Accelerating and Deepening Approaches to FAIR Data Sharing A Workshop | National Academies

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI) will convene a half-day public workshop, Accelerating and Deepening Approaches to FAIR Data Sharing on April 20, 2023 (Thursday) in a hybrid format. The public is invited to join virtually. Please register to receive information on how to attend the workshop. 

The workshop will feature invited presentations and discussions on new approaches that research funders, research institutions, researchers, scientific societies, and other stakeholders are taking to facilitate and encourage sharing of FAIR (findable-accessible-interoperable-reusable) research data within and across disciplines. The discussions will explore new initiatives to support FAIR data sharing, the need for innovative approaches, potential obstacles to success and how obstacles might be overcome. A Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.”

Toward a 21st Century National Data Infrastructure: Enhancing Survey Programs by Using Multiple Data Sources |The National Academies Press

“Much of the statistical information currently produced by federal statistical agencies – information about economic, social, and physical well-being that is essential for the functioning of modern society – comes from sample surveys. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of data from other sources, including data collected by government agencies while administering programs, satellite and sensor data, private-sector data such as electronic health records and credit card transaction data, and massive amounts of data available on the internet. How can these data sources be used to enhance the information currently collected on surveys, and to provide new frontiers for producing information and statistics to benefit American society?

Toward a 21st Century National Data Infrastructure: Enhancing Survey Programs by Using Multiple Data Sources, the second report in a series funded by the National Science Foundation, discusses how use of multiple data sources can improve the quality of national and subnational statistics while promoting data equity. This report explores implications of combining survey data with other data sources through examples relating to the areas of income, health, crime, and agriculture….”

COAPI Community Call: HELIOS – SPARC

“The Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS) is a network of 78 colleges and universities committed to collective action to advance open scholarship across their campuses. HELIOS takes place within the larger context of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science, which brings together key interested parties — including senior leadership at universities, federal agencies, philanthropies, international bodies, and other strategic organizations — to better incentivize openness, in service of a more transparent, inclusive, and trustworthy research ecosystem. Ultimately, HELIOS and the NASEM Roundtable aim to ensure that as many students, faculty, practitioners, policy makers, and community members as possible have access to, and a voice in, research and scholarship.”

Action Steps For Rebuilding Ukraine’s Science, Research, and Innovation | National Academies

“We, the leadership of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the ALLEA European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, and the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, met in Warsaw, Poland on June 2, 2022. The aim of the meeting was to discuss and agree on steps to build a strong science, innovation, research, and training system in Ukraine. Our discussions recognized the challenges in making progress given the still ongoing invasion by Russian forces, but also were driven by an understanding that rebuilding science and research in Ukraine, are critical to ensure its long-term prosperity and sovereignty. As such, we strongly encourage that while global leaders develop programs and make funding commitments for Ukraine, there should be a focus on rebuilding a modern and globally integrated science and research system. The 10 actions articulated below are practical steps that can be taken by scientific communities of our countries, and also those around the world. While some of the actions can be achieved in the near term, others will depend on the evolving military and security situation in Ukraine. The list is subject to expansion and readjustment, and takes into consideration past experiences in dealing with war-affected countries. …

5. Provide remote, free access to scholarly journals to Ukrainian research institutions….”

Reimagining Science Communication in the COVID Era and Beyond The 5th National Academies Science Communication Colloquium | National Academies

“The Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is pleased to host Reimagining Science Communication in the COVID Era and Beyond: The 5th Science Communication Colloquium on June 1, 2, and 6, 2022. This multi-day hybrid event will bring together diverse researchers, communicators, and community members and leaders to learn from one another. Plenary sessions will focus on building inclusive and equitable structures, evidence-based practices, and the science of science communication and engagement. Interactive networking opportunities will foster collaboration and engagement.”

Widespread use of National Academies consensus reports by the American public | PNAS

Significance

Advocates for open access argue that people need scientific information, although they lack evidence for this. Using Google’s recently developed deep learning natural language processing model, which offers unrivalled comprehension of subtle differences in meaning, 1.6 million people downloading National Academies reports were classified, not just into broad categories such as researchers and teachers but also precisely delineated small groups such as hospital chaplains, veterans, and science fiction authors. The results reveal adults motivated to seek out the most credible sources, engage with challenging material, use it to improve the services they provide, and learn more about the world they live in. The picture contrasts starkly with the dominant narrative of a misinformed and manipulated public targeted by social media.

Abstract

In seeking to understand how to protect the public information sphere from corruption, researchers understandably focus on dysfunction. However, parts of the public information ecosystem function very well, and understanding this as well will help in protecting and developing existing strengths. Here, we address this gap, focusing on public engagement with high-quality science-based information, consensus reports of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Attending to public use is important to justify public investment in producing and making freely available high-quality, scientifically based reports. We deploy Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), a high-performing, supervised machine learning model, to classify 1.6 million comments left by US downloaders of National Academies reports responding to a prompt asking how they intended to use the report. The results provide detailed, nationwide evidence of how the public uses open access scientifically based information. We find half of reported use to be academic—research, teaching, or studying. The other half reveals adults across the country seeking the highest-quality information to improve how they do their job, to help family members, to satisfy their curiosity, and to learn. Our results establish the existence of demand for high-quality information by the public and that such knowledge is widely deployed to improve provision of services. Knowing the importance of such information, policy makers can be encouraged to protect it.

Who Uses Open Access Research? Evidence from the use of US National Academies Reports   | Impact of Social Sciences

“A fundamental principle of open access is that publication technology enables the widest possible audience for research findings. However, the extent to which open research is used outside of academia is often underexplored. Drawing on a dataset covering over a million user comments about their use of US National Academies consensus study reports, Ameet Doshi, Diana Hicks, Matteo Zullo and Omar I. Asensio find widespread use of open research in the public sphere….

Our classification project reveals that the impact of these reports extend far beyond the research community (see Results, Fig 1). We find that half of all report downloads are used for non-academic purposes, including to improve the provision of services by medical professionals, local and regional planners, public health workers, and veterans’ advocates, to name just a few of the 64 total categories of report use.  Heavy use is made of Academies reports on STEM education and how people learn by teachers, school administrators and teachers’ coaches.  Other notable reports with their prominent users included Dying in America (chaplains), Nutrient Requirements for Beef Cattle (farmers), and Best Care at Lower Costs (clinicians and hospital administrators)….

Open access repositories require significant resources, both technological and human, to sustain and innovate. The National Academies Press, for example, has developed an engaging user interface to incentivize browsing and ease of access to NASEM publications. The PubMed Central server, developed and managed by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), requires millions of dollars per year to operate. Our research indicates there is an identifiable payoff to society for these taxpayer investments into people, technology and design to support OA publishing….

Librarians and open access advocates have long presupposed that open access to high-quality scientific knowledge could and should be viewed as a public good. Our empirical research suggests that the initial utopian aspirations regarding the public use and societal impact of OA may indeed rest on sound footing.”

 

Open Scholarship Priorities and Next Steps: Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief |The National Academies Press

“The Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine brings together stakeholders to discuss the effectiveness of current incentives for adopting open science practices, barriers to adoption, and ways to move forward. According to the 2018 report Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research, open science “aims to ensure the free availability and usability of scholarly publications, the data that result from scholarly research, and the methodologies, including code or algorithms that were used to generate those data.” With the Roundtable coming to the end of its initial phase, a virtual workshop, held December 7, 2021, provided an opportunity to review lessons learned over the past 3 years and discuss next steps for Roundtable members, the National Academies, and others interested in advancing open science and open scholarship. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.”

Board/Program Director – Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine seeks a Program Director to develop and manage the portfolio of activities related to innovation and S&T competitiveness within the Policy and Global Affairs Division’s U.S. Science and Innovation Policy Theme. In particular, the incumbent will serve as the director of the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR), a forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise. …”

Workshop on Open Scholarship Priorities and Next Steps Registration, Tue, Dec 7, 2021 at 12:00 PM | Eventbrite

“On December 7, 2021, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science will hold a virtual public workshop to take stock of its achievements over the first three years and identify next steps for Roundtable members, the National Academies, and other stakeholders to advance open science and open scholarship.

The workshop will bring together participants from governments, policy makers, research funders, academia, and other stakeholders in the research and scientific community. A Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief will be prepared by designated rapporteurs and distributed broadly.”

NASEM Roundtable Releases Open Science Toolkit

It contains modular elements that can be adapted and adopted for a range of use cases, including language for hiring, tenure & promotion, and grantmaking; primers on good practices for openly sharing articles, data, and a number of other resource types, and an Open Science Success Stories Database, which compiles research articles, perspectives, case studies, news stories, and other materials that demonstrate the myriad ways in which Open Science benefits researchers and society alike. Notably, the National Academies is publishing the toolkit under a CC-BY license.

Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Public Release Registration, Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 3:30 PM | Eventbrite

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science will host a public release of Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Proceedings of a Workshop on Thursday, September 30, 2021 from 3:30-4:30 pm EDT. Please register in advance to receive information on how to participate in the event.”

Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Proceedings of a Workshop | The National Academies Press

“The National Academies Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science, established in 2019, has taken on an important role in addressing issues with open science. The roundtable convenes critical stakeholders to discuss the effectiveness of current incentives for adopting open science practices, current barriers of all types, and ways to move forward in order to align reward structures and institutional values. The Roundtable convened a virtual public workshop on fostering open science practices on November 5, 2020. The broad goal of the workshop was to identify paths to growing the nascent coalition of stakeholders committed to reenvisioning credit/reward systems (e.g., academic hiring, tenure and promotion, and grants)to fully incentivize open science practices. The workshop explored the information and resource needs of researchers, research institutions, government agencies, philanthropies, professional societies, and other stakeholders interested in further supporting and implementing open science practices. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.”

Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices Proceedings of a Workshop Release Event | National Academies

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science will host a public release of Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Proceedings of a Workshop on Thursday, September 30, 2021 from 3:30-4:30 pm EDT. Please register in advance to receive information on how to participate in the event. 

The forthcoming publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the virtual workshop held on November 5, 2020 that explored the information and resource needs of researchers, research institutions, research funders, professional societies, and other stakeholders interested in fostering open science practices. The proceedings will includes examples of toolkit elements that have been developed by members of working groups of the Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science. The toolkit is primarily intended to assist university leadership, academic department chairs, research funders, learned societies, and government agencies for aligning incentives for open science. 

The public release event is expected to highlight the value of an open science toolkit, National Academies engagement with open science, and an overview of the toolkit elements, followed by brief case studies presented by members of the community that show how the toolkit can be adapted and adopted. ”

Micah Vandegrift Appointed ARL Visiting Program Officer for Accelerating Social Impact of Research – Association of Research Libraries

“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has named Micah Vandegrift as a visiting program officer in the Scholars & Scholarship program for July 2021–July 2022. Vandegrift is the open knowledge librarian at NC State University Libraries.

As visiting program officer, Vandegrift will design and deliver a pilot experience for a cohort of eight ARL member libraries that are advancing open research practices at their institutions. The pilot Accelerating the Social Impact of Research (ASIR) program will help participants develop a strategic approach for advancing the social impact of science, aimed at building and reinforcing institutional points of influence for open research practices. This initiative is in coordination with the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science and with the NASEM Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI)….”