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Where are we now? Cambridge theses deposits one year in
As the nights draw in and the academic year 2018/19 begins, we are preparing to enter our second year of compulsory e-theses deposits. Our university repository, Apollo, is close to holding 6000 digital PhD theses and it is the intention of the University that this valuable research asset continues to grow into the future. The Apollo repository will play a large part in making this happen. Until recently only hardbound copies of theses were collected and catalogued by the University Library. Users could read theses on-site in Cambridge or order a digitisation of the thesis, but the introduction of e-thesis deposit to Apollo has meant that University of Cambridge theses are more…
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‘Be nice to each other’ – the second Researcher to Reader conference
Aaaaaaaaaaargh! was Mark Carden’s summary of the second annual Researcher to Reader conference, along with a plea that the different players show respect to one another. My take home messages were slightly different: Publishers should embrace values of researchers & librarians and become more open, collaborative, experimental and disinterested. Academic leaders and institutions should do their bit in combating the metrics focus. Big Deals don’t save libraries money, what helps them is the ability to cancel journals. The green OA = subscription cancellations is only viable in a utopian, almost fully green world. There are serious issues in the supply chain of getting books to readers. And copyright arrangements in academia do…
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Forget compliance. Consider the bigger RDM picture
The Office of Scholarly Communication sent Dr Marta Teperek, our Research Data Facility Manager to the International Digital Curation Conference held in in Amsterdam on 22-25 February 2016. This is her report from the event. Fantastic! This was my first IDCC meeting and already I can’t wait for next year. There was not only amazing content in high quality workshops and conference papers, but also a great opportunity to network with data professionals from across the globe. And it was so refreshing to set aside our UK problem of compliance with data sharing policies, to instead really focus on the bigger picture: why it is so important to manage and share research data and…
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‘It is all a bit of a mess’ – observations from Researcher to Reader conference
“It is all a bit of a mess. It used to be simple. Now it is complicated.” This was the conclusion of Mark Carden, the coordinator of the Researcher to Reader conference after two days of discussion, debate and workshops about scholarly publication.. The conference bills itself as: ‘The premier forum for discussion of the international scholarly content supply chain – bringing knowledge from the Researcher to the Reader.’ It was unusual because it mixed ‘tribes’ who usually go to separate conferences. Publishers made up 47% of the group, Libraries were next with 17%, Technology 14%, Distributors were 9% and there were a small number of academics and others. In addition to talks and panel discussions…
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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…
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Openness, integrity & supporting researchers
Universities need to open research to ensure academic integrity and adjust to support modern collaboration and scholarship tools, and begin rewarding people who have engaged in certain types of process rather than relying on traditional assessment schemes. This was the focus of Emeritus Professor Tom Cochrane’s* talk on ‘Open scholarship and links to academic integrity, reward & recognition’ given at Cambridge University on 7 October. The slides from the presentation are available here: PRE_Cochrane_DisruptingDisincentives_V1_20151007 Benefits of an open access mandate Tom began with a discussion about aspects of access to research and research data and why it should be as open as possible. Queensland University of Technology introduced an open access mandate 12…
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Joint response on the draft UK Concordat on Open Research Data
During August the Research Councils UK on behalf of the UK Open Research Data Forum released a draft Concordat on Open Research Data for which they have sought feedback. The Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford prepared a joint response which was sent to the RCUK on 28 September 2015. The response is reproduced below in full. The initial main focus of the Concordat should be good data management, instead of openness. The purpose of the Concordat is not entirely clear. Merely issuing it is unlikely to ensure that data is made openly available. If Universities and Research Institutes are expected to publicly state their commitment to the Principles…
