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21- Developing Data Attribution and Citation Practices and Standards:
An Academic Institution Perspective
Deborah L. Crawford1
Drexel University
I have a somewhat unique perspective on this subject. Until September 2010, I worked at the
National Science Foundation (NSF), where I was involved in the fashioning of NSF's data
management plan policy. Shortly afterwards, I returned to academia, joining Drexel University. I
have the pleasure now of implementing the policies that I had a hand in preparing. It is an
important topic with a lot of complexity.
Today, I will try to share with you my view from a university administrator's perspective but I
will also touch on the respective roles and responsibilities of academic researchers as individuals
and as members of research communities. I was asked to respond to the following question: How
are university administrators thinking about data citation and related issues? What follows are
some of my thoughts on this subject.
In my role as a vice provost for research at Drexel, I view the stewardship of research data as one
of a number of responsibilities I have to create an environment that supports the responsible and
ethical conduct of research in the public interest. Developing such an environment has
implications for the management of the increasingly digital research data that we collect or
create.
Let me first talk about the role of researchers, and the research communities to which they
belong, in data stewardship. As is already quite well known, there are significant differences in
practices among scientific communities, including the communities represented here at this
workshop.
For example, some of our communities have, for a decade or more now, leveraged the economies
afforded by data sharing, attribution, and citation. These tend to be the scientific and engineering
communities, where data have been and continue to be created or collected with the intent to be
shared broadly. These include, for example, environmental and astronomical sciences, and
geosciences communities--typically those communities where data are collected on nationally or
internationally-supported and community-governed instruments or facilities. And now, thanks to
the "omics" revolution, a number of the life sciences communities too are generating data with
intent to be shared.
In other fields, cultures continue to be much more individual investigator oriented. In such
domains, the independence of individual investigators is fiercely guarded and research data are
rarely shared, except in relatively modest ways through peer review publications. I think it is
useful to keep these cultural and research differences in mind as we think about how we move
forwardone size is unlikely to fit all.
1
Presentation slides are available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/brdi/PGA_064019.
143
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144 DEVELOPING DATA ATTRIBUTION AND CITATION PRACTICES AND STANDARDS
We need to develop explicit policies on data sharing, attribution, and citationboth domain-based
policies for the scientific and engineering communities, and institutional policies that
complement and support community policies. It is important that we develop these policies and
supporting practices in a collaborative way, bringing all stakeholder groups along so that we can
fully leverage the added value of the enormous and growing quantities of digital data to advances
in science and technology.
Let us now turn our attention to the role of academic institutions. Just as some communities have
well developed data policies and practices and others do not, so some institutions have data
sharing policies and others do not--at least, not yet.
In tenure and promotion policies and practices that pertain to data sharing, citation and
attribution, culture matters very much. For investigators in communities more accustomed to
data sharing, data attribution and citation is likely to be valued in tenure and promotion
decisions. This, however, is not true across the board. So in fashioning academic policies that
promote data sharing, citation and attribution, we must be mindful of, and manage for, these
differences.
Institutions should help faculty understand what is expected of them in the responsible
stewardship of research data in our increasingly digital scientific world. Deans and department
heads are major institutional stakeholders too, for they must provide leadership in raising
awareness about this important topic and its implications in matters such as tenure and promotion
(and others), and they must serve as advocates for change, where necessary.
I believe mid-career faculty play a very important role. We cannot expect our junior faculty, who
are often pioneers or early adopters of new digital research modalities, to carry the weight of
promoting the development of new data policies, for they have too many other pressures coming
to bear on them, and in fact might be penalized for having pioneering views. Mid-career faculty
members are likely to be key to moving a conversation forward on these topics. They are the
ones who typically are more engaged in research where progress demands an increasing reliance
on the sharing and attribution of digital data, and these faculty members may be more willing
and able to speak to and be heard about the importance of these issues.
Let me now briefly address the issue of institutional repositories. Many of us believed that
institutional repositories, interoperable ones of course, would be a key to the future; they would
enable universities to actively manage their digital assets, manage their intellectual property with
appropriate controls, and explore new forms of scholarly communications. The role of
institutional repositories is especially important in the later stages of the data lifecycle, as
researchers focus on new and interesting scientific opportunities and worry less about the
research data of their past interests. Thus, institutional repositories were expected to play
important roles in data curation and preservation.
In practice, however, institutional repositories are not living up to our expectations, partly
because researchers are not routinely depositing their digital objects in the repositories that their
institutions are providing. Many researchers do not see the value to their science and to their
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AN ACADEMIC INSTITUTION PERSPECTIVE 145
careers of doing so, which ultimately is the bottom line for most researchers. This is something
we need to keep in mind as we think about the ways in which institutions encourage faculty to
engage in conversations about the future of data sharing, citation, and attribution.
It is important to note that it is not at all clear that academic institutions across the board are in a
position to move boldly into this new world. For one thing, as we heard yesterday, universities
have not been significantly engaged in the active long-term management of research data to date.
Traditionally, the majority of investigators have managed or have been responsible stewards of
their own data, where community governance of data was essential to advances in certain fields.
It is fair to say that there is much more evidence of community-based initiatives, albeit in some
fields more than others, than there are university-level initiatives.
Equally important, or maybe more important today, the substantial cost implications of providing
long-term stewardship of data is a very significant concern for research universities. In an
increasingly difficult economic environment, where concerns already exist about the escalating
costs of higher education and where the federal government is unable or unwilling to support the
full cost of research in the academy, who bears the responsibility for paying to ensure long-term
open, useful access to research data created in the public interest? This is a policy issue that the
government-university partnership needs to resolve.
The discussions that we have been having in this workshop and in recent years raise important
questions about who is or should be the champion for these issues at the university, and who
should do what? Unfortunately, there are no clear answers at most universities because of the
complexities. Faculty, researchers, and students have a voice and a role, but for the most part,
they are not substantially involved in conversations because, for the most part, the value to their
science and to their careers is not readily apparent to them. Deans, colleges, and schools have
voices as well, but for the most part, they are not serving as change agents. This is true, too, in
university research offices, in part because they tend to reflect the cultures of the research
communities they represent, and undoubtedly, because of concerns about costs. Libraries have
served as the strongest advocates for these kinds of changes, but they probably do not have the
institutional power or authority to really effect change. So, if we are going to make a difference,
there has to be a clear change mandate in institutions involving all institutional stakeholders.
This is a critical topic of conversation for academic institutions, because it impinges upon their
reputations as essential contributors to the national knowledge enterprise.
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