This paper explores key issues in the development of open access to research data. The use of digital means for developing, storing and manipulating data is creating a focus on 'data-driven science'. One aspect of this focus is the development of 'open access' to research data. Open access to research data refers to the way in which various types of data are openly available to public and private stakeholders, user communities and citizens. Open access to research data, however, involves more than simply providing easier and wider access to data for potential user groups. The development of open access requires attention to the ways data are considered in different areas of research. We identify how open access is being unevenly developed across the research environment and the consequences this has in terms of generating data gaps. Data gaps refer to the way data becomes detached from published conclusions. To address these issues, we examine four main areas in developing open access to research data: stakeholder roles and values; technological requirements for managing and sharing data; legal and ethical regulations and procedures; institutional roles and policy frameworks. We conclude that problems of variability and consistency across the open access ecosystem need to be addressed within and between these areas to ensure that risks surrounding a data gap are managed in open access.
RECODE will leverage existing networks, communities and projects to address challenges within the open access and data dissemination and preservation sector, and produce policy recommendations for open access to research data based on existing good practice. The open access to research data sector includes several different networks, initiatives, projects and communities that are fragmented by discipline, geography, stakeholder category (publishers, academics, repositories, etc.) as well as other boundaries. Many of these organisations are already addressing key barriers to open access to research data, such as stakeholder fragmentation, technical and infrastructural issues, ethical and legal issues, and state and institutional policy fragmentation. However, these organisations are often working in isolation or with limited contact with one another. RECODE will provide a space for European stakeholders interested in open access to research data to work together to provide common solutions for these issues. RECODE will culminate in a series of over-arching policy recommendations for a policy framework to support open access to European research data targeted at different stakeholders and policy-makers (http://www.recodeproject.eu).
Abstract. The present contribution concerns a case study of open access scholarly publishing in Greece, its history and effect in helping the local researcher community transition from a print-only mode of work to online working environments and in rendering Greek publications and scholarship more relevant to the international scholarly community. The paper elaborates on the goals of the project and the challenges that were encountered and addressed during its implementation. The project, which started in 2007 with the transition of three print journals in the humanities to an online and print format and online working environment, culminated in the development of an online platform that provides access to content and services from a single point in the web, ePublishing.ekt.gr. As part of the National Documentation Centre (EKT)'s services, we systematize and upgrade the journals' policies according to international standards, provide an online working platform and training, digitize and release in open access academic articles (more than 3,000 articles in established journals, published by small, nonprofit, academic/scholarly society publishers, so far), provide DOIs, as well as concentrate on electronic books and conference proceedings -also to include purely online books in the future, starting with a born-digital monograph in a Humanities subject (onlineBook). In a nutshell, we have focused on providing publishers of scientific journals a range of comprehensive services which are constantly updated and improved in the light of the developments in scholarly communication, and which foster the internationalization, visibility, and preservation of research in these fields.
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