Periodic Report Summary 1 - RECODE (Policy RECommendations for Open Access to Research Data in Europe)
Project Context and Objectives:
The Policy RECommendations for Open Access to Research Data in Europe (RECODE) project will use a range of stakeholder engagement and collaboration strategies to:
•address the fragmentation of stakeholders within the open access and data dissemination and preservation sector and
•bring these diverse stakeholders together to solve over-arching barriers to the sharing and reuse of scientific data.
As a result of technological, social and policy changes, open access, data preservation and the dissemination of research data are growing areas of interest. In Europe, a number of policies, initiatives and projects have emerged in order to harness the potential of open access to and preservation of scientific data. The potential benefits of doing so include: innovation, better informed citizens and the creation of a knowledge society. Many of these initiatives have sought to address the barriers associated with making such data more accessible; however, because of grand challenges surrounding open access to research data, many initiatives are fragmented by nation, region or discipline and are focused on different and particular aspects of the open access to research data landscape. Such grand challenges include infrastructural and technological issues, legal and ethical issues and institutional and policy frameworks. Despite the contextual specificity of some of these issues, a comprehensive open access and data dissemination and preservation policy framework must provide over-arching recommendations that span across disciplinary, stakeholder and other types of fragmentation.
Use of case studies
In order to provide such over-arching recommendations, RECODE will use case studies from a number of different scientific disciplines to examine these issues in practice. Case studies are from the following disciplines:
• particle physics and particle astrophysics,
• health / clinical research,
• medicine and technical physiology,
• environmental science, and
• the humanities.
These case studies will provide a multi-disciplinary platform from which RECODE can examine open access and data preservation issues in relation to stakeholder values and inter-relationships (WP1) and grand challenges, including infrastructure and technology issues (WP 2), legal and ethical questions (WP 3) and institutional and governmental policy issues (WP 4). Furthermore, these issues can be examined from a range of disciplinary perspectives to identify shared concerns and elements of good practice.
Stakeholder engagement is key to the success of the RECODE project. Each work package will center on a stakeholder collaboration exercise that will enable stakeholders from different disciplinary and institutional perspectives to agree policy recommendations that will address barriers to open access to research data and develop the sector overall. Policy recommendations will be further evaluated in the final conference, where European and international stakeholders will be invited to give feedback on the project’s policy guidelines via our final report.
The RECODE project has the following main objectives:
•To reduce stakeholder fragmentation in the area of open access to and dissemination and preservation of research data.
•To identify stakeholder values and inter-relationships in order to identify synergies and areas of conflict and promote collaboration on shared problems and solutions
•To identify gaps, tensions and good practice solutions for infrastructural and technological, legal, ethical, institutional and policy issues relating to the sharing of data
•To use five case studies to examine each of these areas across disciplinary boundaries
•To use stakeholder collaboration exercises to identify and promote over-arching good practice policy solutions
•To produce a set of guidelines that identify, promote and disseminate good practice solutions for the sharing of scientific data to stakeholders across the open access and data dissemination and preservation landscape
Project Results:
In the first half of the project RECODE has progressed well in meeting its objectives.
Work package 1 outlining stakeholder values and motivations within the open access ecosystem is complete. RECODE Deliverable 1.1 Stakeholder values and relationships within open access and data dissemination and preservation ecosystems, was submitted on-time and is publicly available on the project website. WP1 partners under took a literature review of relevant materials related to open access to examine the values and motivations of different categories of stakeholders, including academics, policy-makers, institutions, industry and members of the public, among others. The work package also used 29 interviews with case study representatives to test the findings in the literature review. These rich interviews revealed significant disciplinary differences in the provision of open access to research data, as well as significant differences in the attitudes and motivations of different types of stakeholders. These findings were validated in a workshop in Sheffield, UK.
Work package 2, outlining technical and infrastructural barriers and solutions was almost complete at the close of the first reporting period. WP2 partners also undertook a literature review of relevant material to examine technical and infrastructural issues, such as: data heterogeneity and standardisation; accessibility and discoverability issues; data preservation and curation; data quality and assessibility; and data security. Each was examined with reference to the following stakeholder categories: producers of research data, disseminators and curators of research data, research funders and end users. Work package partners also undertook an exploratory survey of open access practices and conducted interviews with case study stakeholders and additional relevant stakeholders to examine these issues with relation to different disciplinary and stakeholder perspectives. The report findings were validated in a workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, which was attended by 40 stakeholders from 14 countries. The following is a selection of recommendations from the draft report:
•Adopt holistic technical and infrastructural solutions
•Take into account the different attitudes in different fields of science
•Apply flexible, extensible solutions that satisfy the specificity of different disciplines
•Promote a culture of data management and infrastructure for data curation and preservation
•Promote data discoverability and the use of persistent digital identifiers
This WP was completed within 30 days of the original due date, on the 28 February 2014. This short extension was agreed with the Project Officer.
Work package 3 on Legal and ethical issues is also in progress. As part of this work, WP3 partners undertook a literature review of the relevant journal articles, project reports, policy documents, media materials and other institutional reports to examine the following legal and ethical issues: intellectual property issues, data protection, open access mandates, unintended secondary use of data, privacy breaches, dual use, commercialisation and restrictions on scientific freedom. This literature review is complete, and it will be tested using 12-15 interviews with case study representatives and a workshop in Amsterdam on the 14 March 2014.
Finally, work is progressing on WP6: Stakeholder engagement and mobilization, which has built the first draft of a stakeholder taxonomy and a substantial contact list. Work is also progressing on WP7: Dissemination. Partners have completed the RECODE Stakeholder engagement plan (D7.1) and the website (D7.2 – details below), a project brochure and a project poster (D7.3). The RECODE partners have also carried out 21 external presentations, and have completed the revisions to a team publication, “Open access to research data: The data gap and changes in the research environment”, which will be published in Prometheus in Summer 2014.
Potential Impact:
The primary impact of the RECODE project will be on the policy framework of the European Commission in respect of open access to and preservation of research data. The RECODE project will collect data from across the European Union and beyond to provide good practice recommendations for both the European Union and third countries. Debates about access to scientific data and the storage and preservation of data produced by scientific research, and more broadly about the democratization of scientific and technological research, are high on the agendas of many research organizations, universities and science and education sectors of government across Europe. It is also a growing area of research in and of itself. Researchers will find that research data relevant to their work are more accessible, no matter what the national origin of the data. Furthermore, more data will become more accessible, particularly data and findings originating from projects which are publicly funded. Researchers will also find that their intellectual property is better protected, despite being more accessible. The RECODE project will particularly use networking and consensus building activities to identify good practice and subsequent policy recommendations through stakeholder engagement mechanisms.
In addition to providing a range of stakeholders within the open access and data dissemination and preservation ecosystem a better understanding of the barriers, good practices and policy needs associated with open access to scientific data, the RECODE project will have other impacts, including the following:
Strategic impact – Providing recommendations to harmonize open access and data dissemination and preservation policies across the EU and internationally will have strategic impacts for the European Union in that European experts will be able to make better use of one another’s research data, and evaluate the value of such data. Furthermore, creating a policy framework to support open access data repositories to co-operate across the European Union will prevent knowledge silos. These strategic impacts will help to build an open and effective knowledge society within Europe.
Impacts on competitiveness – The creation of scientific and open access networks of libraries, publishers and repositories as well as their integration with European and national funding bodies will enable the European Commission to optimize resources in the sciences. Streamlining policies to protect intellectual property and the personal data of research subjects will also prevent duplication of research, additional costs, loss of trust, etc. The elimination of these costs and duplications will increase European competitiveness overall.
Economic impacts – The RECODE project will also have an economic impact in that access to scientific data and research results and expert analyses will ensure that research efforts are not repeated. Funding bodies will encourage the re-analysis of existing scientific data and measured and consistent progress in testing and building upon existing scientific information. Increasing awareness surrounding open access repositories will also prevent wasteful duplication of publicly funded research, which will assist in optimizing European funding resources.
Social objectives – The RECODE project will assist in promoting more publicly accessible research by encouraging more transparency in research activities and outputs.
List of Websites:
http://recodeproject.eu
The Policy RECommendations for Open Access to Research Data in Europe (RECODE) project will use a range of stakeholder engagement and collaboration strategies to:
•address the fragmentation of stakeholders within the open access and data dissemination and preservation sector and
•bring these diverse stakeholders together to solve over-arching barriers to the sharing and reuse of scientific data.
As a result of technological, social and policy changes, open access, data preservation and the dissemination of research data are growing areas of interest. In Europe, a number of policies, initiatives and projects have emerged in order to harness the potential of open access to and preservation of scientific data. The potential benefits of doing so include: innovation, better informed citizens and the creation of a knowledge society. Many of these initiatives have sought to address the barriers associated with making such data more accessible; however, because of grand challenges surrounding open access to research data, many initiatives are fragmented by nation, region or discipline and are focused on different and particular aspects of the open access to research data landscape. Such grand challenges include infrastructural and technological issues, legal and ethical issues and institutional and policy frameworks. Despite the contextual specificity of some of these issues, a comprehensive open access and data dissemination and preservation policy framework must provide over-arching recommendations that span across disciplinary, stakeholder and other types of fragmentation.
Use of case studies
In order to provide such over-arching recommendations, RECODE will use case studies from a number of different scientific disciplines to examine these issues in practice. Case studies are from the following disciplines:
• particle physics and particle astrophysics,
• health / clinical research,
• medicine and technical physiology,
• environmental science, and
• the humanities.
These case studies will provide a multi-disciplinary platform from which RECODE can examine open access and data preservation issues in relation to stakeholder values and inter-relationships (WP1) and grand challenges, including infrastructure and technology issues (WP 2), legal and ethical questions (WP 3) and institutional and governmental policy issues (WP 4). Furthermore, these issues can be examined from a range of disciplinary perspectives to identify shared concerns and elements of good practice.
Stakeholder engagement is key to the success of the RECODE project. Each work package will center on a stakeholder collaboration exercise that will enable stakeholders from different disciplinary and institutional perspectives to agree policy recommendations that will address barriers to open access to research data and develop the sector overall. Policy recommendations will be further evaluated in the final conference, where European and international stakeholders will be invited to give feedback on the project’s policy guidelines via our final report.
The RECODE project has the following main objectives:
•To reduce stakeholder fragmentation in the area of open access to and dissemination and preservation of research data.
•To identify stakeholder values and inter-relationships in order to identify synergies and areas of conflict and promote collaboration on shared problems and solutions
•To identify gaps, tensions and good practice solutions for infrastructural and technological, legal, ethical, institutional and policy issues relating to the sharing of data
•To use five case studies to examine each of these areas across disciplinary boundaries
•To use stakeholder collaboration exercises to identify and promote over-arching good practice policy solutions
•To produce a set of guidelines that identify, promote and disseminate good practice solutions for the sharing of scientific data to stakeholders across the open access and data dissemination and preservation landscape
Project Results:
In the first half of the project RECODE has progressed well in meeting its objectives.
Work package 1 outlining stakeholder values and motivations within the open access ecosystem is complete. RECODE Deliverable 1.1 Stakeholder values and relationships within open access and data dissemination and preservation ecosystems, was submitted on-time and is publicly available on the project website. WP1 partners under took a literature review of relevant materials related to open access to examine the values and motivations of different categories of stakeholders, including academics, policy-makers, institutions, industry and members of the public, among others. The work package also used 29 interviews with case study representatives to test the findings in the literature review. These rich interviews revealed significant disciplinary differences in the provision of open access to research data, as well as significant differences in the attitudes and motivations of different types of stakeholders. These findings were validated in a workshop in Sheffield, UK.
Work package 2, outlining technical and infrastructural barriers and solutions was almost complete at the close of the first reporting period. WP2 partners also undertook a literature review of relevant material to examine technical and infrastructural issues, such as: data heterogeneity and standardisation; accessibility and discoverability issues; data preservation and curation; data quality and assessibility; and data security. Each was examined with reference to the following stakeholder categories: producers of research data, disseminators and curators of research data, research funders and end users. Work package partners also undertook an exploratory survey of open access practices and conducted interviews with case study stakeholders and additional relevant stakeholders to examine these issues with relation to different disciplinary and stakeholder perspectives. The report findings were validated in a workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, which was attended by 40 stakeholders from 14 countries. The following is a selection of recommendations from the draft report:
•Adopt holistic technical and infrastructural solutions
•Take into account the different attitudes in different fields of science
•Apply flexible, extensible solutions that satisfy the specificity of different disciplines
•Promote a culture of data management and infrastructure for data curation and preservation
•Promote data discoverability and the use of persistent digital identifiers
This WP was completed within 30 days of the original due date, on the 28 February 2014. This short extension was agreed with the Project Officer.
Work package 3 on Legal and ethical issues is also in progress. As part of this work, WP3 partners undertook a literature review of the relevant journal articles, project reports, policy documents, media materials and other institutional reports to examine the following legal and ethical issues: intellectual property issues, data protection, open access mandates, unintended secondary use of data, privacy breaches, dual use, commercialisation and restrictions on scientific freedom. This literature review is complete, and it will be tested using 12-15 interviews with case study representatives and a workshop in Amsterdam on the 14 March 2014.
Finally, work is progressing on WP6: Stakeholder engagement and mobilization, which has built the first draft of a stakeholder taxonomy and a substantial contact list. Work is also progressing on WP7: Dissemination. Partners have completed the RECODE Stakeholder engagement plan (D7.1) and the website (D7.2 – details below), a project brochure and a project poster (D7.3). The RECODE partners have also carried out 21 external presentations, and have completed the revisions to a team publication, “Open access to research data: The data gap and changes in the research environment”, which will be published in Prometheus in Summer 2014.
Potential Impact:
The primary impact of the RECODE project will be on the policy framework of the European Commission in respect of open access to and preservation of research data. The RECODE project will collect data from across the European Union and beyond to provide good practice recommendations for both the European Union and third countries. Debates about access to scientific data and the storage and preservation of data produced by scientific research, and more broadly about the democratization of scientific and technological research, are high on the agendas of many research organizations, universities and science and education sectors of government across Europe. It is also a growing area of research in and of itself. Researchers will find that research data relevant to their work are more accessible, no matter what the national origin of the data. Furthermore, more data will become more accessible, particularly data and findings originating from projects which are publicly funded. Researchers will also find that their intellectual property is better protected, despite being more accessible. The RECODE project will particularly use networking and consensus building activities to identify good practice and subsequent policy recommendations through stakeholder engagement mechanisms.
In addition to providing a range of stakeholders within the open access and data dissemination and preservation ecosystem a better understanding of the barriers, good practices and policy needs associated with open access to scientific data, the RECODE project will have other impacts, including the following:
Strategic impact – Providing recommendations to harmonize open access and data dissemination and preservation policies across the EU and internationally will have strategic impacts for the European Union in that European experts will be able to make better use of one another’s research data, and evaluate the value of such data. Furthermore, creating a policy framework to support open access data repositories to co-operate across the European Union will prevent knowledge silos. These strategic impacts will help to build an open and effective knowledge society within Europe.
Impacts on competitiveness – The creation of scientific and open access networks of libraries, publishers and repositories as well as their integration with European and national funding bodies will enable the European Commission to optimize resources in the sciences. Streamlining policies to protect intellectual property and the personal data of research subjects will also prevent duplication of research, additional costs, loss of trust, etc. The elimination of these costs and duplications will increase European competitiveness overall.
Economic impacts – The RECODE project will also have an economic impact in that access to scientific data and research results and expert analyses will ensure that research efforts are not repeated. Funding bodies will encourage the re-analysis of existing scientific data and measured and consistent progress in testing and building upon existing scientific information. Increasing awareness surrounding open access repositories will also prevent wasteful duplication of publicly funded research, which will assist in optimizing European funding resources.
Social objectives – The RECODE project will assist in promoting more publicly accessible research by encouraging more transparency in research activities and outputs.
List of Websites:
http://recodeproject.eu