How to share and manage your data is a leading topic within the PARTHENOS’ project. This inspired a joint workshop on the principles of FAIR and research data management, where experts of PARTHENOS and related infrastructures IPERION-CH and E-RIHS shared their knowledge.
After a short introduction by Luca Pezzati, coordinator of IPERION-CH, Sara di Giorgio of PARTHENOS started with a presentation on the “why” of open data. We speak of open data, open research and open access, but what is their value for research and why the emphasis on openness? Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, is a strong advocate of open science and open data, which involves more than open access. It is a new start for science, a challenge of openness for Europe. Now most data is still “stuck” on paper. The use of the web can lead to sharing and reusing of research. Open science requires open access but also open collaborations, methods and tools. Increased openness will create a win-win situation. According to the European Commission it will speed up innovation. The European Commission itself is a large funder of science projects. But funded research comes with an obligation: data that is funded by the public should be open to the public.
The next session was devoted to the “how” of open data. Hella Hollander talked about the FAIR principles. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, the guiding principles for open data. For PARTHENOS, Hella led a study into the current best practices of the use of FAIR. This resulted in an extensive page report (D3.1 Guidelines for Common Policies Implementation) with several high level recommendations. This report will be turned into a wizard that will be published on the PARTHENOS website. It will be a public and easy to use tool that will provide guidelines and policies for research data management tailored for the different humanities disciplines and various research activities. Hella stressed that data should be fully accessible, while maintaining its context, privacy issues, and the need for training on data management..
[pullquote]PARTHENOS Data Management Plan that will also be made available on the PARTHENOS’ website.[/pullquote]Next up was Jennifer Edmond, a Director of DARIAH, with a concrete example of how to manage data in the form of the DARIAH Data Re-Use Charter. The DARIAH Data Re-Use Charter is essentially a business arrangement between institutions, or an institution and researchers, for the sharing of data. In many ways sharing data is about trust. It is often people that make it difficult, not the data. The DARIAH Data Re-Use Charter facilitates the sharing. In the end, we should move from keeping the data for yourself to sharing.As Hella Hollander explained in the next presentation, funding agencies will expect you to make a Data Management Plan. Building on the Horizon2020 template, Hella and her team have been working on a PARTHENOS Data Management Plan that will also be made available on the PARTHENOS’ website. The plan was created after a survey and consultation of experts and many stakeholders, like CLARIN and DARIAH, were involved. In many ways it was a team building effort, where PARTHENOS acted as the glue.
The last to take the floor was Joe Padfield from IPERION-CH, who gave an example of a data sharing enterprise used in the museums and galleries sector. IPERION is building a resource for data that is not about how good it looks but about how much you would like to share. The project is using an existing tool, Mirador, which is an image viewer, and is extending it so it can update and annotate images. IPERION is in that sense not inventing, but reusing. By giving examples of existing repositories, you can show people how to use it, and why sharing is worthwhile, if not a necessity.
The new resource is expected to become available in its first form from July.