The Research Information Landscape:
Challenges for Researchers and Service Providers
Michael JubbDirector
Research Information Network
UK Data Archive Workshop11 July 2007
The Role of Information in Research: a Crude Model
Defining a set of research questions, issues or problemsIdentifying relevant existing knowledgeAccessing, analysing, and evaluating existing knowledge and dataDesigning a methodology for generating new knowledgeApplying the methodology and discovering new knowledgeCombining old and new knowledge to answer research questions and to enhance understandingDisseminating the outcomes of research in a form that is both sustainable and retrievable
Core Functions of the Research Communications System
Doing research to generate new knowledge and understandingAssuring the quality of information outputsEnsuring appropriate recognition and rewardPresenting, publishing and disseminating information outputsFacilitating access and useAssessing and evaluating usage and impactPreserving valuable information outputs for the long term
A Changing Landscape
Research in the Lab
Libraries and Archives
Publications and DataFieldwork
A Changing Landscape
Researchers’ Behaviour
1. As Users of Information
What do researchers want to find and use?
Research Resources Yes No Journal articles 99.5% 0.5%
Chapters in multi-authored books 97.0% 3.0%
Organization’s web sites 90.8% 9.2%
Expertise of individuals 90.1% 9.9%
Conference proceedings 85.8% 14.2%
Monographs 83.3% 16.7%
Datasets – published or unpublished 62.0% 38.0%
Original text sources, e.g. newspapers, historical records 61.5% 38.5%
Preprints 54.7% 45.3%
Non-text sources, e.g. images, audio, artifacts 47.0% 53.0%
Other 18.0% 82.0%
What Discovery Services do they Use?
Ranked research discovery service/source Rating
1. General search engine 1.6
2. Internal library portal 2.0
3. Specialist search engine 2.1
4. Research colleague 2.2
5. Subject-specific gateway 2.4
6. A&I service, Bibliographic database 2.6
7. External library or library portal 2.7
8=. Browsing internal library shelves 2.9
8=. Citation index 2.9
10. Librarian 3.1
11. List-servs 3.3
12. Blogs 3.5
Researchers’ Behaviour
2. As Creators of Information
Where do UK researchers publish?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Percent
Arts & humanities 82.0 6.1 8.6 6.5 2.8
Social sciences 77.9 8.6 15.9 5.3 3.8
Phy sical sciences 72.6 20.6 27.8 6.3 5.4
Life sciences 78.3 8.6 14.1 10.1 14.9
Sub-based journal (SBJ )
SBJ + OA repository
SBJ + own website
Fee-based OA journal
Free OA journal
See http://www.rin.ac.uk/files/libraries-report-2007.pdf
Data and Publications
Policy InitiativesOECD
Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from Public FundingMinisterial Statement, January 2004Recommendation to Member States December 2006
US Atkins Report 2004NSB Long-Lived Data Collections Report 2005NSF Cyberinsfrastructure Vision, and Interagency Working Group on Digital Data 2007
UKWellcome Trust Some Research Councils
Increasing the Return on Public Investment in Scientific
ResearchScholarly capitalLeveraging research investments
Replicating and verifying research findingsAsking new questions of extant data
Emphasis on collaborative researchCreation, sharing, re-use
Wellcome Trust
Issue 2 – Research potential not fully realised
Internet provides new opportunities for text and data to be fully integrated
The web – and web 2.0 developments – provides the ability for researchers to data-mine and mash-up data to generate new knowledge
The “read-only” access rights favoured by many publishers, limits these developments
Integrating text and data
Integrating text and data
Developing new resources from mining the literature: textpresso
Ability to computationally mine the text and data to enable new facts to be discovered The abstract is just not good enough. TextPresso developers found that
"full text access increases recall of biological data types from 45% to 95%. Some specific types of data (e.g., antibody data, mapping data, transgene data) are very unlikely to appear in abstracts ( 10% recall) but can be found in full text (70% recall)
Developing new resources from mining the literature: Malaria Atlas Map
Data mined from the research literature
“Mashed-up” with Google earth
Issues with Data Publication and Sharing
Integration and interoperabilityAnnotation, amendments and updatingProvenance and qualityExporting in agreed formats
To other programmes as well as people
SecuritySpecifying and enforcing read/write access
Disciplinary Differences
Incentives to Share?“openness”collaborationreciprocityrecognitioncoercion
rewards are for publication, not dataeffort needed to document data, produce metadata, anonymise personal datacontrol, competition and priority
Control until publicationControl until mining of data complete
IP, confidentiality and access issues
Misuse and misinterpretation“free riders”confidentialityPermissions re access to resources controlled by others
New (Non-Public Sector) Services
RSS
Some Issues and ImplicationsQuality assurance and the metrics of trust
Ratings for commentators and reviewers
The role of “high trust” specialistsAccess to their annotated bibliographies and taxonomiesContinuing commentaries on specialist topicsCharges for access to their brains?Formation of trust syndicates?Security and authentication
Implications for peer review systems?Citation and credit
Or………….
Scholarly Information Infrastructure
Agreements between research partnersOwnership, access and re-useRelease of data to others
Agreements within and between disciplines
Syntax and semanticsEmbargoes, ownership and release
Services, technology and policies to facilitate
Use and re-use of research findingsDiscovery and re-use of data
A Microsoft View
3. Some Conclusions
The need for evidence
Researcher behaviour and needsChanging research methods and culturesDisciplinary differencesGap between the leading edge and the mainstream
Virtual research environments, e-scienceOpen access
Take-up of new services
The information landscapeHighly distributed, nationally and internationallyRoles and responsibilities of key players
Policy, Process and Service Development
Sustaining world-class research and research communications
Continuity and changeChallenge and response
Enhancing efficiency and impactEvaluation and quality assessment(Biblio) metricsKnowledge transfer and social/economic impact
Balances and interfaces International, national and local Researchers, service providers and institutionsCommercial and non-commercial providers
Thank You
Michael JubbResearch Information Network
http://www.rin.ac.uk