The document discusses the opportunities and challenges of open data for researchers, noting initiatives like GigaDB for free data hosting and open peer review with rapid decisions. While open data can increase citations and benefit communities, there is still low uptake, so the document calls for reimagining how research products are valued and explores ideas like digital credentials and badges to better recognize contributions.
1. Amye Kenall
Open data for researchers - the obstacles and the
opportunities #opendataspotlight
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Badges for Open Science
2. Publish all research, including
data notes, across life sciences
Rapid, open science: 3 weeks to
first decision, open peer review
GigaDB for free data and
code/tools hosting (up to 1
terabyte)
Two full-time bioinformaticians
and a data curator to help you
make your research reproducible
Open data (CC0)
4. #OpenData is good for individuals
Piwowar HA, Day RS, Fridsma DB (2007) PLoS ONE 2(3): e308.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000308
35%
increase in
citations
5. #OpenData is good for communities
Huanming Yang, Support the Manchester Manifesto: a case study of the free sharing of
human genome data,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08109028.2011.631275#abstract
8. How can we reimagine how we
value different research products?
9. “GPAs are worthless as a criteria for hiring and
test scores are worthless… Your ability to
perform at Google is completely unrelated to
how you performed when you were in school,
because the skills you acquired in college are
very different…”
Head of HR at Google, 2013
Historically much more research carried out on wheat than on rice. Started to change with draft of rice genome in 2002.
Today much more research on rice than wheat.
Even more evident in developing countries;
The reason is not because of more funding of rice research by the economically emerging entities, but because of cloned genes and the quantitative trait loci (QTL) of rice, created by taking advantage of the rice genome sequence being freely available to all.
Only around 30%
It doesn’t seem like the carrot or stick is working.
Do we need a more fundamental change in our value system?
There’s a fundamental problem in how we recognise the diverse skills needed to create different research products. But it’s difficult to asses these with what we currently have: grades, degrees, publications, order of author list, etc.
How many people have hired someone here? Raise hands.
When you’re hiring someone, what do you want to know about? You want to know what skills they will already have. For example: data analysis skills, communication and relationship building skills, these are more publishing focussed.
“GPAs are worthless as a criteria for hiring and test scores are worthless… Your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you acquired in college are very different…”
Head of HR Google 2013
So how can we value skills if we have no validated credentials by which to recognise and assess them?
Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers.
They then sell this to companies like Google and Mozilla.
Like with software development, research is constantly evolving.
Demands continual learning and attainment of new sets of skills.
Like with software development, research is creative. Science + Art go hand in hand. This kind of creativity demands flexibility if we are to “credentialise” it.
Now what if I told you this flexible, granular, evidence-based, validated digital credentialing system already existed?
There are many skills we value in research that are impossible to measure or assess through authorship or a CV.
The value is especially apparent for employers. Imagine a detailed, authoritative record for assessing someone beyond their list of publications or role titles.
They enable people and organisations to capture the types of skills, knowledge and behaviours that we value but often find it difficult to recognise with traditional credentialing.
A few reasons I’m behind using these.
--Maybe what would benefit the open data movement most is a more fundamental re-assessment of the way we value the skills needed to make the data.
--Maybe what we need is a system where
your “Spotlight” research product can be your data.
you can confidently sit in front of a tenure committee with only data papers and datasets
attending an open science event is seen as professional development.
This system needs evidence-based, more granular and digital credentials.