New Data Policies from AGU and PLOS

Both the American Geophyical Union and PLOS have recently announced new policies dealing with the data that underlies published research. The PLOS statement recognized that having open access literature without providing the underlying data was incongruous, and both policies provide recommendations for what to share, and how to share it.

In both statements, the requirement is not necessarily for all research data to be shared, but for the critical parts of data that were used to complete the published research and analysis. The two groups also require that data is made easily accessible, within legal constraints, and not held by the authors as the sole gatekeeper to the data. The expectation is for the data to be stored in trusted repositories: AGU provides a link to suggested repositories; PLOS suggests authors use repositories verified with criteria such as that provided by the Centre for Research Libraries or Data Seal of Approval (perhaps recognizing that when public archives aren't used, access to the data rapidly diminishes over time).

Recognizing that there are a variety of reasons all data may not be able to be shared publicly, each policy provides options for privacy or legal concerns, but requires that a statement be made to that effect, explaining why part or all of the data can not be shared.

With funding agencies and the federal government moving swiftly toward open access for all research outputs, and the proliferation of tools making it easy to share data, more groups and publishers will no doubt be adopting similar policies in the very near future.

Public Comment on Access to Federally Supported Research and Development Data and Publications

In response to both the recent OSTP memorandum and the proposed bill (FASTR) that call for increased public access to data and publications resulting from federally funded research, a group of cooperating agencies and the National Research Council have organized two planning meetings held May 14-17 to gather stakeholder input (also included are "brief introductory addresses by a select few experts and summarizing commentary by equally few rapporteurs").

Two meetings will be held, one focused on publications (May 14-15) and the other on data (May 16-17). The public is invited to attend in person (at the National Academy of Sciences in DC) or via webcast, but registration is required. Attendees may also request time to present a verbal or written statement.

Sponsoring Agencies:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Technical Information Service
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Department of Defense
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of Health and Human Services
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Department of the Interior
United States Geological Survey
Department of Transportation
Environmental Protection Agency
Institute of Museum and Library Services
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Endowment for the Humanities
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Institution

Global Health Data Exchange Updates

The Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) has announced a relaunch with enhanced navigation and additional features, including improved navigation, background information on countries, data series, and organizations. The advanced search allows users to search specific queries by geography, time, data type, keyword, and data source. Data can also be sorted on whether the actual research data is publicly and freely available. An announcement about the new features in version 2 is available online.

In addition, search results can now be sorted by the year that data collection started, and can be easily exported. Geographies now have a time component to reflect historical changes to country names or boundaries over (e.g., the Soviet Union).

Launched in March 2011 by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, the GHDx is the world’s largest catalog and repository of health-related data. It currently contains more than 8000 records with carefully researched information about data, including a standardized English title, local-language title, geography and time covered by the data, a suggested citation and information about current data providers. In addition, detailed keywords provide information about the topics that are covered by the data. Many datasets can be downloaded directly from the GHDx.

The New OSTP Policy and Data

The OSTP policy changes last month that mandate greater access to federally funded research left us wondering what, exactly, it'll mean for federally funded research data. There have been several good blog posts written that summarize what the policy states and an interpretation of what the changes might mean in the realm of data.

The Scholarly Kitchen gives a history of how the policy came to be, deciphers what it means, and provides a list of agencies covered (NIH, CDC, FDA, ARHQ, NSF, NASA, DOE, USDA, FAA, FHWA, NIST, NOAA, USGS, EPA, DOD, VA, USAID, Dept. of Education, and the Smithsonian), and some first impressions of what it means for public access to funded research papers.

Carly Strasser from California Digital Library takes a look at the policy from both a scholarly article and data perspective, providing a short-and-sweet summary in plain English about potential changes from the policy.

And last, Kristin Briney spends time looking at what the policy means for data in particular.

Basically, what all this means is that data management plans will now be required of researchers on federal grants, and these plans should be supported by the various agencies. There is no particular mandate for sharing, just the "maximizing of access to research data." There is a lot of potential there for increases in data management plan creation and support, open repositories and greater access to the content therein. Agencies have 6 months from the announcement to create a policy; come August, there will be some interesting things to discuss.

Data sharing and journals

Nice post from Carly Strasser at California Digital Library about data sharing policies in journals, including a list of which journals follow the Joint Data Archiving Policy from Dryad. Although the journals that require data archiving began with those in the field of evolution, other discplines' journals are coming on board.