Book on Access to Research Data in the Netherlands

The book Toegang tot Onderzoeksdata (Access to research data) is the fifth publication which has appeared in the SURFshare series and treats the sharing of research data. In this publication an overview is offered of what has already been accomplished. Existing Dutch and international initiatives are discussed, findings from studies summarized and publishers and funders explain which role they expect to play in encouraging the sharing of research data.

Although the book is in Dutch, two of the interviews are also available in an English translation.

Chapter 7 : Data in Australia and the Netherlands: perseverance and dedication is required
An interview with Andrew Treloar (ANDS) and Jeroen Rombouts (3TU Datacentrum) comparing the situation in the Netherlands to Australia.

Chapter 13: It is essential for research data to be linked to publications
An interview with Eefke Smit (STM) on the role that publishers would like to play in improving access research data.

View the book as a pdf or the translated chapters

Open Research Data Day 18th May

On 18th of May SURF will be organising a Dutch day for Open Research Data. Speakers will include scientists who have benefited from sharing research data, but also key stakeholders and the Dutch national research funder. The session will close with a discussion on what the next steps should be. Who is going to be bold enough to take these steps. This is not limited to funders, but also the role that research libraries, data centres and (very important) publishers can play. And what about the universities of applied sciences, do they have a position in this?

Registration for this afternoon seminar is still open at: http://www.surffoundation.nl/nl/bijeenkomsten/Pages/OpenOnderzoeksDataDag.aspx
(The event is Dutch speaking throughout)

Publicatii augmentate - Enhanced Publications in Romanian

I am very pleased to announce that our film on Enhanced Publications is now also available with Romanian subtitles. I hope researchers at Brasov and in the rest of Romania will find this useful.

Submission fees, a viable option for OA journals?

Knowledge Exchange has just released a report bearing the title ‘Submission fees – A tool in the transition to Open Access?. The general conclusion is that there are benefits to publishers in certain cases to switch to a model in which an author pays a fee when submitting an article. Especially journals with a high rejection rate might be interested in combining submission fees with article processing charges in order to make the transition to open access easier. In certain disciplines, notably economic and finance journals and in some areas of the experi¬men¬tal life sciences, submission fees are already common.

The report has also sparked a discussion for example on the Scholarly Kitchen blog on whether this might be a viable option for OA journals in the future.

Upheaval on student thesis in Utrecht

A Dutch news site mentioned that a student´s master thesis was being withheld by the Utrecht city council as it would contain critical information on a Youth scheme in Utrecht. According to the thesis youths with a criminal background would have collected funds for internships without actually doing any work.

See: http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2371071/gemeente-utrecht-hield-kritische-scriptie-tegen.html and http://www.dub.uu.nl/content/omstreden-scriptie-vrijdag-terug-op-uu-site

The thesis is now available on the University library website and I was really chuffed as it was a student from social sciences, so it has been included in the collection I have helped to set up years ago together with the university library.
It is now scoring as best downloaded thesis: http://studenttheses.library.uu.nl/topten.php?language=nl

For the tweets on this see: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23scriptie%20%23utrecht

Video on Enhanced Publications

Just in case you were wondering what all those SURF projects were about which took place on Enhanced Publications, a video has been made explaining not only what they are, but also how they have taken shape in different disciplines.

I especially like the animation at the end of the film as it shows how this fits in to linked data.
The video is only available in Dutch at present, will be available with English subtitles soon.

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IT3T9IuNA0

Digiman wins again!

Sadly not with an embed. The Planets have just produced another brilliant cartoon movie encouraging institutions to follow six steps to ensure materials are saved safely. Enjoy at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGFOZLecjTc

Workshop on creating enhanced publications

Just a quick plug from my work. On the first of April (no, this is not a joke) we will be organising a workshop on creating enhanced publications (EPs). Participants will learn a little background on what enhanced publications are and hear some first hand experiences from projects done in 2009 on EPs.
And after lunch they will be able to get stuck in creating their very own EP. They will get a crack at using the EP editor developed in the ESCAPE project to create a map linking various objects and entities. We will also show some alternative editors which are in development or should be out soon. These are the LORE editor and the Word ontology add in.
There are still a limited number of places available. Please note that the workshop will be in Dutch and will take place in Tilburg.
Further information