repository managers, researchers, librarians, research communities

Interdisciplinary collaborations: Networks, services, methods
Training and skills for open science

Repositories, training, skills, Open Science, librarians

The talk presents a concept of Open Science-related training developed with the aim of facilitating the adoption of institutional repositories in a specific local context (Serbia). This context is marked by a considerable delay in infrastructure development, the lack of institutionalized training on Open Science, a knowledge gap, and insufficient library staff. Although institutionalized training is indispensable in the long-term, this example shows that a combination of bottom-up approaches and highly customized and informal training can increase the Open Science capacity of researchers, librarians and even institutions, which is highly relevant in the context of building competence and capabilities for EOSC. In these terms, it may be instructive for other environments with poor formal training on Open Science.

The adoption of the Open Science Platform (the national OS policy) in 2018, spurred the development of institutional repositories in Serbia and the leading role in this process has been taken by the University of Belgrade Computer Centre (RCUB). Before the adoption of the OS Platform, training on OS was mainly provided through international projects. The official Library and Information Science curriculum, Librarian Licensure Examination programme, and professional development courses for librarians and training programmes offered by university libraries did not address OS-related skills, due to which there was a knowledge gap in the library and research communities, and this threatened the adoption of the developing infrastructure.

To overcome this, the University of Belgrade Computer Centre decided to include training (for repository managers and end users), along with software, hosting, and technical support, in the service package offered to institutions. A dedicated user support team responsible for designing and implementing training was established. The training programme covers a range of topics beyond repository features and workflows: Open Access policies, FAIR principles, metadata standards, copyright, self-archiving policies, altmetrics, dissemination through metadata harvesting, discovery platforms (OpenAIRE, BASE, CORE), using institutional repositories in the context of Research Data Management and cultural heritage. Training formats include predefined lectures and webinars, but also highly customized sessions and informal consultations.

As a result, dozens of repository managers (mainly librarians) and hundreds of end users (researchers) have been trained so far. A number of trained repository managers have already started organizing training on various OS topics at their institutions. Together with the user support team, they form a strong network enabling dynamic information exchange. At the same time, there is a growing interest among researchers for additional training on particular OS topics (RDM, copyright, integration of the repository in various institutional workflows). Also, continuous and flexible support encourages content diversity in repositories. The concept of training developed by the RCUB user support team has so far proven to be efficient in mitigating the lack of institutionalized training. However, in order to provide full support for all aspects of Open Science (esp. RDM and citizen science), it will be necessary to establish institutionalized training.

Research Infrastructures and research communities, repository managers, service providers and innovators, EOSC

Sustaining Open infrastructures, services and tools for research communities
European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and FAIR data

ROcrate, tooling, collaboration, storage

This talk discusses a democratised approach to FAIRness as being built for the CS3MESH4EOSC project.

The principles of FAIR have been widely embraced. Uptake of FAIRnes remains a challenge. We recognise two main obstacles:

1. FAIR-aware infrastructure needs to be available, and be so usable that it gets broad uptake
2. Research communities need to be motivated, trained and assisted to use this FAIR infrastructure. It needs to make their lives easier. Without relevant infrastructure in place, there is no point in mounting FAIRnes awareness campaigns.

The CS3MESH4EOSC approach to FAIR uptake is to start from the Science Mesh of datastores, already in widespread use by researchers. We add a FAIR Description Service to these stores, for any researcher to use (an instance of the "Describo" tool). Thus they can create FAIR Digital Object packages from their own data (using the RO-Crate standard); initially targeting the open access Zenodo repository service.

CS3mesh4EOSC meshes datastores that are already in widespread use by researchers. By adding metatada awareness and annotation capabilities to this already-patronised mesh, we end up with a democratised approach to FAIR. Allowing researchers to generate FAIR objects from their live data (no onerous upload / collections steps) will help create more FAIR data supply. We are glad to work with other EOSC entities, either offering this as a whitelabel to other service providers, or directly to end users.

Librarians, researchers, research data managers, data scientists

Interdisciplinary collaborations: Networks, services, methods
Sharing best practices and knowledge

DMP; researcher´s perception; data management plan; metadata

Considering that the elaboration of a DMP is not a trivial task for the researcher, who, for the most, do not use this praxis in their research routine, Icict/Fiocruz carried out a study about the perception of researchers regarding the elaboration of a DMP, supported by the FioPGD tool, developed by the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. We tried to identify doubts, facilities and difficulties related to the system interface (usability); the understanding of the content to be filled in each form section; the general perception of the tool; as well as the challenges founded during its filling. As a methodological procedure, a qualitative approach was used, adopting as a data collection instrument the observation of the user's interaction with the system. The result generated some necessary actions to optimize the system and highlighted the difficulty in understanding about metadata. It was concluded that metadata questions must have a better explanation with answers tips inside the DMP systems, to ensure its proper fill. Besides this, it is necessary to adopt an institutional ecosystem that ensures an articulation between information professionals and ethical and legal specialists, to support researchers, in their DMPs elaboration.

policy makers, researchers, repository managers, content providers, libraries

Interdisciplinary collaborations: Networks, services, methods
Sharing best practices and knowledge
Value added data products/services from open science
Research analytics and visualisations

open access, institutional repository, scholarly communication, bibliometrics

In 2015, Kyoto University, Japan, adopted the Kyoto University Open Access Policy, which mandates faculty members to make their scholarly articles public on the institutional repository, Kyoto University Research Information Repository (KURENAI). In 2020, five years after the implementation of the open access policy, we investigated the effects of the same. This paper presents a bibliometric analysis to reveal the effects of open access, comparing scholarly articles deposited to the KURENAI with their counterparts (i.e., scholarly articles not deposited to the KURENAI) to examine whether a citation advantage exists.

The analysis revealed that the KURENAI has contributed to increasing the number of citations of scholarly articles not co-authored with foreign researchers and scholarly articles in different fields. Thus, we argue that institutional repositories foster interdisciplinary research. We also observed that scholarly articles that are open access only on the KURENAI have been downloaded more frequently than those that are also open access on other platforms (e.g., open access journals and other repositories). Owing to a large number of submissions, it may take some time until a deposited article becomes available for access on the KURENAI. Accordingly, it would be helpful for researchers and libraries to introduce a system that, when processing deposited scholarly articles, prioritizes the publication of articles that are not openly accessible on other platforms.

Research data management; Data repository; EOSC readiness; Western Balkans; Serbia.

Interdisciplinary collaborations: Networks, services, methods
Training and skills for open science
European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and FAIR data

Research data management; Data repository; EOSC readiness; Western Balkans; Serbia

A delay in open and FAIR data policies and practices created a significant gap in the uptake of EOSC between the EU and non-EU Western Balkans countries (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia), which can be observed in the lack of infrastructure, policies, incentives, and professional data stewards or librarians with suitable competencies and skills. This lightning talk will present the results of a small team of professionals from the University of Belgrade (Serbia) on the co-creation activity funded by the EOSC Secretariat under the title “Boosting EOSC readiness: Creating a scalable model for capacity building in RDM”. The objective was to create a model for local capacity building in research data management adjusted to the needs of South-Slavic-speaking countries of non-EU Western Balkans countries. The model is applicable in any similar environment struggling with limited financial and human resources.

Activities included designing a web portal with guidelines and tutorials about research data management, setting up and localizing an interoperable and scalable Dataverse data repository, devising data management procedures, designing and testing trainings for local communities, and devising research data policy recommendations at various levels.

The main results of this Co-creation activity are the web portal with guidelines and training materials, a demo Dataverse data repository SERDAR (SErbian Research DAta Repository), localized (translated in Serbian) software application Argos for creating machine-actionable Data Management Plans, and a proposal for RDM-related amendments to existing national, institutional, and journal policies on Open Science, providing an input for the activities of the national Team for Open Science (established in 2020). Due to similarities between languages in the Western Balkans, all the results, which are freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution license, can be adapted to local needs and reused.

This activity contributed to the overall EOSC awareness and readiness in non-EU Western Balkans countries by founding a firm ground for cultural change related to the scientific practices in the research community. This approach can be of great value to the universities and research institutions in countries that do not have already established infrastructure and policies for research data management and sharing. In Serbia, the project will have both a formal and an informal follow-up. All team members are also members of the official national Team for Open Science and they will advocate for policy changes, infrastructure development and the introduction of formal training for data stewards along the lines defined in the project. On the other hand, the same team has recently established the Open Science Community Serbia, which will provide an informal framework for actions aimed at building an Open Science community and culture in Serbia

Policy makers and funders, researchers, research Infrastructures and research communities, repository managers, publishers and content providers, libraries, research administrators, service providers and innovators

Interdisciplinary collaborations: Networks, services, methods
Sustaining Open infrastructures, services and tools for research communities
Value added data products/services from open science
European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and FAIR data
Citizen science: barriers and opportunities for collaboration

Repositories, CRIS, Semantic Web, Data Mining

REDI+ is the Ecuadorian project of CEDIA for setting up and operate the national information of Science, Technology, and Innovation. It is an open standards-based platform, specifically as a central aggregator of open access repositories of Ecuador. The main goal of this project is to develop an open, interoperable and integrated national platform that provides information of publications, researchers, patents, events, services, and general results of science and technology, and innovation. Besides, the platform allows providing value-added services for access to enriched data and aggregated information to improve decisionmaking at different levels, local, institutional, and in the private sector. The vision is to have an information ecosystem of research, technology, and innovation in Ecuador to provide value, accessibility, and development for all people.

Libraries, research administrators, Open Science Infrastructure providers, funders

Innovations in publishing and research dissemination

Open access books, Open Licensing, Open Metadata, FAIR Metadata, Open Tools, Open Scholarly Communications

The COPIM project (Community-led Publication Infrastructure for Monographs) is building community-owned, open systems and infrastructures to enable open access book publishing to flourish. As part of this effort, COPIM is developing Thoth, a database currently in beta that assists open access book publishers in managing their metadata.

During this session, we will share more about Thoth’s journey so far, covering four initial use-cases that may be relevant for the Open Science community:

Publisher metadata management system – System to manage openly-licensed, standards-compliant bibliographic metadata for open access books.

Open Book Collective Platform (COPIM WP2) - Platform to support collective library funding for open access book publishers, infrastrucures and initiatives. Using Thoth to display information about the nature of publications across all participating publishers, infrastructures and initiatives - such as author institutions, subject areas.

Open Dissemination Service (COPIM WP5) - Dedicated Service supporting open access book publishers in the areas of dissemination and preservation. Using Thoth to disseminate metadata and files, in various formats (ONIX, CSV, MARC) to a large number of actors part of the open access book supply chain (see also the Thoth Wiki) - such as OAPEN, Project MUSE, JSTOR, Portico.

White label publisher website - Complete commercial website for use by scholarly publishers to display and retail their content. Developed and adopted by Open Book Publishers. Using Thoth by calling on its database to display rich book level metadata for a publishers’ content.

While the design of Thoth is focused on the immediate needs of publishers, the project is also keeping its eyes on the broader horizon of open & (FAIR) data. How might Thoth continue to serve stakeholders through the identified use-cases? And what other use-cases may be there?

Academics, policy-makers

Sharing best practices and knowledge

open science, Matthew effect, inequalities, academy, policy-makers

ON-MERRIT (Observing and Negating Matthew Effects in Responsible Research and Innovation Transition) is funded by the EC to investigate how and if open and responsible research practices could worsen existing inequalities. Open Science (OS) needs resources and traditionally, advantaged people usually have more of them. How can we avoid the dynamic of the Matthew effect in science?

ON-MERRIT aims at contributing to an equitable scientific system that rewards researchers based on merit. It investigates the impact of open science practices in academia, industry, and policy, focusing in particular on institutions and individuals working in the areas of agriculture, climate and health.

The lightning talk will present the results of two of the research strands the project worked on.

The first is the extent of barriers to accessing scientific literature, i.e. being located at an institution with limited access to non-OA literature and the consequent impact on the citation behaviour of scholars; the development of cross-institutional scientific collaborations; potential academic progression; if and how academic performance is associated with the application of RRI and OS principles; who benefits and to what extent from the application of RRI and OS principles along with criteria of geographical location, gender, institutional standing, and so on. 

The second relates to information-seeking behaviours amongst policy-makers. By using survey and interview instruments, ON-MERRIT engaged with information services of policy-makers across all EU Member States to ascertain the levels of access to (open and closed) scientific resources and information-seeking strategies of key actors. In-depth interviews of selected survey respondents followed to shed more light on the role of closed and open access scientific outputs as a knowledge basis of policymaking, as well as to understand the attitudes towards and experiences of policymaking via open science practices across political actors engaging the departments responsible for agriculture, climate, and health. 

Libraries, research administrators, Open Science Infrastructure providers, funders

Collaborative platforms for all research artifacts, FAIR data policy and practice: from theory to implementation, Research analytics and visualizations, Sustaining open science training: people, resources, governance

open data, energy data, FAIR data, energy transition, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy consumption, energy production, innovation, investments data, research data, socioeconomic data, calculation modules, data map

The management of the energy transition depends on the availability and the quality of a large range of data. Data is often difficult to find, mixed in different repositories, resulting in a lack of efficiency for research and energy management. EnerMaps aims to improve data management and accessibility in the field of energy. The purpose of the workshop is to introduce the technical concepts behind the EnerMaps Data Management Tool (EDMT), the Energy Community Gateway, and to demonstrate live its use through concrete examples.
The H2020 project EnerMaps has been working to coordinate and enrich existing energy databases to share and reuse energy data more FAIR’ly and as such more efficiently. For researchers, EnerMaps will provide tools to communicate and disseminate data efficiently, based on existing large scientific repositories.
For the renewable technology industry, energy planners, energy utilities, energy managers, energy consultants, and public administration officers specialised in the energy sector as well as social innovation experts and data providers, EnerMaps will act as a quality-checked database of crucial energy data and a possibility to access rapidly new innovative datasets as well as related insights to inform decision-makers.
We will present the main challenges of the energy sector that EnerMaps is trying to overcome, and the technical development of tools such as the data sources selection and the database structure. Both of the EnerMaps tools – the Energy Community Gateway and the visualisation tool with the calculation modules – will be presented through case studies to demonstrate the functionalities at the current development stage and their user-friendly navigation.