:

“The Open access to Mars Assimilated Remote Soundings (OpenMARS) database is a reanalysis product combining past spacecraft observations with a state-of-the-art Mars Global Circulation Model (GCM). The OpenMARS product is a global surface/atmosphere reference database of key variables for multiple Mars years.”

Since their deposit in February, these datasets have been downloaded a total of 291 times, making them some of the most popular items on ORDO. This is a fine reward for all the hard work that went into preparing them for sharing.

What’s so good about them?

There are four datasets which are published individually and also grouped together as a collection. The most impressive thing about these is the documentation accompanying these datasets, which is excellent:

  • On the landing page for each dataset is a description, which clearly details the provenance of the dataset and information about the OpenMARS project
  • Each dataset has a PDF reference manual. This can be read in the browser, and as the datasets are large (~25GB each) and use a file format that requires specialist software and does not display in the browser (.nc) this means that users can decide if the data is useful before download
  • The documentation within the reference manual is very detailed and includes information on access (using a sample Python script included in the dataset), structure of the dataset, provenance and quality assurance
  • The datasets clearly reference the funding body – the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme

Is it FAIR?

The gold standard for research data is that it should be FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable. These datasets fulfill all but one of the criteria detailed in Sarah Jones and Maarjan Grootfeld’s FAIR data checklist (original version at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1065991).  It only falls down on the fact that the data are not in a widely available format, but considering the nature of the data this would be very difficult to achieve, and since the reference manuals are very accessible, this issue is dealt with. See the completed checklist.

And finally, a word from James…

‘Adding datasets produced by our team at the Open University that will be of interest to multiple different users was really simple to do using the ORDO system, and the team that manage it were very helpful if I had any questions during the process. Thanks!’