On the 9th of March 2018 SDU adopted an Open Science Policy for the university. The policy includes three main elements:
- Data management planning,
- FAIR research data, and
- Open access to research papers.
It is a requirement that researchers produce a data management plan (DMP) for every project in order to predict and overcome any issues that may arise in the project, and to save time if any requests for data are received, or if the project collects personal data that needs special attention. The DMP will prepare and enable the project to collect, save, describe, share and ultimately publish research data.
Publishing data is a core element of the policy, but it is not a requirement, as some projects cannot under any circumstances publish the data. If possible, data should be published in order to become available for other researchers’ work - whether in research or teaching. FAIR research data can benefit society through better access to re-usable data and signals trustworthiness. Furthermore, preferring Open Science leads to more transparent research which is in line with the national Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.
The full SDU Open Science Policy is available here.
Open Science Policy at your department?
Since the implementation of the SDU Open Science Policy every department at SDU has made their own guidelines on how to follow the overall SDU Policy. These are commonly referred to as “Open Science guidelines” OR as a part of the “instructions for research” OR as “implementation of the Open Science policy”.
Talk with your department head to find out what the specific Open Science guidelines are for your research department.
Frequently asked questions
Open access (OA) refers to free, unrestricted online access to research outputs such as journal articles and books. OA content is open to all, with no access fees.
There are many types of OA, but the two main routes to making research outputs openly accessible are “Gold Open Access” and “Green Open Access”.
Gold OA involves publishing articles or books via the OA route on a publisher’s platform.
Green OA involves archiving a version of the manuscript in an OA repository, like SDU Pure.
Content published via the Gold OA route is accessible immediately on publication at the publisher’s website, but may come with a hefty fee. Manuscripts published via the Green OA route may, in many cases, be made accessible only once a self-archiving embargo period has elapsed. The terms for onward sharing and re-use of OA content will depend on the licence under which it has been made available. (Adapted from SpringerNature)
To learn more, visit the FAQ section of our page on data best practices here or visit the Open Access webpage.
FAIR research data is data that has been prepared in accordance with the FAIR guiding principles published in 2016. These principles contain data management best practices that aim at making data FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.
To learn more, visit the FAQ section of our page on data best practices, here.
A data management plan (DMP) is a written document that describes the data you expect to acquire or generate during the course of a research project, how you will manage, describe, analyze, and store those data, and what mechanisms you will use at the end of your project to share and preserve your data.
You may have already considered some or all of these issues with regard to your research project, but writing them down helps you formalize the process, identify weaknesses in your plan, and provide you with a record of what you intend(ed) to do.
Data management is best addressed in the early stages of a research project, but it is never too late to develop a data management plan.
To learn more about the SDUB recommendations for preparing a DMP, visit our general research data management page, here.
This text is adapted from the Stanford University Library Data Management Services website.
ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier (an ORCID iD) that you own and control, and that distinguishes you from every other researcher.
You can connect your iD with your professional information — affiliations, grants, publications, peer review, and more – and have your newest publications automatically synced via SDU Pure.
You can use your iD to share your information with other systems, ensuring you get recognition for all your contributions, saving you time and hassle, and reducing the risk of errors.
The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recognizes the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated.
The declaration was developed in 2012 during the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco. It has become a worldwide initiative covering all scholarly disciplines and all key stakeholders including funders, publishers, professional societies, institutions, and researchers.
The objectives of DORA are to:
Raise awareness
To call attention to new tools and processes in research assessment and the responsible use of metrics that align with core academic values and promote consistency and transparency in decision-making
Facilitate implementation
To aid development of new policies and practices for hiring, promotion, and funding decisions
Catalyze change
To spread research assessment reform broadly by working across scholarly disciplines and globally
Improve equity
To call for broader representation of researchers in the design of research assessment practices that directly address the structural inequalities in academia
The so-called "Sorbonne Declaration" on research data rights affirms the commitment of the signatory universities to opening up research data and demanding a clear legal framework to regulate this sharing and to provide the means to put it in place.
The Declaration was published on January 28 2020 at the LERU website, and it is an important document to promote Open Data.