EAGER: Amplifying Community Readiness to Increase Public Access to Data

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This exploratory project in open science will examine and address uptake of the NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) for deposition of metadata records for research datasets that support validation of results in publications, or for data resources described in publications. In particular, there is interest in how practices are changing for the use of data identifiers (e.g. DOIs). The project will partner with domain and technical organizations to extend the reach of this work. Studying researcher’s current data production, planning for deposit or exposing those data, and roles of their Data Management Plan (DMP), will provide insights on how to foster change – away from the view of “DMP as a box-checking” – toward the use of the DMP as a value-add process for linking research project planning with increased transparency for the benefit of public access. This study will begin with two different research areas: Initial work will focus on the Geosciences, and computationally-based communities (e.g. Data Science and AI/Machine Learning). For the Geosciences, there are opportunities to improve data publishing practices, by obtaining DOIs and increasing data citation. At the intersections of the Geosciences, semantic technologies, computing and informatics, there are Open Knowledge Networks which have the potential to generate new data resources to support solutions to societal grand challenges. Across the Data Science and AI-related communities, there is a need for better access to high quality datasets, models, and infrastructure; currently, resources for locating, accessing, and selecting such datasets are scattered and variable. Utilizing the uptake of the NSF PAR system for research data may facilitate increased access to datasets for research and education. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.