Questions and answers - Research Council of Finland winter call - webinar on Open Science

Last modified by Marja Moisio on 2024/11/05 15:16

NB!

- The Academy of Finland has adopted a new English name. Starting the summer 2023, the new name in English is Research Council of Finland. Both names are used in the questions and answers below.

- The structure of the research plan has changed over the years. Section 4.1. of the research plan does not exist any more in the year 2024.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

Does the Academy of Finland support only post doc students or PhD student also?

→ Only post-doc researchers can act as PIs (principal investigators) and apply for funding. PhD students can be hired to these research projects by the PI.

Will there be a budgeting webinar for AoF application?

→ Different faculties may organize this sort of event. Ask your faculty HR or follow Research Funding Services training and events listing here: https://flamma.helsinki.fi/s/zbbEO

How about the possibility of IPR developed during the funding period, where should I put it?

→ The main place would be the section where you discuss your research outputs and expected results. If there is patents involved, which restrict following of the open science principles, then you can mention them in 4.1.

The CSC services – does the researcher have to pay for those?

The services are free for the researchers at the University of Helsinki. There are some exceptions however, where the amount of data and the available capacity is large. In those cases separate agreements are made. (2023)

QUESTIONS ABOUT OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING

Will there be a university check-up system also for the Open Access description? Can I ask you to check my draft for 4.1. (Open science), if its enough or need improvement?

→ We can advise you with publication plan in hulib-apc@helsinki.fi (costs) / openaccess@helsinki.fi (other questions)
You can send your draft for publication plan for comments to openaccess@helsinki.fi

Should a cost be added for publishing each article even though UH pays for it? What is the cost and which section of the budget does this go in?

→ The cost varies a lot. It is enough to say that UH will cover the costs.

Is it good to specific journal in subsection 4.1. for example Science or Nature?

→ This is not necessary. The essential information is that the article will be immediately and openly available

Is it worth mentioning if we plan to publish the manuscripts through a preprint server (before peer-review and publication of the final paper)?
→ it is useful to mention this as it advances OA but it is not required by AoF. You can add the information of the paper in ArXiv and other preprint repositories to Tuhat and add the link (choose pre-print version). Later on you can replace the link
with a file of the final, peer reviewed version and mark it as such.

Is budgeting/paying open access fees to visible and prestige journals enough for open access plan? I’ve had feedback that the reviewers don’t appreciate green/gold open access publishers as not visible(/distinguished) enough?

→ AoF is subscribed to DORA-declaration according to which the publication venue is not significant, only the content of the article

If I follow green open access publishing, do I have to reserve money in my budget for open access publishing?

→ Projects starting from September 2022 (applying now in Sept 21) do not need to budget OA. Publishing costs are covered by the overheads. Green open access is always free.

Do the Finnish universities or the university libraries have the transformative agreements with the publishers? What is the correct way to say?
→ Most Finnish universties are member of the Finelib consortium which negotiates the deals on transformative journals with the publishers, so the consortium makes the deal but the discounts etc. are received by the researchers of the member organizations. Find UH transformative deals from our APC-guide Finelib ongoing negotiations

Many of the top journals in the humanities are still behind paywalls, and therefore do not comply with open science requirements. How can applicants balance the need to publish in the best journals (in the publication plan) while also addressing open science? Many open science journals do exist in the humanities, however they are rarely the most ideal places for world-class research.

→ If there are no compliant Plan S-journals (see Journal Checker Tool!), you can publish in non open-journals and self-archive your articles to Tuhat (green open access) (> long-term preservation in open Helda-repository)

What about Frontiers in X series - are they recommended journals?

→ Yes, they are according to Journal Checker Tool, for example

→ https://libraryguides.helsinki.fi/apc/journals

I am planning to write a monograph. Can I put that to the publication plan or do I have to write articles only? Do I need to publish the monograph as open access?

→ Academy of Finland recommends open access for scientific monographs and other publications such as article collections. As yet there are no guidelines for this (national policy is in preparation). Note that you can include the costs of the open access monograph to the budget (research costs). Also. there is no guidelines on OA book articles yet, but as UH does not support their funding, it it reasonable to include costs of these to the research costs, ditto with Conference proceeding if you plan to publish them open access.

In my field it is very important to publish a monograph with a major university press, the bulk of which are not yet Open Access. How can we meet the open access requirement in this case?

→ Most major university presses have open access programs. Search for different publishers OA guidelines from their pages. For example, Oxford University Press has an Open Access Monograph Program: https://global.oup.com/academic/open-access/?cc=fi&lang=en
You can also ask about this from hulib-apc@helsinki.fi. On costs, see question above.

Do you have an idea who exactly is responsible at the AoF for responding such questions about OA of monographs?

→ Please, contact AoF questions and feedback: https://www.aka.fi/en/contacts/questions-and-feedback/ They will forward you to right person, if there is no dedicated team to answer OA questions.

QUESTIONS ABOUT DATA MANAGEMENT

What is the general turn around time if you submit a DMP for comments?

→ The turn around time for reviewing a DMP varies a lot. It may be from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. We also ping pong DMPs with researchers when there is details that need to be revised.

DATA DESCRIPTION

When making a data management plan, are we supposed to indicate when the data would be produced?

→ At the DMP-template, there is no question of the time, when the data would be produced. Anyway it is important to remember, that you have made all the necessary arrangements (e.g. agreements, informed participants, ethical statement) and other relevant actions before starting to collect any data. Also, note that in AoF terminology "data" is understood in broad sense, including also your internal documentation, notes, etc. so you are probably creating some data right from the start of your work.

Our research does not produce data, we only use already existing freely available statistics, do I need to answer all these questions anyway?

→ In the DMP context, ‘data’ is understood as a broad term. Data covers all the information and research material your results are based on. Therefore paying attention to your handling of reused data is as relevant as discussing newly created. Same goes with, for example, program code you create to analyze other people's data.

ETHICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS

I had to sign an undertaking on transfer of rights to the university as an attachment my employment contract. Now I am worried about whether the university will have access to the sensitive data I have collected?

-> Absolutely not. Data protection applies to personal data, and they cannot be accessed without legal grounds. Consent given by the study subject and their anonymity are respected just like before. Transfer of rights is required so that the university can fulfill its obligations in the project towards its cooperation partners and external funders. The purpose of the commitment is for example to protect other researchers of the project, if some of the member is going to take research data with she/he e.g. leaving the university.

Do I have the right to destroy my research data if I have signed a transfer of rights commitment to the University?

-> You should never delete that kind of data, what is needed to continue the research, publish or it is necessary to save for verifying results. In some case there is necessary to delete personal data, but it would be well planned, described in your DMP and written clear in the inform consent of participants.

METADATA

Does UH have DOI service? Are we member of the Datacite Finland Consortium?

→ The University of Helsinki is a community member of Datacite. Here is information about the Data DOI service at the University of helsinki: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/research/services-researchers/data-support/rdm-tools-services/digital-object-identifiers-dois.

Do we need to mention something about the metadata in the DMP at the application stage?

→ Especially, if you can't open the research data, tell where the metadata will be published.

STORING

How big is UH group folder?

→ 100 GB (30.8.2022). Here is a nice table about data storing solutions (incl. sizes) outlined by IT services of UH: https://wiki.helsinki.fi/x/kgV5FQ.

Can you use group directory (P) for sensitive data?

→ P: is not suitable for unencrypted sensitive data. If you can securely protect files from reading, for instance setting a strong file-specific password in Excel using the built-in Encrypt function, you can use it with discretion.

Why memory sticks or external hard drives are not recommended? Why we cannot just use Microsoft or Google Drive for interview data, for example?

→ It is surprisingly easy to forget or break an external memory device, not to forget that it's quick to grab one if someone with bad intentions intrudes to your office, so it's advisable to avoid them if possible. In case of interview data, HU policies and GDPR requirements limit your freedom to choose cloud storage options, especially if any leak could cause harm or damage.

Can you give a simple list of the most suitable UH systems for data storage, and tell which are open and which are for sensitive data, and which are free?

→ Data storing solutions in UH table: https://wiki.helsinki.fi/x/kgV5FQ

→ Data repositories for open or publishing data after active processing: https://www.re3data.org/

What is VDI desktop? and Microsoft 365 license level A3E?, required for Umpio. Why should we know about these things?

→ VDI stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, i.e. a system of servers providing number of Windows and Linux virtual machines which can be used remotely. In case of Umpio, access to it's secure data disk is via a hardened Win10 VDI machine that is carefully isolated from rest of the network (due to technical limitations, there is no Linux desktop alternative in this case). Remote use of Windows environment requires a matching software license. HU full-time staff members have this Microsoft A3E license by default, but other user groups (students, docents, outside collaborators, etc.) have typically A1 level which must be upgraded to A3 before they can be granted Umpio access.

OPENING AND PUBLISHING

Do you know about zenodo server (https://zenodo.org/)? Is it free to store data there? I found a lot of data related to my field stored there.

→ Yes, we recommend researchers that they should store their data to the Zenodo (https://www.re3data.org/repository/r3d100010468) if there is no any suitable repository of their data subject. Zenodo is free for all. Total files size limit per record is 50GB. Higher quotas can be requested and granted on a case-by-case basis. Try to find subject repository first from different catalogues e.g. re3data,org (https://www.re3data.org/) or FAIRsharing (https://fairsharing.org/databases/)

In my field, scholars do not share their data or “metadata” (a term that not used in my field). In addition, my sources come from closed archives, which and I’m not sure I have the right to share the documents I find. Would you have any advice on these issues?

→ You can merit yourself by looking outside the box in your field. One key criteria in AoF review is "Renewal of Science". Be the first to develop your field into new and more open direction! However, always respect the agreement made with the museum or archive (or anyone else) from where you collect or receive your data or source material. And first of, MAKE AN AGREEMENT with these parties as early as possible. Agree upon how you can use the data and material that you receive from them.

If we develop a model which we run and produces data based on input parameters, which means the data are reproduceable by running the code again with the same inputs (although time consuming) do we need to budget money for storing the output data or is it sufficient to say that everything can be reproduced with this code and this inputs?

→ Usually it is enough, that you publish the raw data and the code. If the calculation has taken a lot of time and other resources, you should save and store output data a least yourself.

Is it enough to write in 4.1 that the data can be accessed by contacting the PI or researchers in the project?...continue

→ No, it isn’t recommended and not enough, if your data is possible to open or publish. Open data means that data is findable and available free for everyone. If it isn’t possible to open data (in the case of sensitive data or other reason not to open it), metadata should open at least.

... If it isn’t enough, do we need to contact potential archives or similar already in this phase, or can one write that the data will be archived somewhere without asking them in advance?

→ at the application phase it is not necessary to contact the data archives, but it is very useful to check the requirements and other information of potential data repositories at the same time as the research planning and especially before collecting data. The very useful repository catalogue is re3data.org.

If I collect only news articles from publicly available online archives of newspapers in several countries, is it worth publishing such a dataset after the project? If so, should I aim to publish the dataset in a repository that is used in the countries in which the newspapers are published?

→ First you must find out whether you can open these articles at all. That kind of materials always have publishers and owners, If you are going to open, these articles must be licensed or by CC licence. But why should you open these, if they are already available? The references and metadata can of course be opened. Repositories are usually internationally accessible, even if the repository is local. It is better to prefer thematic repositories rather than local or general repositories.

RESOURCES

Is it possible to over estimate cost of data if it's not yet clear how much data is required? Or should it be only exact data costs?

→ in most cases, costs and working time are underestimated. There is no need to give exact costs at this stage. For example, it is useful to describe the steps that need to be taken to publish the data and the costs involved. These may include data conversion, metadata creation, anonymisation, etc. Here are some useful tools to estimate the costs and time:

Costing tool and checklist (UK data archive)
Infographic: What will it cost to manage and share my data? (DCC)

ABOUT SECTION 4.1 of THE RESEARCH PLAN

Is there a template of how to write the paragraph in 4.1?

→ No, there are only short instructions about the subjects that all applicants should briefly describe their data management and their publication plan.
https://www.aka.fi/en/research-funding/apply-for-funding/how-to-apply-for-funding/az-index-of-application-guidelines2/data-management-plan/data-management-plan/

→ As with other parts in research plan, reflect your own project and its workflows. Do not copy-paste ideas or sentences from somewhere outlined by someone else.

How is section 4.1 linked to data management plan?

→ in section 4.1 there should be a short version of your DMP. You do not need to outline your DMP at this point (it is required only after positive funding decision), however, it will help you to write 4.1 if you have a tentative idea about your data management workflow, which you need to plan in advance.

The data management should be put in section 4.1 How about section 2.2 as it mentioned about Research data and material, methods, and research environment?

→ In 2.2 you describe your analytical and methodological data processing incl. data collection, that is 2.2 is concentrated on the scientific part of your data processing. In 4.1 you concentrate on how you meet the open science requirements and manage your data from technical data management point of view. See also 4.1 where you need to consider the ethical issues related to your data management.

When I hear “Open Science” I also think about outreach (i.e, communication to public, knowledge dissemination). Is this something that should/could be mentioned under 4.1 as well?

→ When you publish open access and share your data, the dissemination follows from that... OA-articles get more citations and are available to everyone….

FOR MORE INFORMATION

If I want to ask again later, where should I go?

→ If you have any further questions, please, contact the following addresses: hulib-apc@helsinki.fi / openaccess@helsinki.fi / datasupport@helsinki.fi / Material will be available here: https://wiki.helsinki.fi/x/jb5ZDQ