Feature
Left: Sam Hindle
Right: Daniella Lowenberg
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‘The editor tells me it was a unique challenge to peer review this article, as the dataset was changing minute by minute... but it really shows how the pandemic has brought international research groups together to collaborate and very quickly share data,’ she adds.
The dataset is not a first for international
collaboration – look at the Human Genome Project, the International Space Station, the Millenium Seed Bank Partnerhip and CERN, to name but a few. But as Baynes highlights, the sheer speed at which this and other Covid- 19-related research data collaborations – including Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology and the Covid-19 disease map – were established is what really stands out.
Quality matters Still, speed aside, what about the quality of the data that is being shared? Without a doubt, researcher uncertainties over the Fair principles – which ensure data can be effectively re-used – remain, as evidenced by the numerous initiatives underway to promote a fair data culture. For example, earlier this year, the EU-funded FAIRsFAIR project joined forces with
FAIRsharing.org to support data repositories in developing Fair research data management. Meanwhile, more and more tools that help
researchers adhere to the Fair principles are also becoming available, with for example, the Germany-based European Molecular Biology Laboratory being active here. According to Mahé, Polaris OS also helps researchers to share data and metadata, and will ensure that a datasets’ metadata is Fair – structured, clean and enriched – ready for other researchers to find. ‘We really need to help researchers deposit their datasets and publications, curate and fill out their metadata without making them take
10 Challenges in the Scholarly Publishing Cycle 2020/2021
This year’s State of the Nation report, from Digital Science, reveals that 32 per cent of academic researchers surveyed felt their research had been either very, or extremely, impacted by the pandemic. What’s more, when it came
to data sharing, around half felt it was at least somewhat likely they would reuse open
data provided by other laboratories, while 65 per cent expected to reuse their own data, following the pandemic. Meanwhile, around a third
of those surveyed expected to see more collaborations from here on in. Springer Nature’s Grace
Baynes believes that these latest results make the
case for ensuring data is as openly available as possible, so other researchers can make the most of it. ‘It was those working in medicine and clinical settings that said they were much more likely to collaborate. I think the pandemic has reminded us how research really is global,’ she says.
too much time,’ he says. For her part, Merrett is seeing clear
progress, and points out how at
data.bris, researchers are showing a greater awareness of the Fair principles now, compared to even just six months ago. ‘I’m not sure at what point it changed, but
we do get more people talking to us about this now,’ she says. ‘Also, if a researcher has a draft data management plan, he or she will mention Fair data – before we might have only seen this once across 10 to 15 plans, we see it more now.’
To help drive this adoption of Fair principles further, the University of Bristol has just launched an Open Research Prize. Akin to similar schemes underway at the universities of Groningen and Reading, competition entrants are to submit case studies that highlight how they have used open practices in their research. And implicit to the scheme, researchers will need to provide evidence of Fair data principles were appropriate, as well as including data availability statements in publications. ‘I’m really trying to impart at the moment
State of the Nation snapshot
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