Edinburgh Open Research

Open Science in the Wild

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

This talk uses real-world case studies to explore where and how open research can address global challenges and make a difference in the lives of everyday people worldwide. We explore these challenges through the work of UCL’s Office for Open Science and Scholarship and discuss how it is approaching support for similar projects and the expansion of the institution’s achievements in Open Science across the board.

South African Open Access and Open Data

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Join our keynotes Daisy Salematsela (Director, WITS Libraries, Johannesburg, South Africa) & Lazarus Matizirofa (University of Pretoria) as they give us a survey of the progress being made in South Africa towards Open Access, Open Data, and Open Research in general - focusing on the role of the Library in this drive towards openness.

Improving Research Culture and Integrity through Open Science

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Join Will Cawthorn for the closing keynote as he explores tangible ways to cultivate a healthy research culture using the tools provided by Open Scientific practices.

Applying Intelligent Open Science to Combat Future Pandemics

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the potential strengths and existing weaknesses of open science practices and open data sharing to addressing urgent social and technological challenges. It was a time when pathogen genomic data was shared worldwide to characterise virus outbreaks, track the mutation and spread of the virus, and develop public health responses. However, this brought a renewed focus to the practice, incentives and infrastructures that crucially enable data sharing and reuse.

In 2022, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy commissioned Research Consulting to investigate the opportunities and challenges associated with open data sharing during the pandemic. This work follows a commitment made during the UK’S G7 Presidency, as published in the G7 Research Compact, and its findings are closely aligned to those outlined in the World Health Organization’s recently published guiding principles for pathogen genome data sharing.

Our talk draws on evidence base of 295 sources, the views of 24 interviewees, and insights from 18 international peer reviewers to present five key lessons that can be learnt to enable preparedness for future pandemics.

How Data Papers Present a Unique Contribution To Open Research In The Humanities And Social Sciences

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

The open research movement and initiatives like the FAIR principles have been critical in establishing the importance of data in research, particularly within the sciences. Alongside the sciences, attention to openly available data in Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) research has gradually grown. This growth is largely attributed to the increased availability of digital collections, the development of new data-intensive methods, an increasingly solid infrastructure, increased pressure from funders, the requirement of data management plans for preservation purposes, and the involvement of research libraries in data curation. In this context, attention to how data is produced, how it is openly and transparently shared, and how it can be reused has generated great interest, accompanied by an inevitable need for reputable data sharing outlets. One such outlet is the data paper – a peer-reviewed publication that focuses on describing a curated dataset. Data papers can be shared in traditional research journals as one subtype of article publication, or, more recently, in data journals which are dedicated to the publication of data papers. This presentation focuses on the work done by the open access Journal of Open Humanities (JOHD) in promoting the practice of publishing data papers with their accompanying open access datasets. JOHD was established with Ubiquity Press in 2015 to promote awareness, use, and reuse of humanities data. JOHD data papers promote the comprehensive description of how a dataset was assembled, where it may be accessed, and any crucial context including the research questions that framed the data gathering, including limitations to the original methods or scope of sources included. JOHD data papers suggest potential future reuses of data, which recent analytics seem to suggest has helped increase the visibility of datasets, and therefore their research impact (Marongiu et al., forthcoming; McGillivray et al., 2022). In addition, an overview of the three key elements (the “golden triangle”) that assess the impact of open research efforts as represented by different research outputs (datasets, data papers and research papers) will be presented, along with proposed initiatives for linking these. In doing so, we aim to (a) find a programmatic way to identify these links by extracting information from available metadata of datasets and verifying their accuracy, and (b) create a “ground truth” in a manual and/or machine-assisted way which would enable the training of more sophisticated NLP-based methods as a next step. We hope to illustrate the importance of including data papers into the research conversation given that they present a unique contribution to addressing global challenges within the open research arena.

Rights Retention in Action

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Join Theo Andrew as he gives an update on the impact of the University of Edinburgh's "Right Retention Policy" after 12 months. You can find out more about the University's Rights Retention Policy here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/about/policies-and-regulations/research-publications

Making Research FAIR With a PID-centric Workflow

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are unique, machine-readable codes assigned to research entities that allow them to be easily discoverable. PIDs, along with their accompanying metadata, are crucial enablers of the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). PIDs ensure that digital objects can be located, accessed, and reused by humans and machines alike, while metadata provides essential information about research objects, including their origin, content, and format.

In the research ecosystem, each stakeholder has a role to play in integrating PIDs into their workflows. Publishers, for example, can assign DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to articles, books, and other publications, making them easily findable and citable. Repositories can assign PIDs to datasets, making them discoverable and accessible. Researchers can use PIDs to link their data to their publications, ensuring that their data is discoverable and can be reused in future research.

Despite the importance of PIDs and metadata, it's not always clear to researchers how to take advantage of the existing infrastructure and make their outputs FAIR. Being aware of the available PIDs, such as DOIs, ORCIDs, and RORs, and how they can be used to identify, connect, and cite various types of outputs and resources can help researchers plan and execute sensible data management, sharing, and publishing decisions that are efficient and beneficial in the long term.

In the Implementing FAIR Workflows Project, DataCite works with a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics to follow along a neuroscience PhD project from the beginning, to design and plan for a series of workflows that put the FAIR principles into practice, so that they become an inherent part of the research process, instead of an afterthought. The FAIR workflows researcher is undertaking in the project include data management planning, experiment preregistration, domain-specific metadata capturing and archiving, data and code sharing, preprinting, and open access publishing. We have also been tracking the time spent on various types of FAIR and Open activities, hoping to shed a light on the actual time commitment expected for a FAIRly conducted research project.

We share our experience so far implementing these workflows with the Edinburgh Open Science community - the approach we used, the steps we’ve taken, and the outcomes and challenges that surfaced during the process. We are also preparing a guide for researchers to take on FAIR research workflows in their day-to-day work based on the lessons learned in the project, we look forward to taking the opportunity to hear from the community whether it resonates, and how can we format it in a way that’s most useful.

Open Science Hardware for Realising Globally Equitable Knowledge Production

2023-07-04T14:28:42+01:00

Physical hardware underpins research in many disciplines. From computing devices, scientific instrumentation, and biological reagents, to remote sensing satellites, researchers rely on hardware to explore and understand the world. However, research equipment is typically based on closed source (i.e. proprietary) hardware, whose designs are legally restricted, preventing others from studying, building, or modifying them. These restrictions cause several problems such as: lack of reproducibility; duplication of effort; forced obsolescence; and higher costs.

Crucially, the inefficiencies of closed source hardware reinforce global inequities. This is because the design and manufacturing of research equipment is often monopolised by producers in the Global North. Restricted access to hardware designs mean that only authorised dealers and technicians are allowed to sell or maintain equipment. These services are often unavailable to, or prohibitively expensive for, researchers belonging to historically marginalised communities outside of the Global North.

Building on the success of open source software, open source hardware is defined as any physical artefact whose “design is made publicly available with explicit, legally binding freedoms for anyone to study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design”. Open science hardware is an emerging field of practice which studies and applies the principles of open source hardware to research contexts. In 2021, it was formally recognised as a key component in the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. Open science hardware provides many benefits compared to its proprietary counterparts. This can include cost savings of up to 87% (Pearce, 2020) and proportional to how often it is replicated; quicker iteration of designs; and adaptation to local needs in underserved communities.

Since the 2010s, open science hardware has been developed and used in diverse domains from environmental monitoring, and lab automation, to microscopy. In addition to academics, open science hardware is commonly built by citizen science communities and adapted for different purposes. Other practitioners of open science hardware include educators, social innovators, or artists.

In this talk, we provide an overview of open science hardware and the problems it solves. We also provide successful examples of open science hardware projects that serve to not only do good science, but also address global inequities. The talk also presents the Gathering for Open Science Hardware, an international network working towards the adoption of open source hardware across research lifecycle.

Teaching the Best Research Data Management Practices to PhD Students

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Good Research Data Management (RDM) practices make it easier for researchers to conduct their research and ensure their data is preserved and stored securely for the long-term. Archiving is one of the last stages of Research Data Lifecycle and deals with depositing and preserving datasets at the end of a project in a suitable storage location (repositories, local server, or hard drive).

Students may not find data management topic as interesting as their core course topics. This can result in lack of students’ knowledge of the importance and benefits of good data management practices for their studies. At Warwick, I design and deliver Research Data Management & Planning (RDM&P) case study sessions to PhD students. Students learn different elements of RDM and importance of RDM for long-term preservation. Students work in groups to develop and present Data Management Plan (DMP) and put RDM&P learning into practice.

In this presentation, I briefly introduce the above case study, feedbacks received from students across different disciplines and further steps.

Data Dashboards

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

DecodeME is a research project that aims to find the genetic causes of why people become ill with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Participants are able to take part from the comfort of their home without having to first visit a clinic. Registration opened in September 2022. Since then, we have had over 25,000 people register to take part in this research, with over 6000 registering on the first day alone. Data workflows and automation are critical when operating at such scale. Decision making and progress are best underpinned by data driven insights from the live source data.

The talk discusses and demonstrates how we achieved this within our project.

https://www.decodeme.org.uk/

OLS: Capacity Building in Open Science with a Peer-Led, Global, and Diverse Community

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Join Sam Haynes as he introduces us to Open Life Science; a community-oriented non-profit organisation that promotes open, inclusive and equitable research. Sam discusses what capacity building in open science looks like by presenting OLS's 16-week mentoring and training program, shares the current practices OLS developed to address inequities and increase sustainability, and shares a call for more people to join the OLS community.

Combining Open and Financial Data for Targeted Policy Solutions

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Join Mike Spencer from Smart Data Foundry as he introduces a case study of open data in action.

Crafting Open Research Advocacy Messages Using Diffusion of Innovation Theory

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Drawing parallels between the Open Research (OR) movement and traditional for-profit business strategies provides useful insight to those who are championing OR practices. Adopters of OR practices are akin to a customer base, and the common focus is to expand.

Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation curve provides a market segmentation according to the number of consumers/adopters. Rogers provides descriptors of these ideal types (2003, 282-285). Cross-tabulating the ideal types with the initial constructs in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh, et al. 2023), provides inspiration to craft targeted messages for different types of adopters, which will hopefully lead to behavioural intention and ultimately undertaking an OR practice. These initial constructs are performance expectancy (what kind of expectation the adopter will have of the practice), effort expectancy (how much effort the adopter is willing to put into making a new practice work for them) and social influence (how they are likely to be influenced by others).

Creating a University Wide Resource for Study Design Open Science and Data Analysis

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Join Crispin Jordan for his lightning talk, where he presents the new (and exciting) proposal for a broad scope, University wide centralised resource for training and best practice in study design, analysis and Open Science for disciplines across the University of Edinburgh.

Data 4 Climate Action Edinburgh

2023-07-04T09:41:22+01:00

Data 4 Climate Action Edinburgh is a group of volunteers, donating our time and skills with data to support climate action and biodiversity in and around Edinburgh.

The formation of the group was the idea of Pauline Ward, inspired on hearing discussions about the how climate action groups could be supported, and how they could help each other, through regional networks. Discussions with the Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council and the Scottish Secretariat for Climate Action Networks identified a role for D4CAE as part of such a network in Edinburgh. The Scottish Government has been working on a programme of support for such regional networks, the first being North East Scotland Climate Action Network. Specifically, there appeared to be great potential in facilitating the making of connections between local climate groups and prospective volunteers from among the staff and students of the University of Edinburgh.

With practical support and dialogue with the University of Edinburgh Sustainability team and Community Engagement team, D4CAE carried out a survey of members of the public at the Edinburgh Climate Festival 2022. Underneath the University gazebo, individuals volunteered to help and talked with us about what areas of work would be most worthwhile in their view. The participants indicated their choices by placing chips into paper cups labelled with the options ‘mapping’, ‘sharing’ etc. The top result was ‘storytelling with data’. Volunteers asked us to create a mailing list so they could keep in touch and help. Climate activists told us they wanted help with presenting data about their activities for inclusion in funding bids, and mapping.

We now have a facebook page, website and a github repository. We use free tools from Google for email and file sharing (Drive, Sheets, Docs). We hold a monthly online drop-in on Zoom. We’re working on building links into the university, and working with data.

Biggest challenges – Many of our contacts who want to help are doing so in a professional capacity, and therefore mostly available during office hours, while the volunteer effort happens outside of working hours. Meanwhile, making the local groups aware of our offer is an area we need to work on, in partnership with the climate action network which is evolving and taking shape.

Looking ahead – hoping to organise a datathon event near or at the university in the near future.

Delivering skills – we’re in the business of sharing skills, and building our own skills with data along the way. We have fielded requests for help with non-climate data, both from professional life science researchers looking for help with data visualisation, and others through the community engagement network. The experience suggests there may be potential for a platform and other work to build more links for voluntary organisations to find help with specialised skills among the staff and students of the university.