Resources

Webinars

Background Material

RDA COVID-19

STM Events

STM Research Data Activities

Data Availability Statement Tips

The FAIR Principles

Webinars

End-t0-end workflow to link research data to literature, and FAIRsFAIR tools in development relevant to publishers (Tasha Mellins-Cohen, Rachael Lammey (Crossref), and Ilona von Stein (FAIRsFAIR), March 22nd (see presentations in the Background Material section below).

DATA POLICIES: Iain Hrynaszkiewicz of PLOS explains what a journal data policy is, and how a Research Data Alliance Interest Group came together to develop a framework to equip publishers to choose, explain and implement data policies across their portfolios. (Both the presentation and slides are available below)

DATA CITATION: Rachael Lammey of Crossref provides links to useful resources on data sharing and citation, information on how Crossref members can cite data in the metadata they send to Crossref, and how that’s then used by initiatives like Scholix. (Both presentation and slides are available below.)

Background material

RDA COVID-19

The RDA COVID-19 Working Group (CWG) members bring various expertise to develop a body of work that comprises how data from multiple disciplines inform response to a pandemic combined with guidelines and recommendations on data sharing under the present COVID-19 circumstances. The full document can be found here, a selection of the document relevant for publishers here.

STM Events

London Workshop – December 2019

London Workshop – February 2020

US Virtual Workshop – April 2020

Establishing Open & FAIR Research Data – May 2020

STM Research Data Activities

The STM Association has been actively involved in the understanding and integration of research data into the scientific knowledge canon for over a decade. The 2007 Brussels Declaration deals in large part with Open Access in general, but it also sets out an early position towards research data, indicating widespread consensus that data will ideally be made freely accessible:

Raw research data should be made freely available to all researchers. Publishers encourage the public posting of the raw data outputs of research. Sets or sub-sets of data that are submitted with a paper to a journal should wherever possible be made freely accessible to other scholars

This was followed by the Joint STM-DataCite Declaration on the Linkability and Citability of Research Data in 2012. It outlined the principles for functional research data management within publishing in far greater detail than had previously been seen. It also signalled the beginning of the collaborative approach that is required in order for progress to be made.

1. To improve the availability and findability of research data, DataCite and STM encourage authors of research papers to deposit researcher validated data in trustworthy and reliable Data Archives. 

2. DataCite and STM encourage Data Archives to enable bi-directional linking between datasets and publications by using established and community endorsed unique persistent identifiers such as database accession codes and DOI’s. 

3. DataCite and STM encourage publishers to make visible or increase visibility of these links from publications to datasets.

4. DataCite and STM encourage Data Archives to make visible or increase visibility of these links from datasets to publications. 

5. DataCite and STM support the principle of data reuse and for this purpose actively

participate in initiatives for best practice recommendations for the citation of datasets.

6. DataCite and STM invite other organizations involved in research data management to join and support this statement. 

The FAIR Principles

For research data to be worth sharing, its needs to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable (FAIR) both for machines and humans. This is clearly both a challenge and an ongoing process for researchers and publishers, and has led to the instigation of several supporting initiatives.

The Coalition for Publishing Data in the Earth and Space Sciences (COPDESS) consists of funders, learned societies and publishers. Convened by the American Geophysical Union, this group has established the Enabling FAIR Data commitment statement. It invites individuals and organisations (such as publishers, repositories, funders and research institutions) to sign and commit to taking action. The site also contains a number of resources, including a detailed set of FAQs.

Working with publishers and researcher groups, FAIRsharing.org has co-curated a database of standards, policies and databases. As a result, their website provides an excellent overview of data repositories that journals can recommend to their authors.