Showing posts with label policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label policy. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 July 2018
Thursday, 22 February 2018
How bad data practice is leading to bad data research
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/02/19/how-bad-data-practice-is-leading-to-bad-research/#e76a25f1c354
A long but very well thought out article that encourages us to look beyond the ability to reuse data to whether the data is appropriate for the questions being asked.
The very last paragraph sums it up:
Putting this all together, poor data practice, from honest statistical error to misunderstanding of data and methods, failure to normalize to malicious manipulation, coupled with copy-paste Google Scholar-ship, threatens to call into question many of the findings of data-driven research and is creating a dangerous landscape where a single honest spreadsheet error can reshape government policy, where "data" is conflated with "truth" and where dubious results are accepted as “fact” through the gilded veneer of data.
A long but very well thought out article that encourages us to look beyond the ability to reuse data to whether the data is appropriate for the questions being asked.
The very last paragraph sums it up:
Putting this all together, poor data practice, from honest statistical error to misunderstanding of data and methods, failure to normalize to malicious manipulation, coupled with copy-paste Google Scholar-ship, threatens to call into question many of the findings of data-driven research and is creating a dangerous landscape where a single honest spreadsheet error can reshape government policy, where "data" is conflated with "truth" and where dubious results are accepted as “fact” through the gilded veneer of data.
Monday, 5 June 2017
New SPARC Europe Report provides analysis of Open Data and Open Science Policies in Europe
http://sparceurope.org/new-sparc-europe-report-analyses-open-data-open-science-policies-europe/
"Providing an analysis of Open Data and Open Science policies across Europe, today we are releasing a new report. Produced in collaboration with the Digital Curation Center (DCC), it follows on the heels of a previous work that listed national research data policies.
"Providing an analysis of Open Data and Open Science policies across Europe, today we are releasing a new report. Produced in collaboration with the Digital Curation Center (DCC), it follows on the heels of a previous work that listed national research data policies.
This latest companion piece takes that work several steps further, analysing the types of policies in place, their processes of creation, and some of their details. Included in the study are the 28 EU member states, as well as countries from the European Research Area, including Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland.
“The last study attempting this kind of analysis was released in 2013, and much has changed since then,” said Martin Donnelly from DCC. “The level of insight it provides will be invaluable as countries throughout Europe continue to develop and evolve their Open Data and Open Science policies.”
Among the report’s most striking findings: 11 of the 28 European Union member states, as well as Norway and Switzerland, have national, research data-related policies in place. Of these, all were implemented in the past eight years, with most having taken effect recently. In about half of the countries, research data is covered under the same policy that applies to Open Access or Open Science.
For more details, download a free copy of the report."
Sunday, 30 April 2017
Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data Management
The LEARN Project has just released its free Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data Management:
The Toolkit expands on the issues outlined in the LERU Roadmap for Research Data (2013). It is nearly 200 pages long, and includes:
- 23 Best-Practice Case Studies from institutions around the world, drawn from issues in the original LERU Roadmap;
- 8 Main Sections, on topics such as Policy and Leadership, Open Data, Advocacy and Costs;
- One Model RDM Policy, produced by the University of Vienna and accompanied by guidance and an overview of 20 RDM policies across Europe;
- An Executive Briefing in six languages, aimed at senior institutional decision makers.
LEARN's Final Conference will take place in London on 5 May:
Friday, 29 July 2016
Research funders and UUK agree principles on open data
Times Higher Education (THE) The Concordat on Open Research Data, launched on 28 July, was developed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), Research Councils UK, Universities UK (UUK) and the Wellcome Trust, although they also consulted more widely ...…
Thursday, 23 July 2015
Recent Brief on Data Management Policies by Canadian Funding Agencies
A recent comprehensive brief prepared by Kathleen Shearer on behalf of the three funding agencies in Canada suggests that the United Kingdom and the United States are most advanced in their research data management policies. But the report also highlights that
"Despite the lack of strong policies, Australia is still considered one of the leaders in RDM in that it has made major investments in its services and infrastructure. In 2007, the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Program created the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). ANDS invests in and hosts a number of local and centralized services, including Research Data Australia, a national discovery service to promote visibility of research data collections."http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=1E116DB8-1
Friday, 17 July 2015
U.K.'s Economic and Social Research Council Research Data Policy Updated
The U.K.'s Economic and Social Research Council research data policy has been updated earlier in March this year. This is clearly relevant to Australian researchers collaborating with researchers funded through the ESRC program.
"All data created or repurposed during the lifetime of an ESRC grant must be made available for re-use or archiving within three months of the end of the grant. Grant holders must provide metadata for resource discovery via the UK Data Service to maximise the discoverability of ESRC data assets."http://www.esrc.ac.uk/about-esrc/information/data-policy.aspx
Friday, 29 May 2015
Building, enhancing and sustaining Australia's data linkage infrastructure and capability: why does it matter
Key Learnings from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy Executive Session 2
WEDNESDAY 20 MAY 2015
Building, enhancing and sustaining Australia's data linkage infrastructure and capability: why does it matter
Delivered by Liz Furler.
In this executive session, Liz presented an overview of Australia’s data linkage infrastructure and the current issues surrounding it. Liz noted the strengths of Australia’s national approach to data linkage, noting that we are the only country to have true population coverage. Given this, Liz noted that linked data has the potential to be a powerful (and cost effective) way to understand the impact of a broad set of determinants of health and evaluate policy initiatives. Liz also discussed some of the difficulties and issues surrounding data linkage. She noted that data custodians are generally reluctant to allow access to their data, citing privacy and legislation concerns, resulting in a lengthy, complicated and expensive process for obtaining linked data. Yet, focus groups have demonstrated that Australians have very few privacy concerns regarding the use of their data and there are no legislative barriers currently in place.
Liz concluded the session by arguing that citizens need to be fully informed as to the great potential for these data to improve health and social policy and outcomes. Once effectively engaged in the process, citizens hold the power to argue and advocate for the utilisation of routinely collected administrative datasets to improve health and social policy in this country.
Key learning prepared by Jenny Welsh, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, ANU. Jenny is a member of the ANU Menzies Centre for Health Policy steering group
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
UK Data Service releases guidelines for data purchase
Data purchase – guidelines for researchers
The UK Data Service has produced guidelines for researchers who are considering purchasing data for research.
These guidelines provide a set of generic guiding principles and questions to pose when planning data purchases. Prepared by the UK Data Service team, whose experts advise depositors and help researchers plan pathways to data access, the aim of these guidelines is to help researchers plan their data access requirements more effectively and to reduce the amount of time spent on legal and contractual issues. By following the guidelines, researchers will also ensure that they comply with the relevant research data policies and accountability, especially for ESRC-funded research.
The guidelines were initially developed to support the ESRC's Big Data Network Phase 2 Business and Local Government Data Research Centres, but they are now being released to the wider data research community for the benefit of all researchers.
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
ESRC has published its new Research data Policy
ESRC has published its new Research data Policy: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/about-
Research data policy
ESRC Research data policy
Data are the main assets of economic and social research. We recognise publicly-funded research data as valuable, long-term resources that, where practical, must be made available for secondary scientific research.
Our Research Data Policy, last updated in March 2015, is underpinned by nine core principles which align with theRCUK Common Principles on Data Sharing.
Purpose of the policy
We expect grant holders to generate scientifically robust data ready for further re-use. This policy aims to support grant holders who collect, produce and re-use data, by defining the roles and responsibilities of researchers, ESRC and its data service providers.
The document covers the general principles and policy statements on data access and sharing, including expectations on data quality and management which we expect ESRC grant holders to adhere to.
Key contents of the policy
While we strongly advocate further re-use of data, we also recognise that some research data are more sensitive than others, and believe that it is the responsibility of the grant holder to consider all issues related to confidentiality, ethics, security and copyright before initiating the research.
Further guidance on key issues related to research data, such as copyright and confidentiality, security and ethical considerations are given in the policy.
It is the grant holder’s responsibility to incorporate data management as an integral part of the research project.
The data must be made available for re-use or archiving with the ESRC data service providers within three months of the end of the grant.
Applicants should refer to our Research Data Policy as well as our Research Funding Guide and Framework for Research Ethics.
Data management plan
We believe that a structured approach to data management results in better quality data that is ready to deposit for further sharing. Planning how you will manage your research data should begin early on in the research process and ESRC applicants who plan to generate data from their research must submit a data management plan as part of their Je-S application. We encourage all research grants generating data to introduce a robust data management plan, if one is not already in place.
Further guidance on data management is provided by the UK Data Service.
ESRC-funded PhD Students
Whilst not compulsory, ESRC-funded students are strongly encouraged to offer copies of data created or repurposed during their PhD for deposit at the UK Data Service as it is considered good research practice. Further information can be found in the ESRC Postgraduate Funding Guide.
Further information
- ESRC Research Data Policy (2015) (PDF, 208Kb)
- Data management plan - guidance for peer reviewers (PDF, 79Kb)
- Data citation: what you need to know
Comments or enquiries about our Research Data Policy sh
Friday, 20 February 2015
Sowing the seed: Incentives and Motivations for Sharing Research Data, a researcher's perspective
Sowing the seed: Incentives and Motivations for Sharing Research Data, a researcher's perspective
This qualitative study, commissioned by Knowledge Exchange, has gathered evidence, examples and opinions on current and future incentives for research data sharing from the researchers’ point of view, in order to provide recommendations for policy and practice development on how best to incentivize data access and re-use.
Incentives and motivations ask for development of a data infrastructure with rich context where research data, papers and other outputs or resources are jointly available within a single data resource. Different types of data sharing and research disciplines need to be acknowledged.
This study helps stakeholders to understand and act.
You can download the full study in PDF format right here
Friday, 5 December 2014
Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT): A Joint Statement by Political Science Journal Editors
September 18-19, 2014, Ann Arbor, MI
October 6, 2014
In this joint statement, journal editors commit their respective journals to the principles of data access and research transparency, and to implementing policies requiring authors to make as accessible as possible the empirical foundation and logic of inquiry of evidence-based research.
http://media.wix.com/ugd/fa8393_da017d3fed824cf587932534c860ea25.pdf
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Opening Up Scholarly communications: Jisc & CNI conference - slides etc are available
Jisc and CNI conference 2014
Opening up scholarly communications
The 2014 Jisc/CNI conference brought together leading experts from the UK, US and Europe to explore the theme of opening up scholarly communications through the four key themes of:
- policy
- data
- access
- infrastructure
This event took place
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