Online Good Practice Exchange programme at DANS in the Netherlands
After being postponed twice, due to Covid-19, the online OpenAIRE Good Practice Exchange (GPE) programme organized by DANS (Data Archiving and Networked Services) took place on 18 January 2021.
The goal of the programme is to provide a framework through which OpenAIRE NOADs can share their knowledge and expand their skills in Open Science. And because DANS is a national centre of expertise and repository for research data, the main topics on this day were best practices on Research Data Management (RDM), data archives, FAIR and open data, and open science policy.
The programme was organized by Ellen Leenarts and Elly Dijk. They are leading the task force RDM in OpenAIRE. Also 5 presenters from DANS and 1 guest speaker was involved. There were 11 participants: Judit Fazekas-Paragh (University of Debrecen in Hungary), Elena Giglia (University of Turin in Italy), Natalia Gruenpeter (University of Warsaw (ICM) in Poland), Gültekin Gurdal (Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey), Paula Cristina Marinho Moura (University of Minho in Portugal), Simcha Meir (Bar Ilan University in Israel), Nadica Miljković (University of Belgrade in Serbia), Elli Papadopoulou (ATHENA Research & Innovation Center in Greece), Michal Růžička (Masaryk University in Czech Republic), Jadranka Stojanovski (Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Croatia), and Aija Uzula (University of Latvia in Latvia).
The programme was divided in 3 blocks with presentations and exercises.The topic of block 1 was National initiatives Open Science, block 2 was about RDM and FAIR, and the topic of block 3 was the DANS data services.
After the Introduction by Ellen Leenarts the day started with a Welcome by Ingrid Dillo, the deputy director of DANS. Here she gave a quick overview of the activities of DANS. DANS exists since 2005, but the first predecessor dates back to 1964.
Block 1: National initiatives Open Science
Elly Dijk gave an overview of the open science development in the Netherlands, that started already in the sixties of the last century with registration of research projects (transparency), followed by development of repositories for publications at the 14 universities in 2003. Later also other research institutes have implemented repositories. Since the last 15 years a number of research institutes have developed data archives. The national portal NARCIS harvest all the scholarly publications and datasets, and gives an overview of research projects.
The guest speaker Loek Brinkman, Assistant Professor University Medical Center Utrecht, gave a presentation about Open Science Communities in the Netherlands. The first one, the Open Science Community Utrecht, was founded in 2018, and has now over 300 members, from all faculties and all career stages. There are 3 aims: 1. Reach and engage researchers to learn about OS; 2. Inspire and enable to adopt OS practices; and 3. Shape institutional policies to facilitate and promote OS. There are now 10 OSCs in the Netherlands, one in Ireland, and one in Sweden. They have developed an Open Science Community Starter Kit, so an institute can set up a local OSC. The exercise was about this starter kit. The participants were very attracted by the idea of OSCs; a webinar about OSCs for the OpenAIRE community will follow.
Block 2: RDM & FAIR
Ellen Leenarts started with a presentation about the training for data supporters by Research Data Netherlands (RDNL). RDNL is a cooperation of 4TUResearchData (data archive for the technical sciences), SURFsara and DANS. She described the three courses that RDNL developed: "Essentials 4 Data Support", "Delivering RDM services" (MOOC – created in collaboration with the Digital Curation Centre and the University of Edinburgh), and a new expert module for the Essentials 4 Data Support on GDPR. Essentials 4 Data Support contains the basic knowledge and skills a data supporter should apply in supporting researchers in managing their data. Besides a two-day F2F or online course it is also possible to use the public online content. During the course, participants work on assignments collaboratively and coaches provide guidance. The MOOC has had 3 runs so far. One has 5 weeks access to online course content, with an active forum to collaborate, and coaching. The GDPR training is in development, and will be ready in a few months.
This was followed by a presentation of Marjan Grootveld about the demand site and supply site of open and FAIR research data in the Netherlands. She described the requirements concerning research data of the National Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and the Research funder NWO. On the support site the National Coordination Point RDM (LCRDM) gives among other things tips and criteria for good data management, and 23 Things for Research Data. There is also support from NWO and the National Academy (KNAW) for recognition of research software as a fundamental component of research. FAIRsFAIR is one of the H2020 projects led by DANS. The goal is to supply practical solutions for the use of the FAIR data principles throughout the research data life cycle. Emphasis is on fostering FAIR data culture and the uptake of good practices in making data FAIR.
After her presentation Marjan held a breakout exercise by using the FAIR Aware tool. By guiding a researcher through the assessment process, the FAIR-Aware tool can help the researcher to better understand the FAIR Principles and how making data FAIR can increase the potential value and impact of the data.
Frans Huigen gave a presentation and an exercise about the self-assessment tool 'Do I pass for FAIR?', presented in an editable PDF form. By answering the questions and evaluating the level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) at which the user can assess the performance of his/her organization, the user will be able to define the actual FAIRness. In addition, the user can define a Road Map to become a FAIR Enabling Research Organization using the information in de more advances level(s).
Block 3: DANS data services
The first presentation in this this block was about DataverseNL, a repository service for Dutch universities and research institutes, by Marion Wittenberg. DataverseNL is a service of DANS, and used by 13 universities, universities of applied sciences and other research institutes. Each partner is responsible for his own Dataverse (folder). It is possible to try a demo version of DataverseNL.
Valentijn Gilissen gave a presentation about the role of the data manager when datasets are being ingested in the DANS Archive. A researcher can submit the research data into the archive and then his task is among others: checking (Dublin Core, completeness and privacy-sensitive data, individual file metadata); downloading files; editing and modifying; creating a "Jump-off" page and, in the end, publish the dataset. And of course, documenting all the steps.
The last presentation was held by Frans Huigen about Repository Certification Expertise at DANS. After introducing CoreTrustSeal he showed the involvement of DANS in certification by providing workshops on certification, but also involvement in H2020 projects like FAIRsFAIR, EOSC-hub and SSHOC.
The day closed with the DANS data quiz, and a wrap-up by Ellen.
All the presentations can be found in the repository of the Dutch Academy.
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