Archiving confidential/identifiable research data for re-use: consultation

Do you collect research data that is difficult or impossible to anonymise, or that would lose significant value if identifiable/confidential information were removed?

Would you use a secure solution for archiving these research data in such a way that they can be safely shared with other researchers, subject to authorisation and under conditions designed to preserve confidentiality?

The Research Data Manager and Data Protection Officer are investigating the feasibility of implementing a University service for the secure archiving of confidential/identifiable research data, and the sharing of such data with authorised researchers under a standard data access agreement, subject to approval by a Data Access Committee.

We believe a University-managed solution would give researchers the confidence to preserve and share data safely, where otherwise they might be lost to research or exposed to the risk of inappropriate disclosure.

We would consider within scope any datasets that cannot be shared openly because of the confidential nature of the information they contain or because a higher risk of re-identification exists. In such cases it may still be possible for data to be shared on a restricted and managed basis.

These are examples of data that might be suitable for archiving in this service:

  • Datasets containing participant-identifying or other confidential information (such as commercial information), e.g. unredacted interview transcripts; video and photographic data containing images of identifiable participants; biometric data, such as facial scans or fingerprint images; records of commercial activities;
  • Data that have been anonymised but that because of the sensitivity of the information they contain or a risk of identification through linkage to other publicly-accessible data are considered higher-risk and not suitable for public sharing.

The service would provide the following features:

  • A dataset with related documentation can be formally deposited in the service, with a linked publicly-accessible metadata record published via the University of Reading Research Data Archive. The dataset will be assigned a DOI that links to this metadata record. The public metadata record does not contain any sensitive information, but it means the dataset is citable and discoverable by potential legitimate users.
  • The dataset will be held in closed internal storage, accessible only by authorised persons (e.g. service administrators and the PI of the project in which the data were collected).
  • A researcher affiliated to a recognised research organisation may apply to access the data for non-commercial research purposes. The researcher’s credentials will be validated and their application will be subject to approval by a Data Access Committee (DAC). The original project PI or a suitable representative will join the DAC in order to consider the access request. The DAC may either grant or refuse the request.
  • If the request is granted, the requester’s organisation will sign a Data Access Agreement with the University. This agreement requires the recipient to use the data in confidence and to destroy their copy of the data by an agreed date. Once the agreement is signed the data will be securely shared with the recipient. The University will follow up to ensure that the data are destroyed by the agreed date.

The proposed model is based on a successful service established by the University of Bristol.

If you collect data that you think might fall within scope of this service, we want to hear from you.

  • Would you use this service? What type of data might you wish to deposit?
  • Do you have questions about how it would work?

Please contact us with your views.

Robert Darby (Research Data Manager) and Rebecca Daniells (Data Protection Officer) will be holding an open consultation at 13.00-14.00 on Wednesday 26th May. Come along to find out more about the proposal and ask questions.

To register for the consultation please email Robert Darby.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Open Research Award 2021

The University’s 2021 Open Research Award is now open for entries.

The Open Research Award will recognise and reward researchers or research students who have used open practices to make their research more accessible, transparent or reproducible. Entry is open to both members of staff and research students, who may enter either as individuals or as teams. Entry is by means of a case study describing how open practices have been used in a research context.

A shortlist of four entries will be invited to present their case studies as short talks at a public online Open Research Celebration on Wednesday 9th June. The event will also feature a keynote from Professor Sarah de Rijcke of Leiden University, co-author of the Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics and currently drafting the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

The winner of the Open Research Award, and second and joint third places, will be determined by a panel of judges chaired by Professor Parveen Yaqoob, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation). The winner will be announced at the Open Research Celebration following the presentation of case studies. Prizes will be awarded as follows:

  • Winner of the Open Research Award: £500
  • Second place: £250
  • Joint third place: £150 each.

There will also be a £150 prize for best presentation decided by audience vote on the day.

Prizes awarded to members of staff will be paid into SDA accounts. Prizes awarded to research students will made as cash payments.

Shortlisted entries will be published on the University website as Open Research case studies, and will be promoted in the University’s Open Research communications.

The Award is administered by the Committee on Open Research and Research Integrity.

How to enter

Read the Open Research Award Guidelines before submitting your entry. The entry should be submitted using the Open Research Award Entry Form.

The closing date for entries is 12:00 noon on Thursday 6th May.

Enquiries

Please send any enquiries concerning the Open Research Award to Robert Darby, Research Data Manager at r.m.darby@reading.ac.uk / 0118 378 6161.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

CentAUR stats for December 2020

Infographic showing key statistics for the CentAUR repository for December 2020

Tagged , , | Leave a comment

CentAUR stats for November 2020

An infographic giving key statistics from the CentAUR repository

Tagged , , | Leave a comment

CentAUR stats for October 2020

Infographic with some summary statistics for October 2020 including number of downloads, total views, deposits, etc

Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Milestones Project

What is the Milestones project? Why did we do it?

Heaps of stones on a beachEvery month since November 2019, the Research Engagement Team has been sending out congratulatory emails to University of Reading authors whose CentAUR items have achieved 500 lifetime downloads as part of the ‘Milestones’ project. By sharing and celebrating these  ‘milestones’ with Reading authors, our goal is show them that the research output that they deposit in CentAUR is not just stored there for safe keeping, but that CentAUR is a dynamic repository where users interact with and download items on a regular basis. Ultimately, we hoped the project would encourage our researchers to engage more with CentAUR and the idea of Green Open Access in general.

What did the project involve?

The first thing we did was develop a template Excel spreadsheet, into which we could import data from IRUS-UK each month (using Item Report 1). This spreadsheet would calculate which CentAUR items had surpassed certain lifetime download thresholds that month and generate the email addresses of these item’s authors. Then, we would use a mail merge to pull this information into a batch of emails which we would send to those authors who had achieved the milestone. Each email included text congratulating them on their CentAUR item surpassing 500 lifetime downloads, a Twitter card and a link to our feedback form.  We hoped that the Twitter card, which we designed using Canva, would encourage authors to share the milestone on social media. Through the feedback form, we hoped to gauge the enthusiasm the authors had for the learning about the milestone, their willingness to post this on social media and gather their feedback on ways we could improve our communication.

What did we learn?

The data from IRUS provided several interesting insights into how often CentAUR items hit certain download thresholds. We have data on CentAUR downloads from 2010 and the repository currently has over 18,000 full texts available for download. We found that each month around 60-90 items surpass the 100 lifetime download threshold, 30-50 surpass 250 lifetime downloads, 15-25 surpass 500 lifetime downloads and 5-10 surpass 1000 lifetime downloads. Based on this information, we decided that sending out emails for only the 500 lifetime downloads milestone would be the most manageable workload as this would result in around 20 emails being sent each month. We also found that there was quite a variety in the time it took for items to reach 500 lifetime downloads; the time taken ranged from 1 to 9 years, with the average time taken being around 4.5 years. Whilst the most common age of an item achieving the milestone was 2 years since deposit, each month there were a handful of items that were 8 0r 9 years old.

How was the feedback?

Overall, the feedback from the authors who filled out our form was largely positive. Of the 12 who have filled out the form at the time of writing, 11 responded that they found the email interesting. Disappointingly, the authors were less enthusiastic about the idea of sharing the milestone on social media, with only 1 responding that they would share the milestone on social media and none answering that they would share the Twitter card on social media.

Feedback of the design Twitter card

The comments left in the comment section at the end of the form shed further light into authors’ reactions to receiving the email. Whilst most authors expressed delight in having achieved the milestone, one author felt that the item was too old to justify sharing it on social media:

“I would share the above for other articles – this one is too old to make it worthwhile.”

Another author seemed perplexed at being congratulated on the milestone when a more successful item of theirs was not included (presumably because it had achieved the milestone before we started the project):

“Why are you celebrating such a small achievement yet ignoring the most significant?”

From this feedback, we can see that not all items being celebrated for achieving the milestone seem relevant to their authors and, perhaps as a result, we are falling short on our aim of encouraging authors to share the milestone on social media.

One author asked how significant passing the 500 download milestone was compared with the performance of other outputs in the repository

We decided to investigate this by looking at the data from IRUS and working out what the average number of downloads per month was for items in the repository. This rough measure excluded the time that an item might be under a publisher’s embargo (usually between 12 and 24 months after publication). For journal articles where the full text was the author-accepted manuscript, and so more likely to have higher downloads, the mean number of downloads per month was 4, but with a wide distribution range.

 

Based on this average, it would take most articles around 10 years to reach the 500 download milestone. Looking at the data for July 2020, the variation in time taken to reach 500 downloads was between 18 months (~29 downloads per month, http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/81943/, author-accepted manuscript) and 112 months (~4.5 downloads per month, http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/18552/, published version).

What could we do differently?

Based on our feedback, one improvement we could make would be to redesign the  Twitter card sent out to authors to raise the numbers of researchers sharing the milestone on social media. We had already redesigned the Twitter card in January 2020, shifting its tone from light-hearted towards a design more in-line with traditional CentAUR branding, although this modification only resulted a minor improvement to our feedback. Both a redesigned Twitter card and an expanded question on it on the feedback form might help us understand how to boost the low numbers of authors who were likely to share the milestone on social media. We did not ask the recipients of the milestones awards whether they were active on social media and so this may also have skewed our results.

The redesigned card

The initial, ‘fun’ design

Another change that could raise the number of authors sharing the milestone might be to change the criteria of the milestone itself. Specifically, if we were to introduce a timeframe within which an item must achieve the milestone, for example only including items which are less than 5 years-old, this would exclude older items which are perhaps less relevant to their authors. Whilst reducing the time limit to 5 years would almost halve the amount of items surpassing the milestone, it might make the milestone more worthy of celebrating in the eyes of Reading authors and, in turn, make them feel like the achievement is more worth sharing with other researchers.

The other option would be to decrease the number of downloads required for the milestone celebration. Changing the milestone to 250 downloads might mean that the highlighted item was more recent and relevant to the author. However, this would have to be balanced against the additional number of authors that would need to be contacted each month.

We are also considering producing a printed card that could be sent to authors achieving the milestone. Although this would have a design and print cost, it might be something that the authors would put on a noticeboard in their office and appreciate more. This might be something to ask in our feedback form in future.

Nathan Berry, a graduate trainee Library Assistant at University of Reading, worked on this project with some input from Karen Rowlett, Research Publications Adviser.

Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CentAUR stats for August 2020

Infographic showing key statistics from the CentAUR repository

Key Statistics

Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

CentAUR statistics for September 2020

Infographic for CentAUR statistics

CentAUR statistics

Tagged , , | Leave a comment

CentAUR statistics for July 2020

Infographic with some statistics from the CentAUR repository

Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

CentAUR statistics for June 2020

Key statistics from the repository

Tagged , , | Leave a comment