Against the replication crisis: New international journal encourages replication studies

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New countrywide RD-INF Project approved: Generic Research Data Infrastructure (GeRDI) ready to get off the starting blocks

In my previous post, I presented some analyses and recommendations the RfII (German Council for Scientific Information Infrastructures) made for the future development and structuring of the German national landscape on research data management. For instance, the RfII found, that

‘there is an overall absence of coordination, and current efforts often take the form of parallel, project-based initiatives. Universal access to services for data management is lacking, as the key actors at present are individual institutions and organisations, and their efforts often suffer from limited financing and/or excessive niche focus. In addition, the high staff turnover means that valuable know-how is frequently lost. Furthermore, the range of services being provided is impaired by the absence of governance mechanisms which could impart greater strategic direction.’

Currently, when scientists generate research data often the question arises where to store the data. Currently, only a handful of universities already have an appropriate infrastructure in place while for the big majority such a research data infrastructure is still missing.

Also from the perspective of a researcher who is looking for (reusing) data already available, the current state is unsatisfactory: The few research data infrastructures currently available at German universities, but also other research data centres from different subjects, are hardly linked with other data repositories and often remain data silos. Read the rest of this entry »

Austria: New report “Researchers and their Data” published

A solid research data management system is the foundation of cooperative, open research. In addition such a system fosters reproducibility and verifiability of research.

This topic is relevant and up-to-date for researchers, funding bodies and senior posts of scientific institutions, which is currently also underpinned by the pilot for research data of the European Commission.

In this context, the project e-Infrastructures Austria has just released a report that provides an overview of an Austria-wide survey on research data. The survey was carried out at the beginning of 2015. It was directed at the scientific and artistic-scientific personnel of all 21 public universities and three extramural research institutions in Austria.

The project received 3026 completed questionnaires, which is equivalent to an average response rate of 9 %. Read the rest of this entry »

PLOS, CDL, and DataONE join forces to build incentives for data sharing

The open access publisher PLOS (Public Library of Science), the University of California Curation Center at the California Digital Library, and DataONE  announced the launch of a new project to develop data-level metrics. The project, titled “Making Data Count: Developing a Data Metrics Pilot” is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the US. The project will result in a suite of metrics that track and measure data use.

The need for such a data metrics pilot is obvious: Sharing data is time consuming and researchers need incentives for undertaking the extra work. Metrics for data will provide feedback on data usage, views, and impact that will help encourage researchers to share their data. This project will explore and test the metrics needed to capture activity surrounding research data. Read the rest of this entry »

EDaWaX receives two more years of funding!

We are very happy to announce that our research funding organisation, the German Research Foundation (DFG), has granted another two years of funding for our project.

In their final report, based on the good results of the project’s first funding phase, the reviewers concluded that EDaWaX’s planning for expanding the pilot application and for undertaking a detailed analysis of journals in business studies should be supported with “high”, respectively “highest priority.” Read the rest of this entry »

Goettingen University: Project fosters Replication in Economics

There are many good reasons why we should replicate scientific findings. In his article “Open Access Economics Journals and the Market for Reproducible Economic Research“, the economist B.D. McCullough (2009) lists some of the reasons why replicable research is crucial for science:

„[…]replication ensures that the method used to produce the results is known. Whether the results are correct or not is another matter, but unless everyone knows how the results were produced, their correctness cannot be assessed. Replicable research is subject to the scientific principle of verification; non-replicable research cannot be verified. Second, and more importantly, replicable research speeds scientific progress. We are all familiar with Newton’s quote, ‘If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ […] Third, researchers will have an incentive to avoid sloppiness. […] Fourth, the incidence of fraud will decrease.“ (p.118)

More recently, the case of the US-economists Rogoff and Reinhart clearly illustrated the need for replications to be much more common in science and scientific education. But… Read the rest of this entry »

re3data.org receives another two year grant #Update

The project re3data.org has received another grant: The German Research Foundation (DFG) has extended the funding of re3data.org – a registry of research data repositories – for another two years. Congrats!

Until the end of 2015 re3data.org aims to implement new functionalities and to integrate more research data repositories. These repositories will be indexed to offer researchers, funding organizations and libraries all over the world an easy-to-use overview of the heterogeneous research data repository landscape.

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Introducing datorium – a new Data Repository Service for the Social Sciences

The current e-infrastructure for research data management in the field of social sciences in Germany has extended by an important component. Up to now, we faced a fragmented e-infrastructure for documenting, storing, hosting and curating research data in social sciences: On the one hand there are well-established research data centres e.g. for large household survey data.  On the other hand appropriate research data infrastructure components for small and medium-sized research projects for instance were, with a few exceptions, almost not available yet. Read the rest of this entry »

OJS-Dataverse Integration Plugin released!

In one of my previous blog posts I introduced the PKP/IQSS OJS-Dataverse integration project. After a really short developmental period the project now is happy to announce that the first version has been released! Congrats!

The plugin has been developed by PKP (Public Knowledge Project) in collaboration with Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS).  Funded by a $1 million Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, the OJS-DVN project developed the plugin for journals that are using the Open Journal System (OJS). a journal management and publishing system .

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European Commission launches pilot to open up publicly funded research data

Currently, Europe’s eighth Framework Programme takes form: On December 2013 the European Council has adopted Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation for the years 2014 to 2020.

Horizon 2020, which has a budget of around 77 billion euros, will underpin the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs, as well as the goal of strengthening the scientific and technological bases by contributing to achieving a European Research Area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology circulate freely. Read the rest of this entry »

Introducing the OJS-Dataverse Integration Project

Today I want to introduce the PKP- Open Journal System / Dataverse Integration Project to our readers, an approach that is in some parts quite similar to our own approach in the field of economics.

Funded by a $1 million Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, the OJS-DVN project intends to develop a plugin for journals that are using the Open Journal System (OJS), a journal management and publishing system that has been developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), to expand and improve access to research. Read the rest of this entry »

JoRD Project presents Results

The JoRD-project (Journal Research Data Policies ) recently has published some final results. As mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, the JoRD-project -which was funded by JISC as part of its Digital Infrastructure Programme- aims to conduct a feasibility study into the scope and shape of a sustainable service that will collate and summarise journal data policies. The purpose of the service would be to provide a ready reference source of easily accessible, standardised, accurate and clear guidance and information, on the journal policy landscape relating to research data. Read the rest of this entry »

RunMyCode.org – Make research easier to use and replicate

Last week Patrick, one of our project partners, made me aware of a very interesting website and service for researchers that is called runmycode.org. The concept of RunMyCode can be viewed as a novel attempt to provide  an executable paper solution.

Therefore I am very happy that Prof. Pérignon, one of the co-founders, has written a short introduction for our blog. If you would like to get more information about RunMyCode just visit the website or contact the team. Read the rest of this entry »

Introducing the Journal Research Data Policy Bank (JoRD)-Project

Journal Research Data Policy Bank (JoRD) is a JISC funded initiative conducting a feasibility study into the scope and shape of a sustainable service that will collate and summarise journal policies on Research Data to provide researchers, managers of research data and other stakeholders with an easy source of reference to understand and comply with these policies. Read the rest of this entry »

ODE Project: New Report on on Best Practices for Citability of Data and on evolving Roles in scholarly Communication

With the ever increasing availability of data, the best way to ensure its sharing and re-use is becoming a prominent issue. Finding data and understanding data are the first steps in such a process and good data citation is an important prerequisite to enable this. New roles are evolving to support researchers in this process with support in managing, archiving, discovering, interpreting and citing data. Read the rest of this entry »