[Open-access] HEFCE (UK) seeking advice on open access & open data research evaluation

[Daniel Mietchen]

I think a continued neglect of data sharing in the evaluation of
research outputs is to be avoided. it would certainly be good to get
the evaluators to agree on the idea of some sort of bonus points for
research shared in ways other than through formal papers.

While the scientific community at large is probably not ready for data
sharing mandates, there is nothing wrong in working out a prototype of
such mandates for certain kinds of data, or for an institution,
journal, funder or subdiscipline.

Daniel

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> In recent times in the UK we've had a House of Lords inquiry, and a
> Department for Business, Innovation & Skills inquiry to which the Open
> Knowledge Foundation and others have contributed evidence & advice to help
> guide policy.
>
> Well, there's now another consultation open. This time it's the Higher
> Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) who do the job evaluating &
> rating the quality of academic research output in England (the 'REF'
> process).
>
> Their call for advice on open access in the context of the REF is
> interesting and certainly worthy of contribution from our community (anyone
> can submit a relevant statement) - I should particularly draw your attention
> to the section on OPEN DATA:
>
> 24. As a principle, we support the sharing of research data as an important
> approach to further
> increasing the effectiveness of the research process. However, while we
> expect to see
> considerable progress in the provision of access to data which are pertinent
> to those publications
> submitted in a future REF, we do not consider it feasible at present to make
> this a formal
> requirement.
> 25. With the Research Councils and the Research Transparency Sector Board,
> we are giving
> consideration to the issues involved in increasing access to research data.
> We are committed to
> working in dialogue with the sector to develop fair and balanced mechanisms
> to achieve this aim.
>
> We invite comment on whether respondents feel this is the appropriate
> approach or
> whether they feel that sufficient progress has in fact been made to
> implement a
> requirement for open data as well. We will consider any representations that
> such a
> requirement may reasonably now be developed but would also need advice on
> how this
> might be achieved.
>
> [me:] Has sufficient progress been made in science so that Open Data
> research outputs must be made available for research evaluation?
>
> The recent US OSTP OA policy seemed to indicate that open data has certainly
> 'arrived'. Moreover, if we *don't* reward or evaluate academics for data
> sharing - this rather limits their incentives to do so.
>
> Even if you don't want to submit a comment to HEFCE yourself about this,
> perhaps it would be worth discussing the issues on-list?
>
> The deadline for submissions is the 25th of March, so we have plenty of
> time.
>
>
> Best,
>
> Ross
>
>
> --
> --
> -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
> Ross Mounce
> PhD Student & Open Knowledge Foundation Panton Fellow
> Fossils, Phylogeny and Macroevolution Research Group
> University of Bath, 4 South Building, Lab 1.07
> http://about.me/rossmounce
> -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
>
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