“Research Data at your Fingertips”: German Priority Initiative ‘Digital Information’ publishes Position Paper
Posted: March 20th, 2015 | Author: Sven | Filed under: found on the net, German | Tags: Position Paper, recommendations | Comments Off on “Research Data at your Fingertips”: German Priority Initiative ‘Digital Information’ publishes Position Paper
The Priority Initiative Digital Information of the Alliance of German Science Organisations has published a position paper on research data and research data infrastructures in February.
At the beginning the four page long paper sketches a short vision on how researchers will be able to work with research data in the year 2025. A “quick and easy access to all research data” is part of this vision, also the important task to credit researchers for sharing their research data is mentioned by the authors: “The publication of research data and software enhances the academic reputation.”
The second chapter of the paper deals with the current challenges in managing research data. Especially the situation in organisational structures, different research disciplines, publicly funded information institutions and research organisations is described.
In particular the long-term funding of suitable research data infrastructures remains an important issue for research organisations. Currently only time-limited projects receive financial support and these measures do not permit the necessary long-term operation of RD-infrastructures. Also the position paper demands accompanying policies and formal requirements for RDM, such as those currently implemented in the research data pilot of horizon 2020. The paragraph ends with a short statement on international activities and an appeal to support international approaches like the RDA.
The third section lists six recommendations:
First of all the paper argues for discipline-specific coordinating committees to gauge requirements, identify the necessary infrastructure components, promote their development and expansion, and define relevant policies and standards. Also specialist research data centres should be established and developed. In addition stable long-term funding models should be developed and implemented to cover development and investment costs and ongoing operating costs – a special task for research funders. Also on a legal level things need clarification: For instance, clear rules are needed as to the legal scientific use of personal data and copyrighted or licensed material. Another requirement is related to the formulation of disciplinary and technical standards – a good example is the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) in the social sciences.
The recommendations terminate with a request to establish new professions and career paths through the creation of more specific curricula for information specialists.
Photo Credit: Requirements Paste by knausssss on flickr.com. License: CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0
