Scholarly Communication is a term that represents the overall process by which scholars (researchers) publish in order to share the outcomes of their research. The scholarly communication continuum includes many aspects such as discovery, dissemination, and preservation of the intellectual output. We are also seeing less formal textual communications to include blog posts, tweets, videos, computer code, and data sets.
An article entitled “Where Should You Keep Your Data?” published in The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 23, 2015), provides an excellent overview of emerging requirements from federal funding agencies on research data sharing and management. What it also draws attention to are the changes authors need to address and the support that librarians can offer. This paper mentions the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the commitment that citizens deserve access to the results of federally funded research. The policy continues the conversation around transparency but there are other reasons why sharing data early can contribute to the larger body of scientific knowledge in a positive way:
- Data is becoming a more valuable end product that can be used by other researchers
- By sharing data sets, there is an opportunity to expand collaborative opportunities
- Some publishers are requiring that authors submit their data that underlies articles they publish (ensures reproducibility/credibility of works)
The MSK Library is conducting an environment scan, or information audit, on the current workflow and data management practices of our research community. While we do plan to develop a LibGuide on Data Management resources (should happen by end of year), we also want to dive deeper and determine other ways to partner with our researchers. Librarians have always been a part of the scholarly communication ecosystem – describing, organizing, curating, and providing access to published literature. Scholarly artifacts are being provided in different formats, such as data sets, and we should be prepared to help support data sharing within our institution as well as in the larger scientific community. After all, data is a meaningful and valuable research outcome just as scholarly articles are reports of the analysis of research data.
If this post caught your attention and you want to share your research experience at MSK, please contact me. We would appreciate the chance to learn from you to better understand what would help support your data management activities.
Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services