Guest post from: Fernanda Peset

She is Professor at the Technical University of Valencia (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia), in the Department of Audiovisual Communication, Documentation and Art History. Also coordinates the doctorate program Communication and Cultural Industries. She holds a PhD from the University of Murcia in 2002. Her teaching and publications are geared to scientific communication, open access, implementation of OAI-PMH, standardization of information, description of documents, museum documentation systems, linkedopendata, and recently open research data while managing the Datasea Project. She participates in projects like IraLIS, E-LIS, CIEPI Group, ODiSEA, MAREDATA, and runs the R&D Datasea Project. She has taught on research methodology, scientific publication, accreditation, research data, publications repositories and open access, in addition to her university teaching.

Data derived from research are no strangers to open data movement. At least in Spain, where most research is financed with public money, the university can not be a world apart to the tendency of accountability and transparency in government investment. But first things first: the basics of open science. The scientific system is made up of several dimensions. On the one hand it is a social system, complex in its operation, but not particularly different from other organizational settings. On the other hand, it is the top of the excellence of knowledge, with the essential difficulty of constantly reducing uncertainty, and perhaps more failed experiments that actually successful. Added to this, the hyper-specialization in many branches and ways to run the investigation. And last, science has some altruistic connotations that are not in other activities. Not all is about success, fame, power or money. Research is the engine of progress of civilizations (think of the ability of Medicine to save lives), which promotes recognition, comparable only with that obtained by artists or thinkers throughout the history of mankind.

But back to research in particular: a scientific system as we know, based on the reproducibility of science, needs to publicize scientific results. In the 90s, the model based on magazines appeared in the 18th century suffered a crisis due to rise in price. The researchers could not access all the information they needed, which was produced even by themselves, often with funding from the public sector (namely NSF, EU or their own salaries). This situation occurred in a context in which the ease of digital communication was revolutionizing the concept of “advertising”, and led  to the movement of open access to scientific results. It is the birth of open science. Thanks to the interoperability protocol OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), the business model based on magazines has been modified, and the green and gold open access routes appear. In fact, requests for the release of publications have been common, starting from the universities, funders, journals, scientific associations and, (even in the Spanish case) is contained in the Law 14 / 2011 Science, Technology and Innovation. But it did not happen the same with respect to the research data underlying publications. Recommendations for open access as the OECD (2007) or instructions from funding agencies (National Institutes of Health, 2003), already mentioned them in the first years of this millennium. This insistence on the part of the agencies involved in the investigation continued until the recent data plan “Horizon 2020” program of the European Union. In the case of data, we can see that only some funders and magazines are recommending the release of data. For example, in the case of social sciences, Law 37/2007 November 16th on the reuse of public sector information (disp. Adic.4), indicates the transfer to the Specific Database of Social Studies (ARCES) of the Sociological Research Center, and a Plan of Initial Deposit.

We see, therefore, that research data are part of the public sector information. Its path, however, is more attached to the one taken by the open access publications than to PSI, as indicated by the 2012 Opinion of the European Commission (European Commission, 2012; Peset and González, 2016). On key issues such as interoperability, technical infrastructures of preservation and management, agents involved (researchers, libraries, academic authorities), licensing and attribution needs, research data run parallel to the motion of open access. As mentioned, the scientific system has some peculiarities away from data management. In fact, it is determined by several characteristics: “Science has two sides of different currencies: it is international, but is done at national level (Boulton, 2015). It is, at once, peculiar in each of its disciplines, but also global. It occurs in organizations but have vocation to work beyond their walls. It is public and private (Peset and González, 2016) ” (Peset, in press). We must not forget that the attribution of discovery, and therefore the responsibility upon it, rests solely on the authors’ names, whose careers are built around their personal curriculum. This circumstance, unique of scientific organizations, is what characterizes how to open and reuse research data.

All these issues related to the management of scientific data (magazines, licensing, interoperability, preservation repositories, support services in libraries, commands and requests) will be reviewed at the Seminar on Management of Research Data (MAREDATA, 2015) to celebrate in Barcelona on January 19, 2015. Some funders and magazines are recommending the release of data. For example, in the case of social sciences, Law 37/2007 November 16th (on reuse of public sector information (disp. Adic.4)) indicates the transfer to the Social Studies Specific Database (ARCS) from Center for Sociological Research and an Initial Deposit Plan.

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OECD (2006). Recommendation of the Council concerning Access to Research Data from Public Funding. 14 December 2006 C (2006) 184. OECD

http://acts.oecd.org/Instruments/ShowInstrumentView.aspx?InstrumentID=159

Peset, Fernanda (en prensa). La complejidad de la ciencia en la gestión de los datos de investigación, en

Couto, Fabiano. Gestión de datos científicos. EPI-UOC

Peset, Fernanda; González, Luis-Millán (2016). Ciencia abierta y gestión de datos de investigación. Gijón: TREA. ISBN 978-84-9704-907-8