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Archive for April, 2019

Making UCL research reproducible

By t.johnson, on 15 April 2019

The call for Open Access to research

Progress on sharing research has been gradual since the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2006) and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment – or DORA (2012).  Last year’s publication of Open Science and its role in universities: a roadmap for cultural change by LERU, lead-authored by Dr Paul Ayris, has helped shift the debate from theory to practice.  In September 2018, cOAlition S – a consortium of 12 European research funders – called for public-funded research to be published in compliant Open Access (OA) journals or platforms by 1 January 2020. The resulting guidance document, Plan S: Making full & immediate Open Access a reality, has been largely welcomed by the research community for its 10 principles:

Plan S principles:

  1. the author retains unrestricted copyright – a Creative Commons licence where possible
  2. robust criteria and requirements are in place for OA journal and platform services
  3. funders collaboratively establish and support OA journals and infrastructures
  4. funders or universities cover OA publication fees, not individuals as a rule
  5. standardised funding and capping of OA fees apply across Europe
  6. universities, research organisations and libraries align their policies and strategies
  7. monograph and book publishing practices will require more time to change
  8. open archives and repositories are important
  9. hybrid Open Access models are NOT compatible with these principles
  10. funders will monitor compliance and sanction non-compliance

The UCL response to Plan S

Published January 2019, the UCL response to Plan S fully endorses Open Access in scholarly publishing, calling for “a wholesale rethink of the strategy and timelines for moving to 100% Open Access”, with:

  • more engagement with universities, learned societies and researchers before implementation
  • more detail on how Open Access publishing could work in different subject disciplines
  • a more realistic timeline of years not months to allow universities to apply DORA recommendations and set up appointment and promotions frameworks
  • more detail and thought on how publishing fees and Article Processing Charges (APCs) could work, with a risk assessment
  • worldwide engagement, as Europe is too small a player to make global changes

 

The Road to Reproducibility diagram showing Challenges, Answers, Support Mechanisms and Incentives

The Road to Reproducibility: UCL draft Research Reproducibility policy April 2019

Draft UCL statement on reproducibility

On 10 April, UCL colleagues met for a UCL Research Reproducibility Town Hall discussion on the approach and actions needed to improve research standards through replicability.  Under specific discussion was a draft UCL statement on reproducibility in researchEmail contact: ovpr@ucl.ac.uk

 

UCL Open Science Day 23 May

Join us on Thursday 23 May 2019 9.30 – 4pm

Logan Hall, Institute of Education (IOE), 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL View Map

This free UCL Library workshop will “explore the facets of Open Science and how these are, or could be, pursued by UCL researchers”, with morning discussions and afternoon workshops offering practical advice.

Morning talks include Registered Reports and the UKRNProf Chris Chambers (Cardiff University), cognitive neuroscientist, expert in registered reports and co-founder of the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN).

 

Join UCL Reproducibility

Subscribe to the UCL reproducibility mailing list for news and updates, invitations to contribute and training opportunities. 

The next talk is on Thursday 23 May and part of the UCL Open Science Day 2019

Attend a Reproducibilitea talk

See more information and 2019 ReproducibiliTea UCL topics and dates.

Colleagues from all disciplines, sceptics and non-UCL, welcome.

ReproducibiliTea UCL talks so far:

  1. Nosek et al: ‘Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science‘ (Science, 2015)
  2. Marcus Munafò et al: ‘A Manifesto for Reproducible Science‘ (2017)
  3. Halsey et al: The Fickle p Generates Irreproducible Results (2015)

The ReproducibiliTea journal club is supported by the UCL Researcher-led Initiative Award, and the UK Reproducibility Network has helped to spread the club to a number of universities.

 

UCL Open Access policy development:

Key documents in the Open Scholarship movement

Media articles

Resources

This blog was updated 12 June

Opening UCL: roadmap for a new higher education landscape

By t.johnson, on 12 April 2019

Perspectives for Open Education at UCL

The UCL Open Education project recently hosted Opening UCL, a symposium on Open Education to explore the current landscape in open education practice in higher education. Some highlights include:

UCL Connected Curriculum (Dilly Fung)

OER were shown to foster learning, digital literacy, creativity, student engagement, and collaboration across disciplines.

UCL Library Services and Digital Education, co-hosts, introduced the UCL Roadmap for Open Education.  By 2021, open education will be embedded within the UCL community via supporting policies, infrastructure, and a connected curriculum of research-based teaching frameworks and student-generated research, to include:

Also read a full account of Opening UCL by Susan Koseoglu, Goldsmiths College.

Further Reading

Digital preservation – not forgetting the software

By t.johnson, on 11 April 2019

Why preserve software?

Digital preservation tends to focus on making data or digital objects open, FAIR and in the correct format for future use. But what about the software applications needed to store, retrieve and manipulate these data? Operating systems, hardware, licences and web hosting organisations all change over time.  So, good research requires us to understand and preserve the software supporting our research data.

Software can have intrinsic value, e.g. when a computer model and data together make up the research output, in the growing field of Data Science and Computing, or with legacy software.  Software development is also gaining recognition as an important element in research methodology – deserving of citation, academic recognition and funding.  Similarly, algorithms are set to play a major role in improving replicability in research.

Software preservation events April and May 2019

Digital and software preservation events

(organised by the Digital Preservation Coalition)

‘Insert Coin to Continue: Briefing Day on Software Preservation’  7 May 10-4pm

Access the live stream and recording from this event.

Sponsored by Jisc, this workshop is for all those interested in digital and software preservation. Course requirements: basic knowledge of digital content and the challenges to preserving it.

‘Counting on Reproducibility: Tangible Efforts and Intangible Assets’ 29 May 10-4pm 

(title changed from ‘Financial Planning for Digital Preservation’)

Venue: Birmingham, B1 2EP.  Booking is available.  Places are limited to 3 per organisation.

How UCL can help you preserve and share software

Software preservation: helpful resources

Digital Preservation Coalition webinars

Futher Reading

blog updated 8 May 2019