101st Helmholtz Open Science Newsletter

1. Recommendations on the Sovereignty and Security of Science in the Digital Space

As part of its Empfehlungen zur Souveränität und Sicherheit der Wissenschaft (i. e., recommendations on the sovereignty and security of science in the digital space, text available in German only) the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat) also points out the special role of open infrastructures and open source solutions: ”For a coherent overall strategy to strengthen plurality and openness, a sufficient availability of publicly funded infrastructures and platforms as well as their comprehensive use by academia is indispensable. However, a major challenge here is to specify the relationship between the individual projects - from AI competence centers to high-performance and supercomputing to data infrastructures - and how these can be better linked in the future.” The recommendations continue: ”IT managers at universities and research institutions can also contribute to an open and self-determined design of digital space through the selection and composition of the software on offer. The primary consideration here is an increased use of open-source solutions, the use and (further) development of which should be further expanded and specifically promoted.” The Council also points out that this requires sustainable structures and funding.

2. New Report the Current State and Future Directions for Repositories in Europe

The report presents the results of a survey on the European repository landscape conducted by OpenAIRE, LIBER, SPARC Europe, and COAR in spring 2023. The survey found that European repositories acquire, preserve, and provide open access to a large number of valuable research outputs and represent critical, non-profit infrastructure in the European open science landscape. They are well-placed to support the expansion of open science practices and research assessment reform across Europe. The survey also identified three areas in particular that could be strengthened: maintaining up-to-date, highly functioning software platforms; applying consistent and comprehensive good practices in terms of metadata, preservation, and usage statistics; and gaining appropriate visibility in the scholarly ecosystem. The full report is available here.

4. News on DEAL

Within the DEAL consortium, new Publish-and-read agreements have now also been negotiated with Wiley and Springer Nature. As with the Elsevier contract, these are so-called opt-in contracts, i.e., institutions now have the opportunity to join these 5-year agreements. More information can be found here.

6. RDA DE 2024 - Program Published & Registration Open

As reported in the last newsletter, the upcoming RDA Germany Tagung 2024 (February 20 to 21, 2024) will again take place in cooperation with the Helmholtz Open Science Office and at the GFZ. RDA Deutschland e.V. has now published the preliminary program of the conference. Registration for the regularly fully booked conference will be possible shortly. One highlight is the opening of the conference with a keynote speech by Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director-General of the EU Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technologies on the European Commission's data strategy.

7. Joint Statement on Research Data

DataCite, Crossref, and STM announced a joint statement on research data. This statement is an update of the joint statement between DataCite and STM from 2012 on linkability and citability of research data. The aim of the statement is to accelerate the adoption of best practices and policies, and encourage further development of critical policies in collaboration with a wide group of stakeholders. The signatories of the statement are called upon to adopt and promote 12 best practice recommendations on the handling and sharing of research data.

9. NASA/CERN Open Science Summit: Closing Statement issued

Following the NASA/CERN Open Science Summit, on whose program committee the Helmholtz Open Science Office was represented, a closing statement has been issued. This is linked to a call to action by the Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) to establish global working groups that want to work together on relevant topics.

10. Retrospective: 67. Helmholtz Open Science Online Seminar

On November 7, 2023, the 67th Helmholtz Open Science Online Seminar entitled ”The Open Research Knowledge Graph – A Lighthouse in the Publication Flood” took place with Anna-Lena Lorenz and Oliver Karras from the TIB (Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology University Library). Around 90 people took part in the event, which was held in English. The presentation slides and the recording of the talk are published and linked on the event website. We would like to thank the speakers and all participants for their participation!

11. Retrospective: Third Helmholtz Reproducibility Workshop

On November 16, 2023, the third Helmholtz Reproducibility Workshop took place on the Telegrafenberg at the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. The event was once again organized by the Helmholtz Open Science Office and the Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy (HIDA). Despite the nationwide strike of long-distance, regional, and suburban train services, around 30 people attended the event on site and over 40 people participated online. The keynotes ”Replicability along the imaging pipeline” and ”It takes a village: building paths between Open Science, Reproducibility and Research Software Engineering” have been recorded and published together with the accompanying slides. The links can be found in the event program. The accompanying materials of the hands-on workshops on DataLad, statistical and computational reproducibility and RRIDs, and common data visualization problems can also be found in the program. We would like to thank all participants, keynote speakers, and workshop leaders for their active participation!

12. Retrospective: Online Workshop: Monitoring of Research Data Publications - Status and Perspective

The Chair of Information Management at the IBI of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Helmholtz Open Science Office and the Open Access Office Berlin organized the joint online workshop "Monitoring of research data publications - status and perspective" on November 28, 2023. The following three focal points were considered:

1. Challenges: Current challenges in monitoring research data publications were considered and hurdles identified.

2. Approaches to solutions: Successful approaches to monitoring research data publications in the context of scientific information management were presented and discussed on the basis of best-practice examples and field reports. Proven methods for identification, standardization, and citation were considered.

3. Networking: The workshop offered the opportunity to exchange ideas and concepts and to develop further activities and perspectives on the topic.

The program and links to the presentation slides are available here.

Recommended Reading

Barbers, I., Pollack, P., & Herweg, D. (2023). Förderprogramm Open-Access-Publikationskosten: Bericht zum Förderjahr 2022. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10089109

Butler, L.-A., Matthias, L., Simard, M.-A., Mongeon, P., & Haustein, S. (2023). The oligopoly’s shift to open access. How the big five academic publishers profit from article processing charges. Quantitative Science Studies. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00272

OSTP. (2023). Report to the U.S. Congress on Financing Mechanisms for Open Access Publishing of Federally Funded Research. Office of Science and Technology Policy, Washington, DC, USA. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Open-Access-Publishing-of-Scientific-Research.pdf

Packer, A., Suber, P., Kiley, R., Terry, R., Barbour, G., Eve, M. P., Hagemann, M., Arunachalam, S., Rentier, B., Prosser, D., Bosc, H., Veldsman, S., Willinsky, J., Babini, D., & Velterop, J. (2023). We so loved Open Access (J. Velterop & L. Posenato Garcia, Eds.). ABEC Brasil & SciELO. https://doi.org/10.21452/abec.2023.isbn.978-65-993452-6-5

Sühl-Strohmenger, W., & Tappenbeck, I. (Eds.). (2024). Praxishandbuch Wissenschaftliche Bibliothekar:innen. Wandel von Handlungsfeldern, Rollen und Perspektiven im Kontext der digitalen Transformation. De Gruyter Saur. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110790375

Thibault, R. T., Amaral, O. B., Argolo, F., Bandrowski, A. E., Alexandra R, D., & Drude, N. I. (2023). Open Science 2.0: towards a truly collaborative research ecosystem. PLOS Biology, 21(10), e3002362. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002362

Thompson, K., Hill, E., Carlisle-Johnston, E., Dennie, D., & Fortin, É. (Eds.). (2023). Research Data Management in the Canadian Context. A Guide for Practitioners and Learners (English). Western University, Western Libraries. https://doi.org/10.5206/ZRUV7849

Wojturska, R. (2023). An Open Book: launching a library-based Open Access books hosting service. LIBER Quarterly, 33(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.13745