Article of the Week: It's Good to Share: Why Environmental Scientists’ Ethics Are Out of Date

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   Although there have been many recent calls for increased data sharing, the majority of environmental scientists do not make their individual data sets publicly available in online repositories. Current data-sharing conversations are focused on overcoming the technological challenges associated with data sharing and the lack of rewards and incentives for individuals to share data. We argue that the most important conversation has yet to take place: There has not been a strong ethical impetus for sharing data within the current culture, behaviors, and practices of environmental scientists. In this article, we describe a critical shift that is happening in both society and the environmental science community that makes data sharing not just good but ethically obligatory. This is a shift toward the ethical value of promoting inclusivity within and beyond science. An essential element of a truly inclusionary and democratic approach to science is to share data through publicly accessible data sets.

To read the entire article go to:

http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/1/69.full



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BioScience (January 2015) 65 (1):69-73. doi: 10.1093/biosci/biu169First published online: October 22, 2014

PLOS Clarifies its Publication Fee Assistance Policy

There has been quite a bit of confusion regarding the publication fees that Public Library of Science charges to publish in PLOS.  I have heard several researchers say that this was a barrier to publication and that they can't afford the fees.  On January 16, 2015 they clarified the policy and stated that they do not intend for authors to fund publication fees through their personal funds.

The complete posting that clarifies the issue may be found at:

http://www.plos.org/plos-clarifies-its-publication-fee-assistance-policy/

Article of the Week: Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate

This is not a new article, but one that resonates with me as I help researchers understand that it is in their best interest to share their data. 

Abstract

Background

Sharing research data provides benefit to the general scientific community, but the benefit is less obvious for the investigator who makes his or her data available.

Principal Findings

We examined the citation history of 85 cancer microarray clinical trial publications with respect to the availability of their data. The 48% of trials with publicly available microarray data received 85% of the aggregate citations. Publicly available data was significantly (p = 0.006) associated with a 69% increase in citations, independently of journal impact factor, date of publication, and author country of origin using linear regression.

Significance

This correlation between publicly available data and increased literature impact may further motivate investigators to share their detailed research data.

Introduction

Sharing information facilitates science. Publicly sharing detailed research data–sample attributes, clinical factors, patient outcomes, DNA sequences, raw mRNA microarray measurements–with other researchers allows these valuable resources to contribute far beyond their original analysis[1]. In addition to being used to confirm original results, raw data can be used to explore related or new hypotheses, particularly when combined with other publicly available data sets. Real data is indispensable when investigating and developing study methods, analysis techniques, and software implementations. The larger scientific community also benefits: sharing data encourages multiple perspectives, helps to identify errors, discourages fraud, is useful for training new researchers, and increases efficient use of funding and patient population resources by avoiding duplicate data collection. 

To read the rest of the article go to http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000308

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• Article Source: Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate
  Piwowar HA, Day RS, Fridsma DB (2007) Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate. PLoS ONE 2(3): e308. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000308
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Major Gaps Between the Public, Scientists on Key Issues

It has occurred to me for a while that there is a large disconnect between what the scientific community says is true and what the general public believes.  This has been borne out in a new study from the Pew Research Center.  The results of this study have been released on their website: which you can access here.

'Paying It Forward' Publishing

February 10, 2015

By Carl Straumsheim

The University of California Press is building a new open-access publishing model around the idea that reviewers and researchers in the hard sciences can support new forms of scholarly communication by "paying it forward."

The university press last month introduced Collabra and Luminos, an open-access journal and monograph publisher, respectively...  To read more

From Inside Higher Ed, https://www.insidehighered.com, accessed February 10, 2015

Virtual Conference on Scientific Data Management

Mark your calendars for February 18th to participate in a virtual conference - "Scientific Data Management: Caring for Your Institution and its Intellectual Wealth"  The cost of participation in this professional development opportunity is being covered by UK Libraries.

This NISO virtual conference will explore many current and up-and-coming aspects of research data management, including:

·         Data management practice meets policy

·         Uses for the data management plan

·         Building data management capacity and functionality

·         Citing and curating datasets

·         Connecting datasets with other products of scholarship

·         Changing researchers’ practices

·         Teaching data management techniques

A complete schedule of the sessions may be found at: http://www.niso.org/news/events/2015/virtual_conferences/sci_data_management/

TOPICS AND SPEAKERS

• Keynote Address – Laura J. Biven, Ph.D., Senior Science and Technology Advisor, Office of the Deputy Director for Science Programs, Office of Science, US Department of Energy
• Research Data Curation - Jennifer Doty, Research Data Librarian, Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, Emory University, Robert W. Woodruff Library
• Data Management Best Practices – Regina F. Raboin, Science Research and Instruction Librarian/ Data Management Services Group Coordinator, Tisch Library, Tufts University
• DART Project: Data Management Plans as a Research Tool – Amanda L. Whitmire, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Data Management Specialist, Oregon State University Libraries & Press
• Building Data Management Capacity – Heidi Imker, Ph.D., Director of the Research Data Service, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• FORCE11 – Dr. Melissa Haendel, Assistant Professor, Ontology Development Group, OHSU Library, Department of Medical Informatics and Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University
• The RMap Project – Sheila M. Morrissey, Senior Research Developer, Ithaka 
•  The Open Science Framework – Andrew Sallans, Partnerships, Collaborations, and Funding, Center for Open Science
• Roundtable Discussion

The various sessions run from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. We have scheduled the Active Learning Classroom  - WTYL 2-34A for the event.

DCC: Managing Research Data.mov

Let's Get This Party Started!

Managing research data is important - very important!  I find, however, as I speak to researchers around campus, what they really want to do is their research.  Messing with the intricacies of managing their research data is really not what they want to do. I know, go figure!  Researchers are now being required to submit data management plans with their research proposals, but often they see this as a "check this off the list" kind of activity that they must do right as they prepare to submit the application.  What many would really like is a standard boilerplate two page plan that they can append to their application.  As requirements become  more stringent, and as peer reviewers and program officers become savvier, it becomes more important for researchers to be more careful and more diligent. Additionally there are new requirements for sharing the results of federally funded research.  This adds another level of complexity to the process.

This space will be a place to highlight new developments, tools, services, and training to assist researchers in meeting this challenge.  Let's do it!