Tag Archives: Wellcome Trust

In conversation with Wellcome Trust and CRUK

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On Friday 22 January Cambridge University invited our two main charity funders to discuss their views on data management and sharing with Cambridge researchers. David Carr from the Wellcome Trust and Jamie Enoch from Cancer Research UK came to the University to talk to our researchers.

The related blog ‘Charities’ perspective on research data management and sharing‘ summarises the presentations Jamie and David gave. After this event, a group of researchers from the School of Biological Sciences and from the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge were invited to ask questions about the Wellcome Trust data management and sharing policy and CRUK data sharing and preservation policy directly of David and Jamie.

This blog is a summary of the discussion, with questions thematically grouped. These questions will be added to the list of Frequently Asked Questions on the University’s Research Data Management Website.

In summary:

  • It is not recommended that researchers simply share a link and release the data when requested. Research data should be available, accessible and discoverable.
  • The first responsibility is to protect the study participants. The funders provide guidance documents on sharing of patient data. Ethics committees also provide advice and guidance on what data can be shared. In principle, patient data should be safeguarded, but this should not preclude sharing. There are models for managed access to data that allow personal/sensitive data to be shared for legitimate purposes in a safe and secure manner.
  • The funders do not want to prevent new collaborations. When sharing data they recommend data generators provide a statement in the description of the data that they are willing to collaborate
  • It is recognised that it is often appropriate for researchers to have a defined period of exclusive access to the data they generate, but this should be determined by disciplinary norms. Any exemptions or delays have to be justified on a case by case basis, ideally at the outset of the project.
  • The funders expect research data that supports publications to be made accessible and publications should have a clear statement explaining how to access the underlying research data.
  • However researchers need to decide what is useful to be shared considering the effort of preparing the data for deposit and of sharing the data. If nobody is going to use the data, sharing is not a good use of researcher’s time.
  • Discipline-specific data repositories, where these exist, are recommended preferentially over general purpose or institutional repositories
  • Biosharing is an excellent resource with references to discipline-specific metadata schemas.
  • Staff members whose role is to manage data is an eligible cost on a grant
  • There are no funds for sharing data from old projects, although there are exceptions on a case by case basis
  • The funders are considering monitoring data management plans but their current primary goal is to encourage people to think about data management and sharing from the very start of the project

Access to research data

Q: Are funders benefiting from the expertise of organisations such as UK Data Service when providing advice on data access? UK Data Service has been managing controlled access to research data for a long time and it would be advantageous to benefit from their expertise.

A: Yes, we are in discussion with the UK Data Service. We are also working with the UK Data Service to consider whether it might be appropriate for hosting data from other disciplines beyond social science. We also believe there is significant scope to share lessons and best practices for data sharing between the social and biomedical sciences.

Q: Could we just share research data only when asked for it?

A: This is not a recommended solution: research data should be available, accessible and discoverable. Data access controls and criteria for what needs to happen for the access to be granted have to be made clear in metadata description.

Q: I have patient data which has to be stored in a secure space. I always say in my data management plan that I cannot share my data. I would like to get ethical guidance which will explain to me how to share these data. It is very easy to say that data cannot be shared. I would like to share my data, but I would like to do it properly. With patient data it is extremely difficult, especially with genomics data, where there is a risk that patients can be identified.

A: Sharing of clinical data is not easy. Both Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK are helping to drive a great deal of work which is considering access and governance models through which sensitive patient data can be made available for research in a safe, secure and trusted manner. They provide guidance documents on sharing of patient data. Safety of patients and patients’ data is important. Ethics committees also provide advice and guidance on what data can be shared.

Q: What about sharing of physical materials? I have received a request to share a culture derived from a patient material, but the Ethics Committee did not approve sharing of this material. What shall I do?

A (Peter Hedges, Head of Research Office): If your ethical approval says that you cannot share that material, you cannot share it. Your first responsibility is to protect your study participants.

Q: If I share my data via a repository and people can simply download my data, I can no longer collaborate with them to work on the data and I have lost the possibility of getting credit for my data.

A: Nobody wants to prevent new collaborations from happening. A solution might be to add a statement that you are willing to collaborate in the description of your data. Your data requestor might be interested in collaborating, simply because you know your data the best. Funders also expect that the data re-used by others is appropriately acknowledged/cited, and they want to ensure that due credit results from the secondary use of data.

Quality control of research data

Q: If researchers start sharing unpublished research data via data repositories there is a risk that these data will not be of good quality as they will not be peer-reviewed.

A: Authors of unpublished data can simply state in the data description that the item was not peer-reviewed. If applicable, funders also encourage reciprocal links between publications and supporting research data.

What data needs to be shared and when?

Q: If researchers start to share everything there will be a lot of useless data available in data repositories. How to prevent a flood of useless data on the internet?

A: We would like researchers to decide what data is useful to be shared. If nobody is likely to use the data, sharing is not a good use of researcher’s time. Repositories also need to make decisions over what is worth keeping over time.

Comment (Peter Hedges, Head of Research Office): The Research Council UK focuses on research data supporting publications and this is what we recommend to researchers: share research data which underpins publications.

Q: Are we expected to share large datasets resulting from bigger projects (databases, long-term datasets) or data supporting individual publications?

A: We expect research data that supports individual publications to be made available with a hyperlink to the data. We also want researchers to consider and plan more broadly how they can make data assets of value resulting from our funded research available to others in a timely and appropriate manner.

Q: What about images? Is it useful to share them? It involves a lot of time to organise images. Besides, a single confocal picture with multiple layers is 1GB. In theory it is possible to share all raw data and all raw images, but who would want to look at them? 10 figures of 10 images is already 100 GB of data. Where would I store all these images, who is going to use these data and how am I going to pay for this?

A: The effort of preparing the data for deposit and of sharing the data should be proportionate to the potential benefits of data sharing. Researchers need to decide what is useful to be shared, following disciplinary best practices and norms (recognising that disciplines are in very different places in terms of defining these).

Q: Is there a set amount of time for exclusive use of research data?

A: Researchers should adhere to disciplinary norms. For example, in genomics research data is frequently shared before publication (sometimes under a publication moratorium which protects the data generator’s right to first publication). Any exemptions or delays have to be justified on a case by case basis.

Comment (Peter Hedges, Head of Research Office): Research is competitive. Sometimes it might be useful for researchers to know who wants to get the access to data and what do they need them for.

Cost of data sharing

Q: Can I ask in my grant for a staff member to help me with data management?

A: Yes, this is an eligible cost on grant applications: you can request a salary to support a research data manager for your research project, as long as it is justified.

Q: According to CRUK policy, costs for data sharing can be budgeted in grant applications only from August 2015. What about research data from older projects, when these costs were not eligible in grant applications? Is there any transition fund available to pay for this?

A: Unfortunately, there are no additional funds to pay for these costs. Researchers who have older datasets that might be of significant value to the community should contact CRUK – all requests for support will be considered on a case by case basis.

Q: Wellcome Trust encourages data sharing and data re-use, but does not allow for costs of long-term data preservation to be budgeted in grant applications. This does not make sense to me.

A: We are still reviewing our policy on costs of data management and sharing and we might be revisiting this issue – however, it is problematic for us to consider estimated costs for preservation that extend before the life-time of the grant. Our understanding is that costs of long-term data preservation are often less significant than costs of initial data ingestion by the repository (and we will cover ingestion costs).

Q: Who is then going to pay for the long-term data storage?

A: Wellcome Trust funds some discipline-specific repositories, but this is done jointly with other funders. We support bigger undertakings and we are also working with partners to develop platforms for data sharing and discoverability in some priority areas (notably clinical trials). Cancer Research UK pays for some long-term storage options, if these are justified for particular needs of the project. These decisions are made on a case by case basis, depending on how the costs are justified and whether these are directly related to the scientific value of the project.

Metadata standards

Q: At the moment there are many general purpose and institutional repositories, which are not well structured. To support efficient re-use of data it is important to use structured data repositories and adhere to metadata standards. What are funders’ opinions about this?

A: Wherever possible, discipline-specific data repositories should be used preferentially over general purpose or institutional repositories. Adherence to discipline-specific metadata standards is also encouraged. It has to be acknowledged that development of well-structured data repositories is very resource-intensive and not all disciplines have good quality repositories to support them. For example, it took over 30 years to adapt unified metadata standards at Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. The time need to properly solve problems should never be underestimated.

Q: Are funders planning to provide researchers with a list of recommended schemas for metadata?

A: Biosharing is an excellent resource with references to discipline-specific metadata schemas. It is a useful suggestion to include a reference to Biosharing on our website.

Policy implementation

Q: Are you planning to monitor researchers’ adherence to data management plans? For example, the BBSRC does not have the manpower to check all data management plans manually, but they are planning to create a system to check if data has been uploaded automatically.

A: We are considering this. At the moment we require data management plans with the primary goal to encourage people to think about data management and sharing from the very start of the project.

Published 5 February 2016
Written by Dr Marta Teperek, verified by David Carr and Jamie Enoch
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Charities’ perspective on research data management and sharing

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In 2015 the Cambridge Research Data Team organised several discussions between funders and researchers. In May 2015 we hosted Ben Ryan from EPSRC, which was followed by a discussion with Michael Ball from BBSRC in August. Now we have invited our two main charity funders to discuss their views on data management and sharing with Cambridge researchers.

David Carr from the Wellcome Trust and Jamie Enoch from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) met with our academics on Friday 22 January at the Gurdon Institute. The Gurdon Institute was founded jointly by the Wellcome Trust and CRUK to promote research in the areas of developmental biology and cancer biology, and to foster a collaborative environment for independent research groups with diverse but complementary interests.

This blog summarises the presentations and discusses the data sharing expectations from Wellcome Trust and CRUK. A second related blog ‘In conversation with Wellcome Trust and CRUK‘ summarises the question and answer session that was held with a group of researchers on the same day.

Wellcome Trust’s requirements for data management and sharing

Sharing research data is key for Wellcome’s goal of improving health

David Carr started his presentation explaining that the Wellcome Trust’s mission is to support research with the goal of improving health. Therefore, the Trust is committed to ensuring research outputs (including research data) can be accessed and used in ways that will maximise health and societal benefits. David reminded the audience of benefits of data sharing. Data which is shared has the potential to:

  • Enable validity and reproducibility of research findings to be assessed
  • Increase the visibility and use of research findings
  • Enable research outputs to be used to answer new questions
  • Reduce duplication and waste
  • Enable access to data to other key communities – public, policymakers, healthcare professionals etc.

Data sharing goes mainstream

David gave on overview of data sharing expectations from various angles. He started by referring to the Royal Society’s report from 2012: Science as an open enterprise, which sets sharing as the standard for doing science. He then also mentioned other initiatives like the G8 Science Ministers’ statement, the joint report from the Academy of Medical Sciences, BBSRC, MRC and Wellcome Trust on reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research and the UK Concordat on Open Research Data with a take-home message that sharing data and other research outputs is increasingly becoming a global expectation, and a core element of good research practice.

Wellcome Trust’s policy for open data

The next aspect of David’s presentation was Wellcome Trust’s policy on data management and sharing. The policy was first published almost a decade ago (2007) with subsequent modifications in 2010. The principle of the policy is simple: research data should be shared and preserved in a manner which maximises its value to advance research and improve health. Wellcome Trust also requires data management plans as a compulsory part of grant applications, where the proposed research is likely to generate a dataset that will have significant value to researchers and other users. This is to ensure that researchers understand the importance of data management and sharing and to plan for it from the start their projects.

Cost of data sharing

Planning for data management and sharing involves costing for these activities in the grant proposal. The Wellcome Trust’s FAQ guidance on data sharing policy says that: “The Trust considers that timely and appropriate data management and sharing should represent an integral component of the research process. Applicants may therefore include any costs associated with their proposed approach as part of their proposal.” David then outlined the types of costs that can be included in grant applications (including for dedicated staff, hardware and software, and data access costs). He noted that in the current draft guidance on costing for data management estimated costs for long-term preservation that extend beyond the lifetime of the grant are not eligible, although costs associated with the deposition of data in recognised data repositories can be requested.

Key priorities and emerging areas in data management and sharing

Infrastructure

The Wellcome Trust also identified key priorities and emerging areas where work needs to be done to better support of data management and sharing. The first one was to provide resources and platforms for data sharing and access. David pointed out that wherever available, discipline-specific data repositories are the best home for research data, as they provide rich metadata standards, community curation and better discoverability of datasets.

However, the sustainability of discipline-specific repositories is sometimes uncertain. Discipline-specific resources are often perceived as ‘free’. However, research data submitted to ‘free’ data repositories has to be stored somewhere and the amount of data produced and shared is growing exponentially – someone has to pay for the cost of storage and long-term curation in discipline-specific data repositories. An additional point for consideration is that many disciplines do not have their own repositories and therefore need to heavily rely on institutional support.

Access

Wellcome Trust funds a large number of projects in clinical areas. Dealing with patient data requires careful ethical considerations and planning from the very start of the project to ensure that data can be successfully shared at the end of the project. To support researchers in dealing with patient data The Expert Advisory Group on Data Access (a cross-funder advisory body established by MRC, ESRC, Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust) has developed guidance documents and practice papers about handling of sensitive data: how to ask for informed consent, how to anonymise data and the procedures that need to be in place when granting access to data. David stressed that balance needs to be struck between maximising the use of data and the need to safeguard research participants.

Incentives for sharing

Finally, if sharing is to become the normal thing to do, researchers need incentives to do so. Wellcome Trust is keen to work with others to ensure that researchers who generate and share datasets of value receive appropriate recognition for their efforts. A recent report from the Expert Advisory Group on Data Access proposed several recommendations to incentivise data sharing, with specific roles for funders, research leaders, institutions and publishers. Additionally, in order to promote data re-use, the Wellcome Trust joined forces with the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and launched the Open Science Prize competition to encourage prototyping and development of services, tools or platforms that enable open content.

Cancer Research UK’s views on data sharing

The next talk was by Jamie Enoch from Cancer Research UK. Jamie started by saying that because Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is a charity funded by the public, it needs to ensure it makes the most of its funded research: sharing research data is elemental to this. Making the most of the data generated through CRUK grants could help accelerate progress towards the charity’s aim in its research strategy, to see three quarters of people surviving cancer by 2034. Jamie explained that his post – Research Funding Manager (Data) – has been created as a reflection of data sharing being increasingly important for CRUK.

The policy

Jamie started talking about the key principles of CRUK data sharing policy by presenting the main issues around research data sharing and explaining the CRUK’s position in relation to them:

  • What needs to be shared? All research data, including unpublished data, source code, databases etc, if it is feasible and safe to do so. CRUK is especially keen to ensure that data underpinning publications is made available for sharing.
  • Metadata: Researchers should adhere to community standards/minimum information guidelines where these exist.
  • Discoverability: Groups should be proactive in communicating the contents of their datasets and showcasing the data available for sharing

Jamie explained that CRUK really wants to increase the discoverability of data. For example, clinical trials units should ideally provide information on their websites about the data they generate and clear information about how it can be accessed.

  • Modes of sharing: Via community or generalist repositories, under the auspices of the PI or a combination of methods

Jamie explained that not all data can be/should be made openly available. Due to ethical considerations sometimes access to data will have to be restricted. Jamie explained that as long as restrictions are justified, it is entirely appropriate to use them. However, if access to data is restricted, the conditions on which access will be granted should be considered at the project outset, and these conditions will have to be clearly outlined in metadata descriptions to ensure fair governance of access.

  • Timeframes: Limited period of exclusive use permitted where justified

Jamie suggested adhering to community standards when thinking about any periods of exclusive use of generated research data. In some communities research data is made accessible at the time of publication. Other communities will expect data release at the time of generation (especially in collaborative genomics projects). Jamie further explained that particularly in cases where new data can affect policy development, it is key that research data is released as soon as possible.

  • Preservation: Data to be retained for at least 5 years after grant end
  • Acknowledgement: Secondary users of data should credit original researcher and CRUK
  • Costs: Appropriately justified costs can be included in grant proposals

As of late 2015, financial support for data management and sharing can be requested as a running cost in grant applications. Jamie explained that there are no particular guidelines in place explaining eligible and non-eligible costs and that the most important aspect is whether the costs are well justified or not, and reasonable in the context of the research envisaged.

Jamie stressed that the key point of the CRUK policy is to facilitate data sharing and to engage with the research community, recognising the challenges of data sharing for different projects and the need to work through these collaboratively, rather than enforce the policy in a top-down fashion.

Policy implementation

Subsequently, the presentation discussed ways in which CRUK policy is implemented. Jamie explained that the main tool for the policy implementation is the new requirement for data management plans as compulsory part of grant applications.

Two of the three main response mode committees: Science Committee and Clinical Research Committee have a two-step process of writing a data management plan. During the grant application stage researchers need to write a short, free-form description about how they plan to adhere to CRUK’s policy on data sharing. Only if the grant is accepted, the beneficiary will be asked to write a more detailed data management plan, in consultation with CRUK representatives.

This approach serves two purposes as it:

  • ensures that all applicants are aware of CRUK’s expectations on data sharing (they all need to write a short paragraph about data sharing)
  • saves researchers’ time: only those applicants who were successful will have to provide a detailed data management plan, and it allows the CRUK office to engage with successful applicants on data sharing challenges and opportunities

In contrast, applicants for the other main CRUK response mode committee, the Population Research Committee, all fill out a detailed data management and sharing plan at application stage because of the critical importance of sharing data from cohort and epidemiological studies.

Outlooks for the future

Similarly to the Wellcome Trust, CRUK realised that cultural change is needed for sharing to become the normality. CRUK have initiated many national and international partnerships to help the reward of data sharing.

One of them is a collaboration with the YODA (Yale Open Data Access) project aiming to develop metrics to monitor and evaluate data sharing. Other areas of collaborative work include collaboration with other funders on development of guidelines on ethics of data management and sharing, platforms for data preservation and discoverability, procedures for working with population and clinical data. Jamie stressed that the key thing for CRUK is to work closely with researchers and research managers – to understand the challenges and work through these collaboratively, and consider exciting new initiatives to move the data sharing field forwards.

Links

Published 5 February 2016
Written by Dr Marta Teperek, verified by David Carr and Jamie Enoch
Creative Commons License

2015 – that was the year that was

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This time last year, the Office of Scholarly Communication at Cambridge University had been in existence for one week. As the inaugural Head of the Office, I had landed in the UK from Australia on 1 January, and was still battling jet lag. What a difference a year makes. This blog is a short run down of what has happened in 2015 and a brief peek into our plans for 2016.

The OSC has three primary foci – managing compliance with funders, external engagement and working with the Cambridge community to ensure awareness of broader scholarly communication issues. In our spare time we have also taken on a few projects.

Managing funder compliance

Open Access

The University of Cambridge is engaging its research community with open access with a broad approach, both offering solutions for compliance management and determining ways in which the community can continue their normative communication behaviours while increasing access to their research.

As with all universities in the UK, the Open Access service is managing multiple and conflicting open access policies in a complex publishing landscape. The RCUK open access policy has been in effect since April 2013, and the COAF policy continues the longstanding Wellcome Trust open access policy. In all the OSC manages annual funds from these of approximately £2 million to support open access compliance. HEFCE announced its upcoming open access REF policy in March 2014.

In October 2014 the University introduced a user experience evidence-based new system for compliance with the tag line “Accepted for publication? Send us your manuscript“. This is a system designed to ensure that the researcher only has to act once in order to comply with multiple policies. Researchers use an attractive and simple interface where they are asked to upload their manuscript, complete a short form and submit. Our OA team then check funder and publisher policies and deposit the work in the repository for HEFCE compliance and determine the payment options required and funds available for the article, using a decision tree. The team manage the article payment processes and contact the author once the work is complete. From the author perspective this is a simple and much liked system.

Outreach has included contacting departmental administrators, speaking to research communities, attending Committee meetings and so on to spread the word. Despite this, the team processes an average of 240 unique HECFE eligible papers per month, representing approximately 30% of research output.  While this may be cause for concern in relation to future REF compliance, a brief analysis of the open access publication activities of Cambridge researchers indicates that 60% of Cambridge research is being made available  – including through our system.

We continue to have challenges relating to publishers not making articles open access under the correct licence (or even at all) despite our payment of Article Processing Charges. The checking and chasing up of these publishers is extremely time consuming. In an attempt to ensure the publishers did what we were paying for we brought in Purchase Orders for the first half of the reporting period. This has caused serious issues when it came to reporting in terms of matching the articles listed in the Open Access systems against the financial systems of the University for reporting purposes to the RCUK. As it was not making any difference to publisher behaviour we abandoned this approach. The only issues we have encountered have been for articles that are hybrid – Cambridge University (across both the RCUK and COAF funds) spends approximately 74% on hybrid journals as opposed to fully OA journals.

There has been a constant reporting requirement throughout 2015, first to Jisc, then the RCUK, the Wellcome Trust and Jisc a second time. This has been a huge drain on personnel as none of the reporting periods align, requiring several months FTE equivalent’s worth of work. This is due to several issues, of which the Purchase Order problem mentioned above is a minor factor.  The large number of articles that are required to be reported on in detail on an individual basis is a complex task. 

Research Data Management

2015 has been a big year for Research Data Management, with the EPSRC announcing they would start checking to ensure researchers are making their underlying data available. The Research Data Facility has spent the year focused on increasing awareness, providing support and resources, and managing data with huge success. There have been face to face meetings with over 1300 researchers, and data submissions have risen exponentially (see here for a graphic of the numbers in July 2015). The team provides Research Data Management Plan support, and the data website has had over 16,500 visits.

We have spent a huge amount of time talking to the Cambridge research community. One outcome of these discussions is a deep understanding of the concerns and challenges for researchers in relation to data sharing. To address these we have provided fora for our researchers to meet with the funders to find solutions.  Our meetings with EPSRC and BBSRC resolved many concerns and resulted in an endorsed set of FAQs about research data sharing.

We have contributed to policy development by working with our contemporaries at many institutions to provide a coordinated response to the proposed UK Concordat on Research Data.

Systems management

A perennial issue with open access is the integration of systems within the institution to achieve the holy grail of ‘deposit once, use many times’. We are not there yet, although we have made good inroads. Cambridge University was one of the testbed institutions for DSpace, and the repository has been in place since 2005. The repository had suffered from a lack of attention and by the beginning of 2015 was not functioning properly and contained a large amount of bespoke coding.

The upgrade of DSpace from Version 3.4 to Version 4.3 took many months because it involved an associated standardisation of the base code to ensure future upgrades will be smooth. We also needed to create a new server platform for the repository to sit in which has stabilised our operations. The repository policy has been revisited and the agreements and licenses associated with minting DOIs are now in place, and the next step is to look at integration with other University systems.

We held a repository naming competition during the year, with the winning name being ‘Apollo’ – the god of logic.  The new name and logo will be launched when the repository interface is upgraded in early 2016. The repository now holds 13,269 articles and manuscripts, 359 datasets and 713 working papers. In total there are more than 200,000 items held in the repository – 175,429 of these are chemical structures.

Engagement and awareness

Within Cambridge

Cambridge University is a large and complex many-headed beast. Engaging this community is extremely challenging. The Office of Scholarly Communication runs a large number of electronic communication channels to ensure researchers are able to stay up to date and informed about open access and research data management, including the Research Data Management website, the Office of Scholarly Communication website and the Open Access website.

We send out monthly newsletters on Research Data Management to over 1000 subscribers, and at the end of 2015 launched a monthly Open Access newsletter – you can sign up here.  We use Twitter extensively (see @CamOpenData, @CamOpenAccess and @dannykay68). In addition the OSC has produced a series of advocacy materials to support their work.

But it is not all electronic – we have also have presented to over 1600 researchers and administrative staff during 2015 through events, presentations and workshops. Highlights have included workshops on software licensing,  an Open Access week joint event with Cambridge University Press addressing the question: ‘Can society afford open access?’ (see a video summary here), and an Open Data panel discussion ‘Open Data – moving science forward or a waste of money and time?‘. The video of this event is here.

More broadly

This Unlocking Research blog provides information and analysis on issues relating to Scholarly Communication, Open Access, Research Data Management and Library matters. The blog  is well used, with over 16,000 visits since launching.

The post with the greatest impact was Dutch boycott of Elsevier – a game changer? with over 3,500 visits in the first week before it was reblogged by the London School of Economics. [Late news added 22 Jan 2016: This blog was listed as one of the Top Ten Posts for 2015: Open Access. It was also listed as one of the blogs that had an average minute per page measurement of over 6 minutes and 30 seconds.]

Members of the OSC are increasingly being invited to speak at conferences both within the UK and beyond. Topics have included:

We are also active participants in the discussions held amongst our communities within and outside of the UK. There is a high level of cooperation amongst those working in the area of scholarly communication and open access. The OSC contributes to meetings and initiatives organised by the League of European Research Universities, SPARC Europe and the UK Council of Research Repositories amongst others.

Training and support

Supporting Researchers in the 21st century

The OSC launched the ‘Supporting Researchers in the 21st century’ programme – aimed at library and other administrative staff – with three introductory workshops held over six weeks from May to early July. 103 people attended. Working from feedback obtained at these events the programme began offering training and workshops from late July.

Topics covered to date include Research Data Management for Librarians, a Primer on Open Access, Information Security in a Research Environment, Introduction to Metrics and a Day in the Life of Researcher and Meet an Open Access publisher. In addition there have been several opportunities to hear from visiting international experts including:

Research Support Ambassadors

The Research Support Ambassador programme began as an idea of a ‘crack team’ of people who could be deployed across the University to present workshops on Scholarly Communication issues. The general philosophy was that this was a way to encourage staff across the library community and across the grade range to step up.

We have had 18 brave souls volunteer to be the first group in what has frankly been a rather ‘organic’ process given we had no idea how this was going to play out.  The reasons members of the group gave for participating included the opportunity to learn more and gain skills, be able to support researchers better and several people wanted more face to face interactions. We ran two sets of intensive training sessions where we decided to focus on four areas:

  • Researcher Support in Cambridge
  • Managing your online presence
  • Making your thesis open access
  • The Research Lifecycle

We have taken a constructivist approach to learning – where learners take charge of their own learning. The group has worked with a mixture of self education and team work to try and develop ‘modular’ outputs that can be presented by others. There is a blog listing the progress on these topics to date here.

There have been significant challenges to the process with a mixture of new material and technologies, working in teams with new colleagues and limited time. In addition they have had to self direct as the recruitment process for an Research Skills Coordinator took eight months. To the Ambassador’s credit they have stuck through a confusing process with very little direction. There is a blog post on an insider’s view of the programme here.

Other projects

Unlocking Theses project

This project is the first step to dramatically increase the number of open access theses in the repository, which stood at about 600 at the beginning of 2015. On average one in ten PhD students deposit their thesis to make it available. The repository currently does not allow any other type of thesis to be deposited.

This system has meant that when a researcher requests a copy of a thesis for research purposes, the bound version needs to be scanned. In 2015 the Library held over 1200 scanned theses on an internal server. The Unlocking Theses project added all of these scanned theses held by the Library into the University repository, Apollo which now holds 2176 theses, of which 1,021 are openly accessible. The Development and Alumni Office were able to provide contact details for just over 600 of these authors. The majority of these authors have now been contacted and we have had a 35% positive response rate from them. We are in the final process of opening these theses. The remaining 1155 theses are currently held in a Restricted Theses Collection but the biographical information about these theses is searchable.

Managing Cambridge Journals project

Cambridge University Libraries are interested in supporting new forms of open access publishing.  In 2015 a search revealed that at least seven research and 13 student self-published journals and magazines currently circulate within the Cambridge community. These range widely in quality from almost professional publications to literally photocopied pages. The Managing Cambridge Journals project is working with Cambridge University Press to offer support to Cambridge researchers who are publishing outside of the traditional channels.  Three areas of potential support have been identified – a publishing platform, information and support and possibly an internal Cambridge publishing ‘brand’.  Work is already underway to ingest the full decade of articles published in the Cambridge Journal of China Studies into the repository from their currently unstable home on a website.

The team

Screen Shot 2016-01-11 at 15.56.08To achieve all of this has required a huge effort on many people’s behalf. In January 2015 the OSC had three staff plus the Head – two Open Access Research Advisors and a part-time Repository Manager. Now the team sits at 12 people and this number is relatively fluid.

This sounds like a huge group – which it is. But with only two exceptions – of which the Head is one – all staff are either temporary staff or on extremely short term contracts. This is primarily related to (a lack of) funding and has two effects. First, a disproportionate amount of time is spent on managing recruitment, writing job descriptions, advertising, interviewing and so on. Almost all HR requirements are still enforced regardless of the brevity of contracts – including monthly probation interviews.

The second effect is the constant need to lobby for financial support which requires creating business cases, new organisational charts and many, many meetings. The Library has been nothing but supportive throughout this process, but there is a need for the broader institution to recognise that much of the work done in the OSC falls in the University rather than Library camp.

Looking forward to 2016

This upcoming year is shaping up to be as busy and productive as the first year of operation. Some of the planned activities include:

  • Negotiation with Research Council UK funders on possible funding options for the Research Data Facility.
  • The Communication across the Research Lifecycle project aims to join up communication with researchers by Cambridge administrative departments. This requires scoping the current communication channels and developing advocacy materials across the University administrative departments. There is currently no financial support for this project.
  • Participating in the JISC Shared Research Data Management Shared Services pilot
  • Increase the collaboration with Cambridge University Press on the Managing Cambridge Journals project to develop this project to operational level.
  • The second tranche of upgrades to DSpace are underway. This will involve an upgrade to V5 and implement ‘request a copy’ buttons, minting DOIs, registering the repository to wider aggregation systems and updating the look and feel of the interface. This work is expected to be completed by Easter 2016.
  • A Repository Integration Manager will start work on the interoperability of DSpace with Symplectic and other systems in the University. New forms and simple deposit processes will be developed.
  • Increase theses deposit by developing a new form, and amendment to the policy to allow all theses types to be deposited.
  • Pilot with selected departments to require the deposit of a digital thesis at the same time as the printed and bound version, with the option of making the work available.
  • Complete the first round of the Research Support Ambassador programme with some skills training and finalisation of training products before the group is released into the wild.
  • Negotiate with arXiv and other open access providers to allow researchers to meet funder requirements within their usual communication norms.
  • Develop a comprehensive Research Data Management training program for PhD students.
  • Build on the Supporting Researchers in the 21st century programme.
  • Present at conferences in the UK and abroad.

So, watch this space!

Published 11 January 2016
Written by Dr Danny Kingsley
Creative Commons License