Author: ljw16d

2023 Research Data Access & Preservation (RDAP) Virtual Summit Reflections

The Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) Summit is an annual conference focusing on management, access, and preservation of research data that brings together professionals and students from various fields such as library science, data management, and research data specialists.  As a graduate assistant, I was lucky enough to have FSU Libraries sponsor my registration for the virtual conference, allowing me to attend the RDAP Summit for the first time in my professional career. The 2023 summit offered attendees a wide range of sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities.

As a virtual conference the RDAP 2023 summit was hosted on the comprehensive and digital platform, Whova,  which enabled attendees to network, access conference materials, and attend presentations seamlessly. The platform was used to provide attendees with the most updated information about the conference, including schedules, speakers’ profiles, and session descriptions.

One of the features that really stood out to me and which made networking seamless was the Whova community board. The community board allowed attendees to connect with other professionals and students in their field based on demographic information provided by LinkedIn, which harmoniously connected to the Whova platform. Attendees could post questions, comments, and ideas, as well as view and respond to others’ posts under discussion threads with specific topics ranging from personal to professional. The community board was a great way for attendees to exchange ideas, establish new professional relationships, and keep up-to-date on the latest developments in the research data field.This also included a thread with several listings for employment opportunities as an information professional. This thread was perhaps the busiest as countless positions were listed by other attendees at the conference that you could interact and engage with on a more personal level than would typically be possible in normal circumstances. Whova’s platform also provided attendees with the ability to create their own virtual business card, making it easy to exchange contact information with other attendees. Attendees could easily share their business card with other attendees, and they could save other attendees’ information to their contacts list.

One other feature that made attending the conference presentations seamless was the ability to create a personalized schedule. I was able to select the sessions and workshops I wanted to attend before the conference even began to ensure that I did not miss any important sessions. Since all of  the presentations were all hosted on Whova, rather than an external service such as Zoom, the schedule provided an immediate access point to presentations. Because of the direct interconnectedness of the platform to the conference panels, access to conference materials such as presentations, posters, and other materials were readily available and easy to locate. 

The aspects of community building were made abundantly clear by the different opportunities to network or even share your own scholarly work. This also included the conference presentations, which highlighted the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in research data access and preservation. The continuing need for open communication and collaboration between academic libraries nationwide through similar values that shape the world of open science and data today was abundantly evident.

One presentation that demonstrated these collectivized efforts was the first session that I attended, which focused on teaching and outreach. Ruby MacDougall, who serves as an analyst for Ithaka S+R, discussed how the infrastructure to support digital research is unevenly distributed, as the connecting links between steps in the research workflow are often weak or missing. Ruby described how data librarians from a range of institutions are working to create stronger ties to humanities researchers and identify strategies for helping humanists navigate the digital infrastructure.

For some context, Ithaka S+R is a nonprofit research organization that helps academic institutions and cultural organizations sustainably navigate the digital age. They offer a wide range of research, advisory, and consulting services to help institutions make informed decisions that enhance their missions, workflows, and user experiences. The organization conducts research on key issues facing universities and colleges, such as the impact of technology on teaching and learning, student success, and faculty development. They also work with institutions to develop strategic plans and make data-informed decisions that align with their goals and values.

This presentation was also significant and meaningful because Nicholas Ruhs, the Research Data Management Librarian for FSU Libraries (who also serves as my supervisor), is currently participating and representing Florida State University amongst the other academic institutions active in the study. At this juncture, the study is in the preliminary phases of creating an inventory of university data services by reviewing web content of various departments and offices across campus to see what services exist and where in order to create a map of all of the data services on campus. On the surface, it may appear that all of the necessary mechanisms for supporting digital research with proper data management at a university level are in place, but the connecting links between steps in the research workflow are often weak or missing. Mapping out these services will allow FSU Libraries and libraries at other institutions to better coordinate their efforts at addressing the research and scholarly needs of their students and faculty. 

Speaking of accessibility, RDAP made  a significant effort to diversify their presentations, but also keep them organized and efficient. The posters portion of the RDAP Summit was an opportunity for researchers and practitioners in the research data field to showcase their work in a static and asynchronous  format. The poster format gave presenters an effective method to communicate complex ideas and research findings in a clear and concise way, and they offered a chance for attendees to engage with presenters and ask questions about their work, or to view the posters at their own availability and discretion. Because the poster presentations had their own section, conference attendees could visit them at any time and even start a conversation or ask questions to the presenters. Even now after the conference has ended, I can still access these posters as they exist in a digital collection. 

One of my biggest takeaways from the poster presentations was again the emphasis on collaboration and community-building in the research data field. Many posters showcased partnerships between academic institutions, libraries, and other organizations to develop and implement data management plans and policies. Others highlighted the importance of building networks and communities of practice to support data sharing and reuse. The diversity of research and practice in the field of research data was also on display with the posters covering a wide range of topics, from data management and preservation to data sharing and reuse, as well as the ethical and social implications of research data. For example, one poster presented a framework for ethical data sharing in the social sciences, while another addressed the challenges of incorporating Indigenous perspectives and knowledge into data management and preservation practices.

Furthermore, one of the most discussed topics at the conference was the new NIH and OSTP guidelines on data management and sharing. The guidelines  present both opportunities and challenges for researchers, institutions, and stakeholders in the research community. The policy changes aim to improve the transparency, reproducibility, and efficiency of research by requiring grant applicants to include data-management plans and make their research data publicly available. One of the main challenges of compliance is the need for researchers to have the necessary skills and resources to manage and share their research data effectively. This can involve issues such as data formatting, storage, documentation, and curation, as well as ethical and legal considerations related to data sharing and privacy. To address these ongoing obstacles, universities and other research institutions are responding by developing Research Data Management support services and infrastructure to help researchers manage their data throughout the research lifecycle. These can include data-management planning tools, data repositories, data curation services, and training and support for researchers on data management and sharing best practices. Researchers must ensure that data sharing is done in a way that protects the privacy and confidentiality of research participants and respects intellectual property rights. 

While NIH and OSTP have issued guidelines and policies to address these issues, not everything has been made clear as the policies are still quite recent or new. NIH and OSTP are responding to inquiries and questions arising from these policy changes and expectations by providing guidance and support to researchers and institutions. NIH has launched a website on data management and sharing, which provides resources and guidance on data management planning, data repositories, and data sharing policies. OSTP has also issued a public access policy memo that outlines the key principles and expectations for data management and sharing across federal agencies. However, as one of the presenters pointed out, specific questions arise and exceptions that are listed in the new policy mandates may not always be clear, or even come into direct conflict with other policies already implemented. Additionally, not all of the information put forth is available within the policy itself. Abigail Goben, associate professor and data management librarian for the University of Illinois Chicago, discussed the rabbit hole she went down searching for the information her researchers needed relating to patent protection and open data sharing. She ultimately utilized guidance issued from the prepared remarks of Director Taunton Paine in September 2022 over a NIH Training Webinar and followed up with an email directly to the Sharing Policies & Data Management and Sharing Policy Implementation Team in order to get the proper information. However their response provided potentially conflicting guidance as well as information not listed or available on the sharing.nih.gov website.

Overall, conferences such as these open the door to connect and hear about the experiences of others in the profession. In so doing we continue the spread of information and ideas, some of which are not always readily or easily accessible to those who need it. Attending the Research Data Access and Preservation (RDAP) Summit 2023 was an amazing opportunity for professionals and students interested in the management, access, and preservation of research data. Discussions that address the research and scholarly needs of students and faculty highlighted the need for open communication and collaboration between academic libraries nationwide. The presentations were diverse, efficient, and organized, and the posters provided an opportunity for attendees to engage with presenters and ask questions about their work. The RDAP Summit 2023 was a great success, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in research data management in the coming years.

My Experience Attending the Midwest Data Librarian Symposium

The Midwest Data Librarian Symposium (MDLS) is an annual conference aimed at providing Midwestern librarians, as well as others across the United States, the chance to network and discuss several industry issues and topics related to research data management. This year the event was co-hosted by the University of Cincinnati, The Ohio State University, and Miami University, as well as virtually through online Zoom conference calls and presentations. With free registration to all participants, MDLS focuses on the goal of providing low-cost networking and educational opportunities for established professionals and developing librarians of the future. Relatively new to the environment of Research Data Management, I was eager to represent FSU and the entire state of Florida at the Symposium, being the only participant in attendance at the conference from the state. While I could not travel to participate in the in-person programming, the free registration allowed me to actively engage with the virtual conference presentations and events, like many others over zoom meetings. 

Whether it was a zoom scavenger hunt or a presentation surrounding a less talked about subject, like “Making Infographics More Accessible”, I found that with each opportunity to engage I was able to learn something new and many things that I could bring back and put into practice in my own work. The presentations also left me with a lot to contemplate and consider, opening my eyes to information and concepts I had yet to broach or discover through my own work, like Digital Curation and Data Management for filmmakers and documentaries. For example, in the growing industry of filmmaking there are many times limited resources, especially for independent filmmakers, to effectively meet the costs to preserve their data. With barriers, like high memory file capacities, time constraints, and the threat of file corruption or loss of data, documentaries have a much more indirect path to successfully serve as critical sources of historical and cultural documentation. 

The vulnerability of data collected in documentaries further illustrates the broader importance to take serious measures to securely store raw data, especially with its potential relevance to guide other research. Additionally, metadata’s pertinence in other research frameworks encapsulates the expansive benefits of open science and universal accessibility. Pressures of academic viability, publishing, and performance can direct researchers’ hesitancy to relinquish ownership and control of data. This exemplifies the utility and demand to create stronger avenues to motivate the open sharing of data even when it is imperfect or incomplete. Procedurally, sharing upon request protocols have been imperfect, to say the least, as the decision to distribute that data is left at the mercy of the Primary Investigator of the original research that was conducted, who may have internal or external factors that motivate, dissuade, or even obstruct their ability to share the data in a timely or consistent manner.

While there were a variety of different topics covered during the conference, several presentations were based around the new National Institutes of Health (NIH) Data Management and Sharing (DMS) policy that will come into effect at the beginning of 2023. More specifically, there were discussions about the effects of this new policy on data management and sharing, as well as how to prepare and instruct those in need of support to navigate through these changes at a university level. For one of the main presentations on this topic the authors conducted semi-structured interviews at their university to survey the research data service needs of their constituents, as well as to gauge and collect their perspectives in relational proximity to the new governmental regulations being put into place. These interviews produced a myriad of noteworthy and interesting observations to take away. Perhaps the most surprising theme to emerge was that many of the researchers and professors were unaware of or unworried about the policy changes, believing that they’d be able to adapt their research practices and proposals when the new year began. Others wondered about how strictly the new policies would be enforced, especially with loose criteria for what might qualify submissions as exceptions and with aspects of proposals not tied to scoring to motivate researchers to put more effort into adopting practices that promote open science. Additional implications of being able to recognize and remove protected health information further supports the importance of collaboration when it comes to properly following research assurance, protocols, and proper maintenance as well as storage of data. 

These interviews revealed that many students and faculty across the country were uninformed and/or ill equipped to seamlessly handle this transitional phase that will take place in the coming months to comply with the new NIH DMS policy. Perhaps an even larger overarching takeaway that can be applied is that the general level of informational literacy is relatively low in association to student needs and the expectations that they must meet in order to perform adequately in their field. Adjustments are necessary to overcome the deficiencies in standard coursework that often operates on a foundational assumption that students will come into their academic institutions already having research skills and a working knowledge of information systems, catalogs, and databases. In most cases an established base of informational literacy is required to locate or know that library resources for these causes even exist. Libraries as well as universities more broadly must make an effort to publicly promote their services and resources more widely, while also making them more accessible to effectively address this dilemma. Without additional infrastructure to develop these skills, students have a much larger barrier to overcome the limitations embedded in the university academic framework. Taking levels of privilege into account with access to both technology and experience must also play a part in the organization of their practicum. 

As always each institution has its own individual needs as well as priorities and is equipped with different resources to be able to develop the necessary systems and resources to provide its student body with enough support to navigate through all academic challenges. Conferences typically follow a shared academic code of free exchange that open science bases itself on principle. Just look at the public accessibility of most universities’ research guides that they produce and publish and one can truly get a sense of the collaborative instruction that academic libraries strive to achieve. The symposium offers an opportunity that amplifies this ideal, allowing different institutions to come together to cooperate and exchange different ideas through dialogue with similar like-minded individuals trying to reach mutual goals. 

Preparing for the Midwest Data Librarian Symposium, my impression was that I’d simply be attending lectures where I’d experience most of the learning. However, in addition to some of the networking events and opportunities, the interconnectedness and interactive components of the entire conference made attending the symposium a much more well-balanced exchange of ideas and information. Moreover, MDLS hosted a slack channel to further promote ongoing discussions and networking, as well as archiving notes that all participants were given access to and permission to contribute as well for each presentation and event. In addition, many of the presentations that were longer than the five-minute rapid-fire “Lightning Talk” featured aspects of involvement from the audience, whether it was through discussion questions, breakout room consultations, or jam board collaborations to exchange ideas on different subjects. The integration of technology was applied seamlessly and improved the overall quality of engagement within the presentations and symposium as a whole. Attending this symposium gave me the chance to consider and discuss countless ideas to bring into practice with my own work. I am grateful for opportunities like these and experiences that enrich professionals at all stages in their careers with an academic environment of common interests and goals. 

Author Bio: Liam Wirsansky is a second-year MSI student at Florida State University and the STEM Libraries Graduate Assistant at FSU’s Dirac Library. He currently serves as the President and Artistic Director of White Mouse Theatre Productions at FSU and acts as the Director of Research and Development for the Rosenstrasse Foundation. Liam loves the academic outlet that research has provided him as well as the opportunity to educate and assist students in the development of their information literacy skills.

If you have any questions regarding the Midwest Data Librarian Symposium (MDLS), please contact the organizers at mwdatalibsym@gmail.com.

Some Helpful Resources That Were Shared at the Symposium:

Who Has Access? The New OSTP Memo’s Rippling Effects on Publicly Funded Research

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) made groundbreaking progress at the end of August when they released a memorandum that updated their policy guidance to specify that data and results coming from taxpayer-supported research must be made immediately available and accessible to the public at no cost. OSTP also issued directions for agencies to update their public access policies and data sharing plans as soon as possible to make publications and the research they host publicly accessible, without an embargo or cost and in machine-readable formats to enable their full use and reuse.  

So what does this truly mean for students and researchers?

For many students, OSTP and any of the memorandums that have been released prior to the latest one (which many are calling the Nelson Memo as it was issued by Dr. Alondra Nelson, currently the acting director of the OSTP,) is mostly a foreign subject. What is OSTP and why does it matter? As a Graduate Student myself, I was surprised to learn about the strides taken by the government agency leading up to the release of this memorandum, and the historical struggle to achieve an open science framework that works for the masses and which aims to combat discrimination and structural inequalities inherent in the funding and publishing disadvantages experienced by underserved backgrounds and minorities, as well as  early-career researchers. 

Like many students at universities, it is easy to take the access we have to library resources, journals, and repositories for granted, especially when they meet our immediate needs. But looking at the world around us and the integration of advancing technology into everyday life and society, it is clear we live in a data driven world, making the availability and access of information a premium. Metadata, or data that describes other data, has become one of the most important concepts in the field of information, as it allows researchers to organize the data from their research or from other projects in a way that is meaningful and often cross-disciplinary in its application. This means that data can have unintended benefits and relevance to other researchers to inform their own work, assuming that they are able to access that data. With the Nelson Memo, access to publicly funded research has been defined and recognized as a right to the public. 

Until now there have been clear barriers set in place to promote the interests of academic journals and publishing, and while some of these will still exist even after all of the federal grant-making agencies release their plans for new policy implementation, this advancement toward open access establishes a clear standard moving forward. It sets the United States apart in this respect as global leaders of change in the field of open science. Prior to the Nelson memorandum’s release, Plan S, served as the global standard for open access policy guidance. It mandated that access to publications that have been produced through research grants must be immediately open and fully accessible without being monetized in any form, setting the stage for the standard that OSTP wanted to mirror and build upon.

“cOAlition S”, a consortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve European countries developed around the implementation of Plan S, has come out in support of the newest memorandum and OSTP. More broadly calling the guidance “fully aligned with the open access policies of many forward looking universities and research agencies who have implemented Plan S”, also acknowledging its correlation with the recent UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, which was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO at its 41st session last November. Plan S realizes that we have the necessary elements and collective ability to produce digital content as well as public goods that can be shared to help shape the vision of a large connected community that makes up one body, rather than smaller disjointed organs that mirror each other because they cannot see what the other does. All of that is to say, essentially these paywalls of entry to access research act as hurdles that deny the very nature of science as a tool to better understand and help humanity as a whole.

Globally, we saw the power of open science at work in combating the COVID-19 pandemic and bringing the scientific community together, as commercial journals and governments were forced to alter their typical subscription based structure in favor of providing temporary open access to COVID-19 and monkeypox related research data. This allowed for the development of a vaccine and ensured that the common masses had the most credible data driven information to inform their health-based choices and medical practice. Countries across the globe spend billions of dollars on research and experimental development. The United States is no different, with estimates conducted by National Science Foundation (NSF) totalling nearly $667 Billion dollars for the year 2019 alone, continuing to grow in size each of the following years. The expectation would be that the government funding the research would have ownership of the data collected and analyzed, however in the current copyright structure agreement, publicly funded research is often turned over to commercial journals. 

One of the largest concerns catalyzed by the newest memo is understanding how the policy changes will affect the viability of the current subscription model when considering the important role journals play in supporting research, such as peer reviews. Publishers were more circumspect about the changes, designating some amount of skepticism towards the question of how the shift to full open access would be funded. To alleviate this issue researchers can now use research grants and funds to support the publication components of the new policies put forth by OSTP. On the other side of the argument, students stand to benefit from open access journals in terms of the widened levels of exposure that their research will receive with entry points to view such articles increasing exponentially. In addition, libraries across the country suffer from the subscription based model with journals and are not in a position to subscribe to every single research journal that exists. FSU Libraries subscribes to several journals and databases to provide access for its students, but an increase in publicly funded and published research can only append the framework of available research, data, and information that student communities here and at other universities will have access to. Looking forward towards the future, this relationship with academic journals and publishing must continue to evolve and change.  

Ideally, community owned and managed public knowledge infrastructure seems to be the long term solution, but how do we get there? Creative Commons, a non-profit organization and international network devoted to open access and broadening the scope of educational as well as creative works to be made available for others to build upon and share with legal protections, believes we must work on the progression of “open licensing to ensure open re-use rights”. I believe that if we want to move beyond access and towards improved sharing of the information and data we collect, produce, and use, we must begin following these steps and supporting organizations, like Creative Commons or the ​Subcommittee on Open Science, as well as continue to expand who contributes to new knowledge. Most importantly we must stay informed with the latest policy updates and changes, guiding researchers to success from different backgrounds and at all levels of experience.

Committed to the development of open science, Florida State University Libraries is devoted to the free exchange and access of information on a global scale for the good of people everywhere. This change in policy not only reinforces our mission, but also prioritizes the need for comprehensive support and resources to support the students and research that our institution hosts. We are thrilled to continue to work alongside our researchers, offering a wide array of different services and workshops to navigate through these policy changes, as they openly share and provide increased access to their work. We will continue to develop upon this foundation and explore more ways we can champion open science at Florida State University and beyond. 

For more information about how the FSU Libraries supports open access, please visit our Research and Publishing web page here.

For more specific details or information on the Nelson Memo, please see the White House OSTP announcement, here.

Author Bio: Liam Wirsansky is a second-year MSI student at Florida State University and the STEM Libraries Graduate Assistant at FSU’s Dirac Library. He currently serves as the President and Artistic Director of White Mouse Theatre Productions at FSU and acts as the Director of Research and Development for the Rosenstrasse Foundation. Liam loves the academic outlet that research has provided him as well as the opportunity to educate and assist students in the development of their information literacy skills.

References

Ambrose, M. (2022, September 1). US moves to make federally funded research free upon publication. Physics Today. Retrieved from https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20220901a/full/

Anderson, R. (2022, August 28). A new OSTP memo: Some initial observations and questions. The Scholarly Kitchen. Retrieved from https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2022/08/29/a-new-ostp-memo-some-initial-observations-and-questions/

Elder, A., & O’Donnell, M. (2022, September 7). New White House OSTP memo requires federally funded research be immediately open. Iowa State University Libraries. Retrieved from https://www.lib.iastate.edu/news/new-white-house-ostp-memo-requires-federally-funded-research-be-immediately-open-%C2%A0

Green, C. (2022, August 30). A big win for Open access: United States mandates all publicly funded research be freely available with no embargo. Creative Commons. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/2022/08/26/a-big-win-for-open-access/

Plan S. (2022, August 26). cOAlition S welcomes the updated Open Access policy guidance from the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy. Retrieved from https://www.coalition-s.org/coalition-s-welcomes-the-updated-open-access-policy-guidance-from-the-white-house-office-of-science-technology-and-policy/

SPARC. (2022, August 25). Fact sheet: White House OSTP memo on ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research. Retrieved from https://sparcopen.org/our-work/2022-updated-ostp-policy-guidance/fact-sheet-white-house-ostp-memo-on-ensuring-free-immediate-and-equitable-access-to-federally-funded-research/

Stebbins, M. (2013, February 22). Expanding public access to the results of federally funded research. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-access-results-federally-funded-research

Thurston, A. (2022, September 7). Will new white house open access rules impact researchers? The Brink – Pioneering Research for Boston University. Retrieved from https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/impact-of-new-white-house-open-access-rules-on-researchers/UNESCO. (2021, November 24). UNESCO recommendation on Open science. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/science-sustainable-future/open-science/recommendation