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OpenAccess.net

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The open-access.net platform provides comprehensive information on the subject of Open Access (OA) and offers practical advice on its implementation. Developed collaboratively by the Freie Universität Berlin and the Universities of Goettingen, Konstanz, and Bielefeld, open-access.net first went online at the beginning of May 2007. The platform's target groups include all relevant stakeholders in the science sector, especially the scientists and scholars themselves, university and research institution managers, infrastructure service providers such as libraries and data centres, and funding agencies and policy makers. open-access.net provides easy, one-stop access to comprehensive information on OA. Aspects covered include OA concepts, legal, organisational and technical frameworks, concrete implementation experiences, initiatives, services, service providers, and position papers. The target-group-oriented and discipline-specific presentation of the content enables users to access relevant themes quickly and efficiently. Moreover, the platform offers practical implementation advice and answers to fundamental questions regarding OA. In collaboration with cooperation partners in Austria (the University of Vienna) and Switzerland (the University of Zurich), country-specific web pages for these two countries have been integrated into the platform - especially in the Legal Issues section. Each year since 2007, the information platform has organised the "Open Access Days" at alternating venues in collaboration with local partners. This event is the key conference on OA and Open Science in the German-speaking area. With funding from the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK) of the State of Baden-Württemberg, the platform underwent a complete technical and substantive overhaul in 2015.

Material Type: Reading

Author: OpenAccess Germany

The Open Science Training Handbook

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Open Science, the movement to make scientific products and processes accessible to and reusable by all, is about culture and knowledge as much as it is about technologies and services. Convincing researchers of the benefits of changing their practices, and equipping them with the skills and knowledge needed to do so, is hence an important task.This book offers guidance and resources for Open Science instructors and trainers, as well as anyone interested in improving levels of transparency and participation in research practices. Supporting and connecting an emerging Open Science community that wishes to pass on its knowledge, the handbook suggests training activities that can be adapted to various settings and target audiences. The book equips trainers with methods, instructions, exemplary training outlines and inspiration for their own Open Science trainings. It provides Open Science advocates across the globe with practical know-how to deliver Open Science principles to researchers and support staff. What works, what doesn’t? How can you make the most of limited resources? Here you will find a wealth of resources to help you build your own training events.

Material Type: Reading

Author: FOSTER Open Science

Open Science: What, Why, and How

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Open Science is a collection of actions designed to make scientific processes more transparent and results more accessible. Its goal is to build a more replicable and robust science; it does so using new technologies, altering incentives, and changing attitudes. The current movement towards open science was spurred, in part, by a recent “series of unfortunate events” within psychology and other sciences. These events include the large number of studies that have failed to replicate and the prevalence of common research and publication procedures that could explain why. Many journals and funding agencies now encourage, require, or reward some open science practices, including pre-registration, providing full materials, posting data, distinguishing between exploratory and confirmatory analyses, and running replication studies. Individuals can practice and encourage open science in their many roles as researchers, authors, reviewers, editors, teachers, and members of hiring, tenure, promotion, and awards committees. A plethora of resources are available to help scientists, and science, achieve these goals.

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Bobbie Spellman, Elizabeth Gilbert, Katherine Corker

Data Is Present: Open Workshops and Hackathons

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Original data has become more accessible thanks to cultural and technological advances. On the internet, we can find innumerable data sets from sources such as scientific journals and repositories, local and national governments, and non-governmental organisations. Often, these data may be presented in novel ways, by creating new tables or plots, or by integrating additional data. Free, open-source software has become a great companion for open data. This open scholarship project offers free workshops and coding meet-ups (hackathons) to learn and practise data presentation, across the UK. It is made possible by a fellowship of the Software Sustainability Institute.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Pablo Bernabeu

Qualitative Research Using Open Tools

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Qualitative research has long suffered from a lack of free tools for analysis, leaving no options for researchers without significant funds for software licenses. This presents significant challenges for equity. This panel discussion will explore the first two free/libre open source qualitative analysis tools out there: qcoder (R package) and Taguette (desktop application). Drawing from the diverse backgrounds of the presenters (social science, library & information science, software engineering), we will discuss what openness and extensibility means for qualitative research, and how the two tools we've built facilitate equitable, open sharing.

Material Type: Lesson

Authors: Beth M. Duckles, Vicky Steeves

Reproducibility Librarianship in Practice

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As research across domains of study has become increasingly reliant on digital tools (librarianship included), the challenges in reproducibility have grown. Alongside this reproducibility challenge are the demands for open scholarship, such as releasing code, data, and articles under an open license.Before, researchers out in the field used to capture their environments through observation, drawings, photographs, and videos; now, researchers and the librarians who work alongside them must capture digital environments and what they contain (e.g. code and data) to achieve reproducibility. Librarians are well-positioned to help patrons open their scholarship, and it’s time to build in reproducibility as a part of our services.Librarians are already engaged with research data management, open access publishing, grant compliance, pre-registration, and it’s time we as a profession add reproducibility to that repertoire. In this webinar, organised by LIBER’s Research Data Management Working Group, speaker Vicky Steeves discusses how she’s built services around reproducibility as a dual appointment between the Libraries and the Center for Data Science at New York University.

Material Type: Lesson

Authors: Birgit Schmidt, Vicky Steeves

Level up the reproducibility of your data and code! A 2-hour, hands-on workshop

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Purpose: To introduce methods and tools in organization, documentation, automation, and dissemination of research that nudge it further along the reproducibility spectrum.OutcomeParticipants feel more confident applying reproducibility methods and tools to their own research projects.ProcessParticipants practice new methods and tools with code and data during the workshop to explore what they do and how they might work in a research workflow. Participants can compare benefits of new practices and ask questions to help clarify which would provide them the most value to adopt.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: April Clyburne-Sherin

Preparing code and data for computationally reproducible collaboration and publication: a hands-on workshop

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Computational analyses are playing an increasingly central role in research. Journals, funders, and researchers are calling for published research to include associated data and code. However, many involved in research have not received training in best practices and tools for sharing code and data. This course aims to address this gap in training while also providing those who support researchers with curated best practices guidance and tools.This course is unique compared to other reproducibility courses due to its practical, step-by-step design. It is comprised of hands-on exercises to prepare research code and data for computationally reproducible publication. Although the course starts with some brief introductory information about computational reproducibility, the bulk of the course is guided work with data and code. Participants move through preparing research for reuse, organization, documentation, automation, and submitting their code and data to share. Tools that support reproducibility will be introduced (Code Ocean), but all lessons will be platform agnostic.Level: IntermediateIntended audience: The course is targeted at researchers and research support staff who are involved in the preparation and publication of research materials. Anyone with an interest in reproducible publication is welcome. The course is especially useful for those looking to learn practical steps for improving the computational reproducibility of their own research.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: April Clyburne-Sherin

SPARC Popular Resources

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SPARC is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education. SPARC empowers people to solve big problems and make new discoveries through the adoption of policies and practices that advance Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education.

Material Type: Reading

Author: Nick Shockey

Ten Simple Rules for the Care and Feeding of Scientific Data

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This article offers a short guide to the steps scientists can take to ensure that their data and associated analyses continue to be of value and to be recognized. In just the past few years, hundreds of scholarly papers and reports have been written on questions of data sharing, data provenance, research reproducibility, licensing, attribution, privacy, and more—but our goal here is not to review that literature. Instead, we present a short guide intended for researchers who want to know why it is important to “care for and feed” data, with some practical advice on how to do that. The final section at the close of this work (Links to Useful Resources) offers links to the types of services referred to throughout the text.

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Alberto Pepe, Aleksandra Slavkovic, Alexander W. Blocker, Alyssa Goodman, Aneta Siemiginowska, Ashish Mahabal, Christine L. Borgman, David W. Hogg, Kyle Cranmer, Margaret Hedstrom, Merce Crosas, Paul Groth, Rosanne Di Stefano, Vinay Kashyap, Yolanda Gil

Materials for the Webinar "Helping Science Succeed: The Librarian’s Role in Addressing the Reproducibility Crisis"

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Headlines and scholarly publications portray a crisis in biomedical and health sciences. In this webinar, you will learn what the crisis is and the vital role of librarians in addressing it. You will see how you can directly and immediately support reproducible and rigorous research using your expertise and your library services. You will explore reproducibility guidelines and recommendations and develop an action plan for engaging researchers and stakeholders at your institution. #MLAReproducibilityLearning OutcomesBy the end of this webinar, participants will be able to: describe the basic history of the “reproducibility crisis” and define reproducibility and replicability explain why librarians have a key role in addressing concerns about reproducibility, specifically in terms of the packaging of science explain 3-4 areas where librarians can immediately and directly support reproducible research through existing expertise and services start developing an action plan to engage researchers and stakeholders at their institution about how they will help address research reproducibility and rigorAudienceLibrarians who work with researchers; librarians who teach, conduct, or assist with evidence-synthesis or critical appraisal, and managers and directors who are interested in allocating resources toward supporting research rigor. No prior knowledge or skills required. Basic knowledge of scholarly research and publishing helpful.

Material Type: Lesson

Authors: Amy Riegelman, Frank Sayre

Transparent, Reproducible, and Open Science Practices of Published Literature in Dermatology Journals: Cross-Sectional Analysis

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Background: Reproducible research is a foundational component for scientific advancements, yet little is known regarding the extent of reproducible research within the dermatology literature. Objective: This study aimed to determine the quality and transparency of the literature in dermatology journals by evaluating for the presence of 8 indicators of reproducible and transparent research practices. Methods: By implementing a cross-sectional study design, we conducted an advanced search of publications in dermatology journals from the National Library of Medicine catalog. Our search included articles published between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2018. After generating a list of eligible dermatology publications, we then searched for full text PDF versions by using Open Access Button, Google Scholar, and PubMed. Publications were analyzed for 8 indicators of reproducibility and transparency—availability of materials, data, analysis scripts, protocol, preregistration, conflict of interest statement, funding statement, and open access—using a pilot-tested Google Form. Results: After exclusion, 127 studies with empirical data were included in our analysis. Certain indicators were more poorly reported than others. We found that most publications (113, 88.9%) did not provide unmodified, raw data used to make computations, 124 (97.6%) failed to make the complete protocol available, and 126 (99.2%) did not include step-by-step analysis scripts. Conclusions: Our sample of studies published in dermatology journals do not appear to include sufficient detail to be accurately and successfully reproduced in their entirety. Solutions to increase the quality, reproducibility, and transparency of dermatology research are warranted. More robust reporting of key methodological details, open data sharing, and stricter standards journals impose on authors regarding disclosure of study materials might help to better the climate of reproducible research in dermatology. [JMIR Dermatol 2019;2(1):e16078]

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Andrew Niemann, Austin L. Johnson, Courtney Cook, Daniel Tritz, J. Michael Anderson, Matt Vassar

How significant are the public dimensions of faculty work in review, promotion and tenure documents?

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Much of the work done by faculty at both public and private universities has significant public dimensions: it is often paid for by public funds; it is often aimed at serving the public good; and it is often subject to public evaluation. To understand how the public dimensions of faculty work are valued, we analyzed review, promotion, and tenure documents from a representative sample of 129 universities in the US and Canada. Terms and concepts related to public and community are mentioned in a large portion of documents, but mostly in ways that relate to service, which is an undervalued aspect of academic careers. Moreover, the documents make significant mention of traditional research outputs and citation-based metrics: however, such outputs and metrics reward faculty work targeted to academics, and often disregard the public dimensions. Institutions that seek to embody their public mission could therefore work towards changing how faculty work is assessed and incentivized.

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Carol Muñoz Nieves, Erin C McKiernan, Gustavo E Fischman, Juan P Alperin, Lesley A Schimanski, Meredith T Niles

The citation advantage of linking publications to research data

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Efforts to make research results open and reproducible are increasingly reflected by journal policies encouraging or mandating authors to provide data availability statements. As a consequence of this, there has been a strong uptake of data availability statements in recent literature. Nevertheless, it is still unclear what proportion of these statements actually contain well-formed links to data, for example via a URL or permanent identifier, and if there is an added value in providing them. We consider 531,889 journal articles published by PLOS and BMC which are part of the PubMed Open Access collection, categorize their data availability statements according to their content and analyze the citation advantage of different statement categories via regression. We find that, following mandated publisher policies, data availability statements have become common by now, yet statements containing a link to a repository are still just a fraction of the total. We also find that articles with these statements, in particular, can have up to 25.36% higher citation impact on average: an encouraging result for all publishers and authors who make the effort of sharing their data. All our data and code are made available in order to reproduce and extend our results.

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Barbara McGillivray, Giovanni Colavizza, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Isla Staden, Kirstie Whitaker

Empirical Study of Data Sharing by Authors Publishing in PLoS Journals

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Background Many journals now require authors share their data with other investigators, either by depositing the data in a public repository or making it freely available upon request. These policies are explicit, but remain largely untested. We sought to determine how well authors comply with such policies by requesting data from authors who had published in one of two journals with clear data sharing policies. Methods and Findings We requested data from ten investigators who had published in either PLoS Medicine or PLoS Clinical Trials. All responses were carefully documented. In the event that we were refused data, we reminded authors of the journal's data sharing guidelines. If we did not receive a response to our initial request, a second request was made. Following the ten requests for raw data, three investigators did not respond, four authors responded and refused to share their data, two email addresses were no longer valid, and one author requested further details. A reminder of PLoS's explicit requirement that authors share data did not change the reply from the four authors who initially refused. Only one author sent an original data set. Conclusions We received only one of ten raw data sets requested. This suggests that journal policies requiring data sharing do not lead to authors making their data sets available to independent investigators.

Material Type: Reading

Authors: Andrew J. Vickers, Caroline J. Savage

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