JISC is live streaming its research integrity conference today, 13 September, looking specifically at the importance of good research data management.
The aim is to bring together the current thinking on effective practice and give senior staff and researchers an opportunity to debate the thornier issues, like whose responsibility this is and how to manage freedom of information requests.
You are welcome to participate by submitting questions via twitter by using #jiscres11 or emailing jiscevents@gmail.com and your questions will be put to our panel.
There’s no need to register – simply join us online today from 09.45.
View resources and information about how JISC is supporting research excellence
Magnificent autumn day here in central Europe. I wonder where fellow students in year's #mscidel course based in Edinburgh are all from.
A_L_T: Cochrane and Narayan's "DeFrosting professional development" wins the #altc2011 Best Proceedings Paper Award - http://t.co/ElgRAK3
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A_L_T: ALT 2011 Learning Technologist of the Year - Winners' details http://ow.ly/6pxrC; Media release: http://ow.ly/6pxrD #altc2011
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A_L_T: RT @mattlingard: Another esteemed #altc2011 delegate @francesbell added to @A_L_T feed of feeds http://t.co/igYaxN4
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A_L_T: ALT 2011 Learning Technologist of the Year - Winners' details http://ow.ly/6pxr8; Media release: http://ow.ly/6pxr9 #altc2011
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A_L_T: FE Week has some quite thorough coverage of Day 1 of #altc2011 http://ow.ly/6pz7c
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A_L_T: ALT 2011 Learning Technologist of the Year - Winners' details http://ow.ly/6pxmC; Media release: http://ow.ly/6pxmc #altc2011
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A_L_T: Blog #15 added to #altc2011 feed of blog feeds http://t.co/igYaxN4 latest addition is @sarahhorrigan
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A_L_T: Read about #altc2011 as told by delegates: Feed of #altc2011 blog posts http://t.co/YZC61k9
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A_L_T: Live in 10-mins: #altc2011 @jjn1 John Naughton keynote The elusive technological future 11:40 (UK) http://t.co/yYQOQBG
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A_L_T: Watch John Naughton @jjn1 #altc2011 keynote live: The elusive technological future at 11:40 (UK) http://t.co/yYQOQBG
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A_L_T: Live in 10-mins: #altc2011 invited speakers: Dónal Fitzpatrick & @gillysalmon 10:30 (UK) http://t.co/QrJQxga
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A_L_T: Watch #altc2011 invited speakers: Dónal Fitzpatrick & @gillysalmon live at 10:30 (UK) http://t.co/QrJQxga
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A_L_T: ALT and UCISA comments In the Times Higher on JANET in http://ow.ly/6osal #altc2011
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A_L_T: #altc2011 @jamesclay it would be good to interview Sonam Penjor from Bhutan for ALT Live. He is finishing in A1 at say 0945.
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A_L_T: Live in 10-mins: #altc2011 invited speaker Sonam Penjor: 'Remembering Robin Mason' http://t.co/dBBzWvs
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A_L_T: Live 'Backstage' video from #altc2011 ALT Live Beta: interviews, chat, commentary, guests, discussion & more http://t.co/m7NahRv
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A_L_T: Watch #altc2011 invited speaker Sonam Penjor: 'Remembering Robin Mason' 09:00 (UK) http://t.co/dBBzWvs
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A_L_T: Feeds of feeds: delegates #altc2011 blog posts in one handy feed http://t.co/YZC61k9
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A_L_T: @jobadge yes but not sure how these will be acted on
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A_L_T: RT @A_L_T: Vote onilne for the best ePoster at #altc2011 Voting closes in 1-hour Browse the ePosters on Flickr & vote: http://t.co/Ahu0Nwc
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Ahead of JISC’s conference on ‘Research Integrity: the importance of good data management’ next week, a new study by JISC and the Research Information Network has found that data centres have been instrumental in developing a culture of data sharing among researchers.
‘Data Centres: their use, value and impact’: conclusions and implications
1. Data centres are a success story for their users, and funders and policy-makers should continue to support and promote existing national data centres.
2. Data centres are important both for reference purposes, and for novel research. Both these uses should be maintained and encouraged.
3. Data centre staff manipulate, interpret and support use of data sets, and this is highly valued by researchers. The role of data centre staff should be supported, and perhaps investigated further to support advocacy for data centre services.
4. Data centres should continue to collect information about users and usage for planning and advocacy purposes.
5. Although deposit levels are promising, researchers need more encouragement to deposit data. National and international initiatives in this area should be monitored and factored into any consideration of how to improve deposit rates.
6. If data centres are to support the grand challenges of modern research, they need to do more to facilitate interdisciplinary working. Improving facilities for data discovery across data centres may help.
7. The national data centres are just one part of a broader landscape for data curation and storage. Further work needs to be done to investigate how they can work most effectively with local, national and international services.
As part of a wider body of work, this evidence will help to build a case for improving data sharing practice in the UK. Although deposit levels are promising, the study concluded that researchers need more encouragement and support to deposit data in these centres.
Making data available for reuse helps maximize the value of publicly funded research in the UK by providing researchers with essential references, avoiding duplication, and allowing repurposing of information for new enquiries.
The report concludes that research data centres perform an important role by making high quality and reliable research results available in a way which makes it quick, easy and cheap for researchers to access.
Simon Hodson, programme manager at JISC, said: "This is a significant report which underlines the important role that data centres play in support of modern research. The study demonstrates that data centres offer many benefits to researchers and their work, and provides some evidence of benefits to wider society and the economy. It is clear also that researchers believe that many of the benefits of research data centres emerge because they are large, centralised and offer a range of services beyond simply providing access to data. The conclusion is that funders and policy-makers should continue to support and promote existing national data centres as a necessary part of the 21st century research infrastructure."
The study found that usage of data centres is high: most support thousands of researchers and millions of downloads each year. Data from every centre supports a variety of research activities, ranging from original research analysis, through combination and integration with other data, to reference purposes.
Simon Hodson adds: "Research data centres provide an essential service and perform valuable outreach and training, which researchers appreciate. The JISC Managing Research Data Programme – which involves partnerships with a number of national data centres – is helping develop capacity in terms both of skills and technical systems for improved data management in UK universities as part of a coherent national data infrastructure."
The study aimed to demonstrate the importance, relevance and benefits of effective sharing and curation of research data for the UK research community. It looked at the long-term usage and impact of data curated by a cross-disciplinary selection of established data centres. These included the Archaeology Data Service, the British Atmospheric Data Centre and the Economic and Social Data Service, which is part funded by JISC.
JISC’s ‘Research Integrity Conference’ on 13 September will explore the issues that universities and other organizations face when they are maintaining their research integrity - especially as it relates to the management and sharing of research data.
Watch the event onlineA new report ‘The value of reuse of open educational resources’ produced by the HEA and JISC, highlights the need to support learners and academic staff alike in the referencing and the reuse of online resources.
Open educational resources (OER) are materials which educators make the content available online to learners and also to other educators, to share, re-use and remix. The report claims, that their use in teaching offers new and better ways to engage with learning anytime anywhere and raising the richness the course.
Given the huge volume and diversity of content on the Internet, the report suggests that ‘students are often nervous about their ability to critically evaluate...becoming lost in the web and risk wasting significant amounts of time engaging with resources which prove later to be off topic or unreliable.’
David White, senior manager development technology-assisted lifelong learning at the University of Oxford author of the Value of Reuse report says, “The report advises staff to help develop students’ digital literacy skills especially in the area of critical analysis of resources – for example by making them aware of citation standards that exist for online videos and podcasts.
“There is a challenge for providers of open content because the resources are out there on the web and open to all, it can be difficult to know how they are actually being used. We’ve used the analogy of an iceberg to show the extent of hidden use. It emphasises how many openly licensed and non-licensed resources may actually be being re-used in the classroom but invisible to the original resource authors.”
Amber Thomas programme manager at JISC explains why these reports were commissioned, “OER has a range of benefits, and we wanted to better understand its benefits to users as well as releasers, so the study on ‘the Value of Reuse’ was designed to analyse the relationship between use and impact.
Sean Mackney, HEA senior deputy chief executive, said, “OER is a fantastic example of how technology can be used to share innovation and excellence in teaching practice, not just here in the UK but right across the world. This report gives those involved in higher education teaching, particularly those who may not have considered the potential value of OER before, ideas around how they can make the most of the opportunities OER can provide.”
JISC will be enhancing the knowledge of UK universities and colleges in how to approach open educational resources and technology-enhanced learning through its digital literacies programme and oer work.
View David White's video blog at: http://bit.ly/prKyD9
Listen to a podcast with David White, the author of the value of reuse report (Duration 11:15)
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