[Iain Hrynaszkiewicz]

Dear Interest Group members,
Thanks to all those who attended our hybrid session at the 20th RDA Plenary. I’m writing to share the collaborative notes from the session, which now include summary of the main outcomes/ actions. Those outcomes are:
1. Agreed that there is an issue with Data Availability Statement (DAS) quality, and that guidance is needed (for authors, and for journals) to address this
2. Acknowledged resourcing and training issue for journals to improve DAS standards
3. Agreed that machine-readability of DAS is an important area and should not be ignored when considering improvements.
4. Anyone interested in the issue of code policy is encouraged to sign up to the Code Availability Group (***@***.***). They would especially like to hear from publishers who are working on writing or reviewing code policies or plan to do so in the future.
Please look out for future communications and collaborative activities as we take forward these actions together.
In addition, you can find the report from the publisher-focused workshop on DAS quality that was held in February 2023 here; and the slides from our recent plenary session here.
In other news, we’re excited to welcome a new co-chair to our group, Kate McKellar from Wiley. Kate already co-chairs the STM Association’s Research Data program humanities sub-group and is well placed to support our future plans. We also want to thank Simon Goudie, Wiley, who has stepped down as co-chair after 5 years’ service.
Best wishes,
Iain (on behalf of the co-chairs, Rebecca Grant, Natasha Simons, Kate McKellar, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz)
Iain Hrynaszkiewicz
Director, Open Research Solutions
orcid.org/0000-0002-9673-5559
PLOS
Empowering researchers to transform science
The Bradfield Centre, 184 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0GA, UK
Twitter
California (U.S.) corporation #C2354500, based in San Francisco

Discussion