status: Recognised & Endorsed

Chair (s): Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Natasha Simons, Simon Goudie, Rebecca Grant

Group Email: [group_email]

Secretariat Liaison: enquiries@rd-alliance.org


Introduction

Increasing the availability of research data for reuse is in part being driven by research data policies and the number of funders and journals and institutions with some form of research data policy is growing. The research data policy landscape of funders, institutions and publishers is however too complex (Ref: http://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.284/) and the implementation and implications of policies for researchers can be unclear.  While around half of researchers share data, their primary motivations are often to carry out and publish good research, and to receive renewed funding, rather than making data available. Data policies that support publication of research need to be practical and seen in this context to be effective beyond specialist data communities and publications.

 

Use cases and user scenarios

The prevalence of research data policies from institutions and research funders (such as the UK research councils and European Commission) is increasing (Ref: https://riojournal.com/articles.php?id=14673), so publishers and editors are paying more attention to  standardisation and the wider adoption of data sharing policies. The International Committee of Medicial Journal Editors introduced a data sharing policy; Springer Nature is implementing a standardised research data policy framework with four standard data policy types, each with a defined set of requirements, and is encouraging adoption across all its journals (Ref: https://doi.org/10.1101/122929). More than 1000 journals have adopted one of these policies as of June 2017.  This policy framework is available for reuse by others under a Creative Commons license but requires wider debate in the research and publishing communities. We envisage there to be common elements of research data policy shared between all stakeholders, such as support for data repositories and data citation.

Much of this work draws on earlier Jisc activity in examining the potential for a tabulation of publisher research data policies. Naughton and Kernohan (2016) (Ref: http://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.284/) reported that the journal data policy landscape was not at the required maturity to be comparable or indexable in this way. Jisc is  therefore committed to working with publishers in supporting the standardisation of journal data policies, with an end goal of supporting machine readable policies that would be easier for researchers and research support staff to utilize in selecting a suitable journal for publication, ensuring compliance with journal and funder data requirements.

 

Objectives and Outcomes

  • Help define common frameworks for research data policy allowing for different levels of commitment and requirements and disciplinary differences that could be agreed by multiple stakeholders

  • Identify priority areas/stakeholders where policy frameworks can be defined e.g. beginning with journal/publisher policy, then considering funder policy

  • For these prioritised areas, stimulate creation of Working Groups to:

    • Produce guidance for researchers on complying with and implementing research data policy and the tools to support compliance

  • Facilitate greater understanding of the landscape of research data policies across disciplines, institutions and learned societies

  • Increase adoption of (standardised) research data policies by all stakeholders in particular journals and publishers

  • Connect stakeholders and broaden a collective understanding of their roles and relationships in data policy implementation

The report from the RDA P10 meeting is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UaSscj5jKhosa_VpOb3oVGk-KdfPaAfz3O5M...

The report from the RDA P9 meeting is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GiJI7kJA3MgDvJyC9zw-zHIbg3n2azhN16W_2Kn1uwM/edit?usp=sharing

Minutes from first informal meeting of this group at RDA 8th Plenary are here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jtJyJVNOXyjondprQXvHH9xJfEDeovhchShi...

 

Participation

While the focus of the policies developed by the Group would be on publishing research data, multiple stakeholders (publishers, institutions, repositories, societies, funders) will be included. Common elements of data policy likely exist for all these stakeholders and this will be explored.

The proposed group would complement the Practical Policy WG (https://rd-alliance.org/groups/practical-policy-wg.html) as this proposed group has a specific focus on journals and publishing with a goal of harmonising and standardising policy. These seem to be prerequisites to and would feed into efforts to create machine readable and actionable policies.

The proposed group would also complement efforts aimed at publishing and citing research data, as data policy of publications should help raise awareness of both these activities.

 

Mechanism

Co-chairs will have regular conference calls (every 1-2 months) and communicate updates to group members via the RDA group mailing list and using other RDA communication resources as needed e.g. group wiki, file repository. Group members will be invited to a group/community call that will take place every 2-3 months, after an initial meeting of the group at the RDA plenary - currently scheduled for April 2017.

We will use collaborative editing tools (Google Drive etc) to rapidly share outcomes of calls, key documents and to solicit feedback from group members.

 

Timeline

The first 6-9 months will involve further discussions with members and stakeholders to prioritise the objectives and secure support for delivering them, which might require  the creation of sub-groups focused on specific tasks. We envisage our first priority to be the first listed objective, to “Help define a common framework for research data policy allowing for different levels of commitment and requirements and disciplinary differences that could be agreed by multiple stakeholders”, to support academic publishers and others in developing usable and practical research data policies. We will gather requirements in 2017 and present them to group members, by September 2017.

Our goal is to evolve from an Interest Group to a Working Group for publisher/journal policy by 2018, in coordination with RDA plenary meetings.

 

Chair/Co-chairs

Chair:

  • Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, PLOS (group proposer)

Co-Chairs

  • Natasha Simons, Australian Research Data Commons
  • Simon Goudie, Wiley
  • Rebecca Grant, F1000

Past Co-Chairs

  • Azhar Hussain, Jisc (2018-2022)
  • David Kernohan, Jisc (2017-2018)

Posts

01
February
2023

Data availability statement quality workshop

by Rebecca Grant

Dear group members, Ahead of our P20 session (now scheduled for Breakout 4, 10.00 UTC on Wednesday 22nd March (Increasing the positive impacts of journal policies on data sharing practices)) we are running a workshop which will build on the plenary session we held back in June at P19. To keep things interactive we are planning for a relatively small group, but please do go ahead and submit your contact information if you'd like to participate. If you aren't joining us this time, you'll still get an update as part of our P20 session and associated reporting.
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18
January
2023

Institutional and Organizational Research Data Retention Policies Questionnaire

by John Chodacki

Dear Colleagues: To develop a compendium of research data retention requirements, the University of California is gathering information on institutional and organizational research data retention policies. Once developed, we intend to provide it to the research community for its ongoing use. Background
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06
December
2022

RDA 20th Plenary - Notification of Acceptance

by Secretariat Group Account

Dear Chairs of the Data policy standardisation and implementation IG,
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05
December
2022

RDA 20th Plenary - Notification of Acceptance

by Secretariat Group Account

Dear Chairs of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Visitation (AIDV) WG, the Data policy standardisation and implementation IG, the RDA for the Sustainable Development Goals IG and the Science communication for research data IG,
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09
November
2022

Invitation to participate in 'A Decade of Data: 10 Years of the RDA' events and activities

by Connie Clare

Good day, The RDA Secretariat would like to invite the Data policy standardisation and implementation IG to participate in ‘A Decade of Data’: Celebrating 10 Years of the Research Data Alliance’. 10 months to celebrate 10 years of the RDA
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22
June
2022

New FAIRsharing Community Curation Programme: Call for Participants

by Allyson Lister

Dear Data policy standardisation and implementation IG members,
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17
June
2022

How can we improve data availability statements? Join us at RDA P19

by Rebecca Grant

Hello group members, The Data policy standardisation and implementation IG has a session coming up next Tuesday June 21st at RDA Plenary 19 - please join us if you can! Our session on Exploring features and improving standards for data availability statements will be looking at the ways that authors describe the availability of their research data when drafting research articles; whether the information they provide is useful to different stakeholders; and how these statement might be improved. We have three excellent speakers lined up to address this topic:
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14
April
2022

RDA Plenary 19 Draft Programme Now Available

by Secretariat Group Account

Dear Group Chairs, The RDA 19th Plenary draft programme is now available: https://www.rd-alliance.org/rdas-19th-plenary-programme-0. Please note that the Plenary programme is a part of the International Data Week programme that can be accessed at https://www.rd-alliance.org/international-data-week-2022-programme.
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28
March
2022

How will you be attending RDA Plenary 19?

by Iain Hrynaszkiewicz

Dear Data Policy Standardisation and Implementation Interest Group Members, You may have noted that our group's session proposal has been accepted for the next RDA Plenary. Conversations with some of our members suggests that many people are, understandably, still deciding how they will join the plenary - virtually or in person. We have requested a hybrid session set up but would also like to gain a more quantified understanding of how group members will be attending the conference. This will help with preparations for our session.
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25
March
2022

RDA Plenary 19 as a part of IDW 2022 - Notification of Acceptance

by Secretariat Group Account

Dear Chairs of the Data policy standardisation and implementation IG, Congratulations! Your RDA Plenary 19 (P19) session application titled Data Policy IG: Exploring features and improving standards for data availability statements has been approved. Please consider this your official notification of acceptance. We have some feedback and requests for you to take into consideration while preparing your session:
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