-
The Role of Open Data in Science Communication
Itamar Shatz has written a guest blog post for the Office of Scholarly Communication about how public trust in the scientific community increases when researchers make their data openly available to all. He also emphasizes that science communicators (e.g. press offices, journalists, publishers) have a responsibility to point attention directly at the primary source of the data. Itamar is a PhD candidate in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. He is also a member of the Cambridge Data Champion programme, having joined at the start of this year. He writes about science and philosophy that have practical applications at Effectiviology.com. It’s no secret that…
-
Towards widespread Open Research: insights from Cambridge Data Champions and beyond
The Cambridge Data Champions are an example of a community of volunteers engaged in promoting open research and good research data management (RDM). Currently entering its third year, the programme has attracted a total of 127 volunteers (86 current, 41 alumni) from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and positions. It continues to grow and has inspired similar initiatives at other universities within and outside the UK (Madsen, 2019). Dr Sacha Jones, Research Data Coordinator at the Office of Scholarly Communication, recently shared information about the programme at ‘FAIR Science: tricky problems and creative solutions’, an Open Science event held on 4th June 2019 at The Queen’s Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh, and…
-
Cambridge Data Champions – reflections on an expanding community and strategies for 2019
The Cambridge Data Champions (DCs) advocate good Research Data Management (RDM) and Open Data practices to researchers locally in their departments, within Cambridge University in general, and sometimes further afield. They network with one another, exchange good methods of RDM, share ideas and, as a collective, reflect on current issues surrounding RDM, Open Data and researcher engagement, where a major shared goal is to establish best practices when it comes to research data. By attending bi-monthly forums facilitated by the Research Data Team, the DCs convene as a community, hear speakers presenting on relevant topics, and engage in workshops that will help them in their ‘championing’ activities. Following up from our latest blog which summarised how a workshop led to the creation of cartoon postcards as a new tool to add to the DCs’ resource kit for RDM…
-
Engaging Researchers with Good Data Management: Perspectives from Engaged Individuals
We need to recognise good practice, engage researchers early in their career with research data management and use peers to talk to those who are not ‘onboard’. These were the messages five attendees at the Engaging Researchers in Good Data Management conference held on the 15th of November. The Data Champions and Research Support Ambassadors programmes are designed to increase confidence in providing support to researchers in issues around data management and all of scholarly communications respectively. Thanks to the generous support of the Arcadia Foundation, five places were made available to attend this event. In this blog post the three Data Champions and two Research Support Ambassadors who were awarded…
-
Championing RDM training
During International Data Week 2016, the Office of Scholarly Communication is celebrating with a series of blog posts about data. The first post was a summary of an event we held in July. This post looks at the challenges associated with financially supporting RDM training. The problem There is a desperate need for training in research data management. Our significant engagement with researchers at the University of Cambridge over the past 18 months has indicated to us that research data cannot be effectively shared if it has not been properly managed during the research lifecycle. Researchers cannot be expected to share their data at the end of their research project if they are unable…
-
In conversation with Wellcome Trust and CRUK
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…
-
Charities’ perspective on research data management and sharing
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…
-
Open Data – moving science forward or a waste of money & time?
On the 4 November the Research Data Facility at Cambridge University invited some inspirational leaders in the area of research data management and asked them to address the question: “is open data moving science forward or a waste of money & time?”. Below are Dr Marta Teperek’s impressions from the event. Great discussion Want to initiate a thought-provoking discussion on a controversial subject? The recipe is simple: invite inspirational leaders, bright people with curious minds and have an excellent chair. The outcome is guaranteed. We asked some truly inspirational leaders in data management and sharing to come to Cambridge to talk to the community about the pros and cons of data…
-
Software Licensing and Open Access
As part of the Office of Scholarly Communication Open Access Week celebrations, we are uploading a blog a day written by members of the team. Wednesday is a piece by Dr Marta Teperek reporting on the Software Licensing Workshop held on 14 September 2015 at Cambridge. Uncertainties about sharing and licensing of software If the questions that the Research Data Service Team have been asked during data sharing information sessions with over 1000 researchers at the University of Cambridge are any indicator, then there is a great deal of confusion about sharing source code. There have been a wide range of questions during the discussions in these sessions, and the Research Data Service Team…
-
The purpose, practicalities, pitfalls and policies of managing and sharing data in the UK
As part of the Office of Scholarly Communication Open Access Week celebrations, we are uploading a blog a day written by members of the team. Tuesday is a piece by Dr Danny Kingsley reflecting the talk she gave this morning to the Royal Society of Chemistry, Chemical Information and Computer Applications Group conference – Measurement, Information and Innovation: Digital Disruption in the Chemical Sciences. The data policy landscape The policy position on data management in the UK is driven on many levels. Many institutions now have policies – an example is the Cambridge University Research Data Management Policy Framework. Increasingly publishers such as PLOS are requiring that research published in their journals is…
