Ten reasons to share your data

Making data available to the larger scientific community has many benefits.

27 April 2018

By Amanda S. Barnard

Nature Index:

https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/ten-reasons-to-share-your-data  

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/reining-your-metadata-help-archivist

A wonderful simple post that would be useful for researchers who know they need to do metadata but have not quite worked out how yet.

Reining in Your Metadata with Help from an Archivist

Advice for organizing your research materials.

By 

Heather VanMouwerik

 

November 13, 2016

0 COMMENTS

 

Heather VanMouwerik is a Ph.D. candidate in Russian History at the 

University of California, Riverside. Follow her on Twitter @hvanmouwerik or 

check out her website.

 

 

Every book we read, every source we mine, and every number we collect has a history, has a life that precedes us and will continue long after we are gone. It is easy to forget this when we are frantically collecting materials for our dissertation. This legacy is rich but, in the hustle-and-bustle of research trips, exam prep, and writing, it is often neglected or even forgotten.

 

One of the most important parts of building an archive is capturing this legacy by recording an item’s dimensions, condition, material composition, origin, and provenance. In so doing, an archivist generates a vast amount of metadata, or information about an item irrespective of its content. Not only is this information useful in categorizing and storing the item, it also enriches the context of the archived item for researchers and facilitates use of the collection as a whole.

Metadata, though, isn’t reserved for the hallowed halls (or cold, windowless basements) of an archive. It is also a vital part of any researcher’s personal database.

Take a moment to review the material you have collected for your dissertation or other long-term project. How is it organized? ... Finish reading

Nature News: Funders punish open-access dodgers

For years, two of the world’s largest research funders — the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom — have issued a steady stream of incentives to coax academics to abide by their open-access policies.
Now they are done with just dangling carrots. Both institutions are bringing out the sticks: cautiously and discreetly cracking down on researchers who do not make their papers publicly available.

http://www.nature.com/news/funders-punish-open-access-dodgers-1.15007

Will data be next?

Commonwealth Science Council – Science and Research Priorities

0. 1.Commonwealth Science Council – Science and Research Priorities

Members of the Commonwealth Science Council have recommended that the Government adopt the proposed science and research priorities and associated practical research challenges to ensure publicly-funded research addresses the most important questions facing Australia.
Following the first meeting of the Science Council, the Chief Scientist, assisted by the National Science, Technology and Research Committee (NSTRC), led further consultation on the priorities in order to develop a series of underpinning practical research challenges within each priority area.
Informed by evidence, working groups of experts from industry, research organisations and government identified practical challenges to direct research effort within each priority area. The challenges reflect the problems that need to be faced by the research and business communities as Australia shifts its capacity in each area from where it is to where it needs to be. The NSTRC will now assess existing research activity against the priorities and practical challenges. It will analyse current capabilities, capacity, investment and activities in order to provide an evidence base for each identified practical challenge. This process will help map the capacity of the system to address gaps or capitalise on opportunities.
The Government is expected to finalise the Priorities and associated practical research challenges shortly. 

2.Commonwealth Science Council – 2nd Meeting

The Government announced the new Commonwealth Science Council, as part of its Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda in October 2014. The Council is the pre-eminent source of advice to Government on science and technology issues facing Australia.
The Council is chaired by the Prime Minister, and includes the Ministers for Industry and Science, Education and Training, and Health, Australia’s Chief Scientist, five eminent scientists and five eminent business representatives.
The Council held its second meeting on 13 April 2015. Discussion items included:

• Government actions in response to the Chief Scientist’s Science, technology, engineering and mathematics: Australia’s future report. The Minister for Industry and Science, working with the Minister for Education and the Chief Scientist will develop a discussion paper and consult on the implementation of the Government’s STEM policy

Department of Industry and Science Page 6 <Innovation Policy Report – May 2015>

• Science and Research Priorities and associated practical challenges developed through expert working groups were discussed, and capability mapping for each of these will now be undertaken through the National Science, Technology and Research Committee
• Implementation of the Boosting the Commercial Returns from Research strategy
• Progress of the Research Infrastructure Review.
  The Council agreed a forward work programme, with key items for further consideration to include:

• the formal Government actions to respond to the Chief Scientist’s report: Science, technology, engineering and mathematics: Australia’s future
• implementation of the Science and Research Priorities, considering capability mapping for each of the practical challenges
• progress of the Boosting the Commercial Returns from Research strategy
• the final report of the Research Infrastructure Review.
  The Council will next meet in the second half of 2015.
  

Source: Innovation Policy Report May 2015

http://www.industry.gov.au/innovation/reportsandstudies/Documents/InnovationPolicyReportMay15.pdf

Chief scientist urges strategic research funding

http://www.afr.com/p/national/chief_scientist_urges_strategic_4KUwNniIKVYirYgGOpuPEJ?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Outbrain_cpc

FYI. tab 10 on the interactive box lists 'Data Format' as one of the STEM Output cited sub-fields. And the bottom of the list outlines areas where Australia has higher citations than the US.

Dutch research on the barriers for local government releasing open data

Abstract: Due to expected benefits such as citizen participation and innovation, the release of Public Sector Information as open data is getting increased attention on various levels of government. However, currently data release by governments is still novel and there is little experience and knowledge thus far about its benefits, costs and barriers. This is compounded by a lack of understanding about how internal processes influence data release. Our aim in this paper is to get a better understanding of these processes and how they influence data release, i.e., to find determinants for the release of public sector information. For this purpose, we conducted workshops, interviews, questionnaires, desk research and practice based cases in the education program of our university, involving six local public sector organizations. We find that the way data is stored, the way data is obtained and the way data is used by a department are crucial indicators for open data release. We conclude with the lessons learned based on our research findings. These findings are: we should take a nuanced approach towards data release, avoid releasing data for its own sake, and take small incremental steps to explore data release.

Read and/or download the full article at doi:10.1016/j.giq.2014.01.003