The state of global research data initiatives: observations from a life on the road

1. The State of Global Research
Data Initiatives
Sarah Jones
Digital Curation Centre
sarah.jones@glasgow.ac.uk
Twitter: @sjDCC
www.slideshare.net/sjDCC/global-research-data-initiatives

2. What is Digital Curation Centre?
a centre of expertise in digital information curation with a focus
on building capacity, capability and skills for research data
management and open science
www.dcc.ac.uk
Training | Events | Tools | Advocacy | Consultancy | Guidance | Publications | Projects
All content and code
Open – please reuse!

3. DCC is increasingly international
Collaborate with ARDC
Training workshops
at Hong Kong UST,
NTU & Malaysian
unis
Run DMPTuuli service for Finland
& DMP services for 45+
organisations internationally
Doing consultancy for
International Development
Research Council in Canada, OECD,
World Bank and many others
Many projects and
partners across Europe
Delivered
data science
schools in
Africa and
Brazil
Collaborations with UCT
and NeDICC in South Africa
Open source code
partnership with UC3 at
California Digital Library
on Data Management
Planning tools
MOU with
KISTI

4. RDM services are of global interest
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
on Delivering RDM Services
1548 learners from 120 countries
www.futurelearn.com/courses/delivering-research-data-management-services

5. Nowhere has it all: challenges remain
Image by Sonja Guina https://unsplash.com/photos/fbjSCmE5iDI

6. 1. Advocacy is still needed
Researchers often
disinterested
“This is administrative”
Senior management may
not fund services
“What is the benefit?”

7. Need to pick the right argument
Researcher
• Saves time and effort
• Increases citations
• Benefits your career…
Institutional
• For compliance – risk
• To be stronger than
peers – competition
• To advance science -
altruistic
Tailor to your audience

8. 2. No recognition and rewards
• Activities critical to the research (e.g. data
wrangling, visualisation, software engineering,
curation…) not valued and credited
• Researchers who go into RDM jeopardise career
progression – still rated on publications
• We lose skilled data scientists and software
engineers to industry where they have prospects

9. 3. Lack of skills & support
“There is an alarming shortage of data expertise in
the EU… The number of ‘Core Data Experts’ needed
to effectively operate the EOSC is, we estimate, likely
exceeding half a million within a decade.”
EOSC High Level Expert Group
https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/realising_the
_european_open_science_cloud_2016.pdf

10. CODATA/RDA Schools
New data
stewardship
curriculum
In association with
http://www.codata.org/working-
groups/research-data-science-summer-schools
Run annually since 2016 in Trieste, Italy
Now running in Africa & South America too
9 schools to date

11. 4. Underuse of services
DAF studies in UK across 6 institutions / groups gaining 1,185 responses
www.slideshare.net/JiscRDM/daf-survey-results-research-data-network

12. 5. Competition from publishers

13. It’s not all bad: many strengths globally
Image by Tommy Lisbin https://unsplash.com/photos/FCIJfK0r1Xc

14. Large centralised investment
Since 2004, the Australian
Government has invested over
$3 billion to deliver world-class
research infrastructure,
primarily through the National
Collaborative Research
Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
NCRIS in Australia NFDI in Germany
The German Research Foundation
(DFG) National is investing €85
million annually over 10 years -
€850m via the Research Data
Infrastructure (NFDI)
https://www.dfg.de/en/service/p
ress/press_releases/2018/press_r
elease_no_58/index.html

15. National Open Science commitment
• National plan in France
• Have an OS advisor at
national level – Marin
Dacos
• Open Access enshrined
in French law
https://libereurope.eu/blog/2018/07/05/frenchopenscienceplan

16. Strong policy landscape – USA
2013 OSTP memo
led to increase in of
funder policies &
DMP requirements

17. Disciplinary data centres - UK
The UK has a long-established network of
disciplinary data centres and databases to
emerge from research groups.
Sustainability still a challenge

18. Coordinated discovery
KISTI collects and provides access to Korean research
• Partnership with OpenAIRE on portal technology
• Partnership with ARCD on Research Data Australia catalogue
• Partnership with DCC on digital curation
https://www.kisti.re.kr/eng

19. Data stewards role
http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/604

20. Next steps – work to be done
Image by Lindsay Henwood https://unsplash.com/photos/7_kRuX1hSXM

21. Join forces: Open, FAIR, RDM
3 camps one destination: the intersections of
research data management, FAIR and Open
http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.468
Three different but overlapping concerns
1010111
000100
0100001
Open
RDM
FAIR

22. Open data and FAIR data
Managed data
FAIR
data
Open
data
• Not all data can be made Open
• FAIR data can be shared under restrictions
• Ideally data would be FAIR and Open

23. Open data, FAIR data & RDM
Managed data
FAIR
data
Open
data
• All data should be managed
• RDM is a prerequisite for Open & FAIR
• You can get Open data which is not
reusable or well managed

24. All research data
Managed data
FAIR
data
Open
data
the wild
• Lots isn’t managed, Open or FAIR
• Much is wild as researchers don’t have support

25. Increase data which is managed
FAIR & open
Managed data
FAIR
data
Open
data
the wild

26. Reach the Summit!
Manage
data
Make data
FAIR & Open
to highest
degrees
1010111
000100
0100001
Open
RDM
FAIR
Encourage to manage and share well

27. Coordinate investments
European Commission initiative to create the European
Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
• A platform for European research
• Federation of existing services – layer that adds value
• Open to all (so long as they abide by basic rules)
https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/
index.cfm?pg=open-science-cloud

28. EOSC governance

29. Take back control from publishers
Publishers are increasingly in control of scholarly infrastructure and
why we should care: A Case Study of Elsevier [article]

30. Rethink how we procure services
Set weightings / criteria that reflect our values:
• Is product open source?
• Will code extensions be made open for all?
• Can the data be moved to another platform easily?
• How many people are employed in the country by the
company?
• What business model and ethics does the provider have?
• ….

31. Build career paths
Society of Research Software Engineers
• New job title (RSE) created to promote career development and recognition
for those who provide software development expertise to research groups.
• RSEs have coding skills but also have an understanding of the research area.
• Establish institution wide research software groups at over 15 at UK unis to
give job stability and career progression
https://doi.org/10.2777/1524
case study on p49 of Turning FAIR into Reality report

32. Cooperate globally – use RDA
8,800 RDA members from
137 different countries
A global forum to build the social and technical
bridges that enable open sharing and re-use of data

33. Some RDA groups…
• Data citation WG
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/data-
citation-wg.html
DMP Common Standards WG
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/dmp-
common-standards-wg
FAIR data maturity model WG
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/fair-
data-maturity-model-wg
Metadata standards catalogue WG
www.rd-alliance.org/groups/metadata-
standards-catalog-working-group.html
FAIR data maturity model WG
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/fair-
data-maturity-model-wg
Early Career and Engagement IG
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/early-
career-and-engagement-ig
Libraries for Research Data IG
www.rd-alliance.org/groups/libraries-
research-data.html
Ethics and Social aspects of data IG
www.rd-alliance.org/groups/ethics-and-
social-aspects-data.html
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups

34. Global Open Science Commons IG
Coordinating Global Open
Science Commons IG
…WG …. WG … WG
Researcher Connect, University of Melbourne, 28th August 2019
https://www.rd-alliance.org/group/coordinating-global-open-science-
commons-ig/case-statement/coordinating-global-open-science

35. RDA & GO FAIR in Brazil
Poster and workshop at ConfOA on RDA and
activities in Portugal and Brazil
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/rda-brazil
https://www.go-fair.org/go-fair-initiative/go-fair-offices/go-fair-brazil-office

36. What are the Brazilian strengths?

37. Muito obrigada!
Eu amo o Brasil

38. Thanks! Any questions?
Sarah Jones
Digital Curation Centre
sarah.jones@glasgow.ac.uk
Twitter: @sjDCC