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that we need to be as open as possible and as closed as necessary,’ says Merrett. ‘These kinds of activities are really important for changing the culture, and I hope we can get researchers into the habit [of using the Fair principles].’ Baynes also believes that incentives


and credit mechanisms remain critical to unlocking good research data practice. Drawing on results from this year’s State of Open Data Report from Digital Science, in partnership with Figshare and Springer Nature, she highlights how impact and visibility, as well as public benefits, were cited as key motivators over publisher and funder requirements. Meanwhile, citations, credit in funding applications and co-authorship were the favoured credit mechanisms. Baynes is also certain that researchers


need to clearly understand why good practice is worth their time; and believes Covid-19 may have helped. “One of the hardest areas to share data is medical and clinical research, often because it has sensitive data,” she says. “However, the ways in which this data can be managed and shared will now be more obvious to researchers that hadn’t had to think about data-sharing before Covid-19.” Like Merrett, Baynes is also seeing


progress on Fair principles. As she points out, more and more authors are including data availability statements in journals articles, while results from the State of Open Data surveys reveal understanding of the principles is rising. ‘We’re definitely making progress on making data easier to find and access, but interoperability and reuse are more challenging,’ she says. Here, Baynes asserts that investment in human resources and technology is needed. She reckons reusable data demands solid curation with good metadata and descriptive information, while interoperability between datasets needs more development of community standards. ‘If we’re talking about making data AI-ready,


we need better tools to collect research data, data standards and that rich metadata and description,’ she adds. ‘This all needs investment and effort from across the research community. We all have a part to play.’


To this end, Baynes is certain that the


2020 STM Research Data Year – intended to develop a clear open data action plan for publishers – has had a huge benefit. She’s seen many publishers either introducing or strengthening data policies, bolstering information on what a data availability statement should include, and setting common standards, so readers know where data is available. At the same time, she points to


encouraging signs from funders. For example the NIH recently updated its public access policy for research data, while carrying out a pilot with Figshare to see how researchers could more easily deposit and share data openly. ‘We also know that UKRI has said it will be looking at how it can facilitate open data with is taskforce reports,’ she says. ‘There’s still far more to do but we are making progress.’ Dryad’s Lowenberg is also seeing


progress, but agrees scholarly communities have some way to go with improving data quality. She sees a lot of data files with generic metadata submitted across repositories with most researchers still uploading data as supporting information files that don’t contain data-specific metadata. To counter this, Lowenberg asserts that publishers should no longer accept data as supplementary files to the article, as these simply aren’t reusable, citable or accessible. ‘I believe that all publishers must require researchers to put data in either a discipline-specific or general repository. This would change a lot of what we’re seeing,’ she says. ‘And then we need to have quality data curation across the board, involving institutional libaries and data curators. ‘It’s not quantity, and about uploading


incomplete data quickly with your article, it should be about quality,’ she adds. Clearly, progress continues to be made on


the road to open data, but has the Covid-19 pandemic actually helped accelerate the journey? Mahé, for one, thinks so. ‘Researchers


have had access to information that would not have been accessible without the Covid-19 crisis, so perhaps they will be more conscious about the fact that open data can help them and colleagues work better,’ he says. ‘Perhaps the pandemic has


continues to be made on the road to open data”


“Clearly, progress


12 Challenges in the Scholarly Publishing Cycle 2020/2021


Kirsty Merrett


also encouraged publishers to think about how they can do things differently – so I see Covid-19 as providing this real opportunity to bring about change.’ Lowenberg points out how Covid-19 has


provided yet ‘another shining example’ of why data sharing is important. ‘It’s really frustrating that it takes a pandemic for organisations to prioritise public good over their finances,’ she said. ‘I hope we don’t follow a trend where this only happens in an emergency.’ Still, as Baynes highlights, the move from publishers, such as Springer Nature, to openly share virus-related data and research is what typically takes place in a pandemic or public health emergency. ‘Open or certainly free access during such times predates this pandemic,’ she says. ‘But I do think it’s going to continue. Over time we’ll see a bigger and bigger percentage of research being published as open access every year. ‘The pandemic brings home the real need


for putting in place a structured and shared approach to research data... to ensure that data is as open and discoverable as possible,’ she adds. ‘I’m really looking forward to the times when research data really starts to catch up with where we are on open access publications.’ . l


Links: Scientific Data: Open data in the Covid-19 pandemic: www.nature.com/collections/ebaiehhfhg


Scientific Data: Epidemiological data from the Covid-19 outbreak, real-time case information: www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0448-0


Scientific Data: Covid-19 Disease Map, building a computational repository of Sars-CoV-2 virus-host interaction mechanisms: www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0477-8


Scientific Data: CIDO, a community-based ontology for coronavirus disease knowledge and data integration, sharing, and analysis: www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0523-6


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