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How to Get the Maximum from Research Data – Prerequisites and Outcomes - Tartu, Estonia

How to Get the Maximum from Research Data – Prerequisites and Outcomes - Tartu, Estonia
On the 28-29th of May 2018, OpenAIRE organized a seminar titled: "How to Get the Maximum from Research Data – Prerequisites and Outcomes".  Approximately 60 participants attended the 2-days seminar that took place in the newly renovated University of Tartu Library.


The welcome speeches were given by Martin Hallik, the Director of the Library, and by Kairi Kreegipuu, the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Both emphasized the increasing importance of the data as well as the challenges emerging due to conflicting requirements of data openness and confidentiality.
 

The seminar was started by Ron Dekker, director of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). At the beginning of his talk, he discussed the importance of infrastructure platforms in today's economy and drew parallels between them and an emerging European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). He stressed that effectiveness comes from acting imultaneously when it comes to infrastructure and the importance of changing the culture among researchers towards openness. In the second half of the talk, he introduced CESSDA, its mission, and its upcoming launch.
The second speech was given via Skype video call by Neil Beagrie, the Director of Consultancy at Charles Beagrie. He introduced his methodology of estimating the return on investment (ROI) on data infrastructure projects. The data suggested five- to ten-fold returns, a strong argument in favour of data preservation and dissemination initiatives.
Marianne Høgetveit Myhren, the Senior Adviser for the Section for Data Protection Services at NSD, continued the seminar by discussing new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in European Union and the way they affected researchers.
This talk was followed by the presentation from the Head of Slovenian Social Science Data Archive, Irena Vipavc Brvar. She emphasized a variety of ethical consideration that arise in the process of data sharing.
The next speech was given by Veerle Van den Eynden, the Research Data Services Manager at UK Data Archive. Instead of focusing on specific aspects of the data sharing, she discussed a broader picture and how data sharing can be beneficial to both data publishers and data users.
The first day of presentations was round up by Liisi Lembinen, the Director of Development in the 

University of Tartu Library. Her presentation clarified Open Access and Open Data requirements for Horizon 2020 projects. She also discussed OpenAIRE as an organization and how it can help researchers with both data sharing and regulation compliance.
While the first day was fully dedicated to broader Open Access issues, the second day was significantly more directed towards specific problems that researchers might struggle with. The day was started by Tiiu Tarkpea, the Data Librarian at the Tartu University Library.  She discussed Estonian specifics of writing data management plans and practical help that is provided by specialists in the university library.

Her lecture was followed by a presentation by Rein Murakas, the Head of Estonian Social Science Data Archive. He introduced Estonian scientists to the new solutions offered by ESTA. This was the last presentation; the remainder of the day was filled with three workshops which were attended by 31 different participants.

The first workshop was given by Irena Vipavc Brvar who continued her presentation from the first day. Participants were given actual consent statements used by researchers for gathering sensitive data and had a chance to discuss ethical aspects of personal data in detail.

This workshop was followed by a two-part workshop by Veerle Van den Eynden. She also continued her presentation from a day before, now discussing practical issues related to the data sharing and reuse.
The presentations and video recording are accessible here: https://utlib.ut.ee/how-get-maximum-research-data

The event was mainly targeted towards the social scientists, PhD students, information specialists, librarians, and government representatives. In general, the feedback about the seminar has been positive because it was a great balance between theoretical and practical aspects of research data issues. In total, 75 people attended this two days event.
 
Blog post written by Maksim Mišin and Liisi Lembinen, University of Tartu Library
Photos by Liisi Lembinen, University of Tartu Library, OpenAIRE NOAD in Estonia and Lilian Neerut, University of Tartu Library
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