Opening research data: issues and opportunities
| Published date | 15 July 2014 |
| Date | 15 July 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-01-2014-0005 |
| Pages | 142-162 |
| Author | Sue Childs,Julie McLeod,Elizabeth Lomas,Glenda Cook |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance |
Opening research data: issues
and opportunities
Sue Childs, Julie McLeod and Elizabeth Lomas
Department of Information Sciences,
Faculty of Engineering & Environment, Northumbria University,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, and
Glenda Cook
Faculty of Health & Life Sciences, Northumbria University,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to explore the issues, the role of research data management (RDM) as
a mechanism for implementing open research data and the role and opportunities for records
managers. The open data agenda is premised on making as much data as possible open and
available. However, in the context of open research data there are methodological, ethical and
practical issues with this premise.
Design/methodology/approach – Two collaborative research projects focusing on qualitative
health data were conducted. “DATUM for Health” designed and delivered a tailored RDM skills training
programme for postgraduate research students in health studies. “DATUM in Action” was an action
research project between researchers from information sciences, health, mathematics and computing,
looking at planning and implementing RDM.
Findings – Three key issues emerged about what research data is appropriate to make open/
accessible for sharing and reuse: re-using qualitative data conicts with some of the
epistemological and methodological principles of qualitative research; there are ethical concerns
about making data obtained from human participants open, which are not completely addressed by
consent and anonymisation; many research projects are small scale and the costs of preparing and
curating data for open access can outweigh its value. In exploring these issues, the authors
advocate the need for effective appraisal skills and researcher-focused RDM with records
managers playing a useful role.
Research limitations/implications – The ndings come from two small-scale qualitative projects
in health studies. Further exploration of these issues is required.
Practical implications – Records managers have new crucial opportunities in the open data and
RDM contexts, bringing their expertise and experience in managing a wider range of data and
information. They can help realise the benets of multiple perspectives (researcher, data manager,
records manager and archivist) on open research data.
Social implications – Researcher-focused RDM offers a mechanism for implementing open research
data.
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding support provided by JISC, under the Research
Data Management Programme (www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/mrd/rdmtrain.aspx and
www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/di_researchmanagement/managingresearchdata/
planning.aspx) for the DATUM for Health and DATUM in Action projects (www.
northumbria.ac.uk/datum).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0956-5698.htm
RMJ
24,2
142
Received 17 January 2014
Revised 23 May 2014
Accepted 3 June 2014
Records Management Journal
Vol. 24 No. 2, 2014
pp. 142-162
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0956-5698
DOI 10.1108/RMJ-01-2014-0005
Originality/value – It raises complex issues around open research data not found in the records
management literature, highlights the need for researcher-focussed RDM and research data appraisal
skills and a not yet fully recognised role for records managers.
Keywords Open data, Research ethics, Research methodology, Qualitative data, Data reuse,
Research data management
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The open data agenda is premised on making as much data as possible open and
available. However, in the context of open research data, the ndings from two research
data management (RDM) projects provide a new evidence-base on this topic and
highlight three key issues about what research data are appropriate to make open and
accessible for sharing and reuse: methodological issues; ethical issues and practical
issues. In exploring these issues, the authors advocate appraisal skills for researchers to
enable them to identify what data are safe to make open and accessible for sharing and
reuse, with RDM providing them with a mechanism for planning and implementing
open data. Additionally, the authors identify new roles and opportunities for records
managers in the open data and RDM contexts.
This article introduces the topic of open research data, briey describes the two RDM
research projects conducted by the authors and the data management challenges
experienced by the participant researchers, presents and discusses the three issues that
arose from these projects based on the researchers’ views, then discusses the role of
appraisal and RDM and the opportunities and roles for records managers. The context
of the RDM research projects and, therefore, of the issues raised is that of predominately
qualitative health-related research projects conducted by PhD students and academics
working in the UK higher education sector.
Open data and open research data
Open research data is one particular aspect of the wider topic of open data and has its
own particular challenges. However, it meets the denition of open data given by the
Open Data Institute, i.e. “information that is available for anyone to use, for any purpose,
at no cost”, but under licence:
Open data has to have a licence that says it is open data. Without a licence, the data can’t be
reused. The licence might also say:
• that people who use the data must credit whoever is publishing it (this is called attribution)
• that people who mix the data with other data have to also release the results as open data
(this is called share-alike)(
Open Data Institute, no date, no page).
Typically, public sector data are made available under an Open Government Licence, as
for example in the UK (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/
version/2/). Other data owners use Creative Commons licences (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/) when making data openly available.
In a research context, there is increasingly a view that most research data should be
open, particularly data from publicly funded projects. This view is driven chiey by
research funder requirements for data sharing and re-use, by regulatory compliance and
by agendas of greater transparency and accountability and of efciency and economic
143
Opening
research data
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