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Data sharing – build it and they will come
If a tree falls in the forest and no one was there to hear it, did it happen? You could ask the same philosophical question of research – if no-one can see the research results, what was the point in the first place? Moving science forward and increasing the knowledge of the world around implies exchange of findings. Society cannot benefit from research if there is no awareness of what has been done. Managing and sharing research data is a fundamentally important part of the research process. Yet researchers are often reluctant to share their data, and some are openly hostile to the idea. This blog describes the research data…
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Tips for preparing and presenting online learning
This week we had a group of library staff contribute to a roundtable discussion about online training. We were lucky to have visiting Australian Tom Worthington* talk to the group. These are some notes from the wide-ranging discussion. Online approaches In face-to-face teaching, a unit in philosophy taught over a semester is very different to a single training session in how to find something in a library catalogue. However in practice in the online world they are the same. Tom noted that five years ago he decided to stop giving lectures and only deliver courses online. It has taken that time for him to feel comfortable with the online delivery.…
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Dutch boycott of Elsevier – a game changer?
A long running dispute between Dutch universities and Elsevier has taken an interesting turn. Yesterday Koen Becking, chairman of the Executive Board of Tilburg University who has been negotiating with scientific publishers about an open access policy on behalf of Dutch universities with his colleague Gerard Meijer, announced a plan to start boycotting Elsevier. As a first step in boycotting the publisher, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has asked all scientists that are editor in chief of a journal published by Elsevier to give up their post. If this way of putting pressure on the publishers does not work, the next step would be to ask reviewers to stop working for Elsevier. After that, scientists could be asked to stop publishing in…
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Libraries of the future – insights from a talk by Lorcan Dempsey
There is no argument even from traditionalists that the library role is changing. But there is a great deal of confusion and sometimes fear about what that means, and what the future might look like. On 3 June, Lorcan Demsey* came to speak to staff at Cambridge University Library about how the role and purpose of libraries are changing. The slides from his talk are available on Slideshare. The one sentence headline from the talk was that research libraries are moving from licensing published content to managing workflow and research outputs – which means the print collection needs to be managed down to free up resources for the new roles.…
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In conversation with Ben Ryan from EPSRC
Cambridge University hosted Ben Ryan and Amanda Chmura from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on Friday 15 May for a discussion about how the University is meeting the EPSRC expectations for sharing research data. We started the conversation with a demonstration of the services we offer our researchers including our Research Data Management website, and talked about the open data sessions and other training events we have been holding. So far we have managed to speak to 764 researchers about data sharing requirements (the numbers continue to grow). Managing expectations In 2011 EPSRC published nine key expectations on research data management. The expectations are directed principally at…
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Data management – one size does not fit all
As the Research Data Facilitator at the University of Cambridge, I am part of the team establishing a Research Data Management (RDM) Facility at the University. This blog is a note of my impressions from the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) meeting held in London on the 28th April 2015: Preparing Data for Deposit. As always, the DCC meeting was extremely useful for networking. I met with people at similar roles at other institutions. And again, the breakout sessions were invaluable – they allowed us to exchange precious experience, feedback gained and lessons learnt while developing RDM services. What could have been done better though is more appreciation for differences between universities. Unrealistic…
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Benchmarking the Cambridge RDM program
Cambridge University released its Research Data Management Policy Framework today. This is a good opportunity to assess whether Cambridge is fulfilling the 10 recommendations for libraries on how to get started in data management presented in the final report of the LIBER working group on E-Science / Research Data Management. Since publication in July 2012, this is the most downloaded item from the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) website. We list below the 10 recommendations and what Cambridge is doing to meet them. Benchmarking against RDM recommendations Offer research data management support, including data management plans for grant applications, intellectual property rights advice and information materials. Assist faculty with data management plans and the integration…
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Good news stories about data sharing?
We have been speaking to researchers around the University recently to discuss the expectations of their funders in relation to data management. This has raised the issue of how best to convince people this is a process that benefits society rather than a waste of time or just yet another thing they are being ‘forced to do’ – which is the perspective of some that we have spoken with. Policy requirements In general most funders require a Research Data Management Plan to be developed at the beginning of the project – and then adhered to. But the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have upped the ante by introducing a policy requiring that…
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Interview with Nigel Shadbolt on The Life Scientific
Sir Nigel Shadbolt was interviewed on ‘The Life Scientific‘ this morning on BBC Radio4 about open data. The general discussion ranged from his background and what got him interested in this area. The data being discussed is more about government public data (such as medical information or cyclist black spots) than that generated in research projects, but an interesting conversation nonetheless. A couple of items that jumped out to me: 16:50 – When we talk about data, really we are talking about information … Data and information and knowledge are kinda different and mostly when we talk about open data we are talking about information. Data (such as a number) only becomes information if it is…
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A review of the RCUK review of implementation of its OA policy
The RCUK released its ‘Review of the implementation of the RCUK Policy on Open Access’ today and it makes interesting reading. First I should state that I think this is a good report, it seems well researched and balanced in tone and it is well written and laid out. Jisc also welcomes the report. Overall findings It seems that a ‘common factor’ amongst all of the people and groups interviewed was ‘a general acceptance and welcome given to the concept of open access’. However, the administrative effort to implement the policy and distribute the funds is significant. This is not helped by a level of confusion about different funding policies, particularly relating…
