In 2004, Ministers of science and technology of the OECD countries adopted a Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding. In this declaration, they recognised the importance of access to research data and invited the OECD to develop a set of guidelines based on commonly agreed principles to facilitate optimal cost-effective access to digital research data from public funding. This request was taken up by OECD’s Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy, which launched a project by asking a group of experts to develop a set of principles and guidelines. Next, the developed principles and guidelines were submitted to an extensive consultation process, after which they were approved by the OECD’s Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy in October 2006, attached to an OECD Recommendation, and endorsed by the OECD Council in December 2006.
In 2006, the Ministry of Education in Finland allocated resources to the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) to chart national and international practices related to open access to research data. Consequently, the FSD carried out an online survey targeting professors of human sciences, social sciences and behavioural sciences in Finnish universities. Some respondents were senior staff at research institutes. The respondents were asked about the state and use of data collected in their department/institute. Almost half of the respondents considered the preservation and use of digital research data to be relevant to their department. The number of respondents (150) is large enough to warrant statistical analysis even though response rate was low at 28%....
6.4 Extensive cooperation needed to support the implementation of the OECD Recommendation
...The cooperation should involve publicly funded research organisations collecting data, key research funders, and scientific organisations from various disciplines. From the point of view of the Ministry of Education, the key actors include the Academy of Finland, Finnish universities, the Finnish Council of University Rectors, the National Advisory Board on Research Ethics, and the Committee for Public Information. Promoting open access to digital data can take the form of extensive discussion forum, for instance. The agenda of the forum could include at least the following issues:
1. National-level discussion and conceptualising of the general operational models of implementing the OECD Recommendation.
2. Developing research design and agreement practices that support the long life cycle of research data.
3. Clarifying the rights and responsibilities of actors connected to research data.
4. Improving data life cycle management through training and education.
5. Encouraging research funders and data collectors to create data policies.
6. Discussion and proposals for recommendations and research funder policies that would promote the reuse of data....
Some issues can be solved in a reasonably short time. The means for changing the prevailing operational and cultural practices are mostly in the hands of research funding bodies. The Academy of Finland has reacted to the prevailing problems by starting to require this autumn (2008) that a long-term data management plan must be submitted with funding applications, which should lead to better planned data collection, processing, and preservation measures....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/25/2008 01:47:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
