The 2004 Canadian National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data: recommendations and implementation of a national strategy on data access

Presentation made on May 16th, 2007, during the IASSIST 2007 Conference, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Michel Sabourin, Ph.D. Professor and Chair Department of Psychology University of Montreal Chair, Canadian National Committee for CODATA National Research Council Canada

OUTLINE Objectives Background Forum - OECD Ministerial Declaration (2004) - SSHRC National Data Archive Consultation (2002) Forum - Participants, Format, Speakers and Sponsors - Strategy - Vision 2020 - Findings - Impact Areas, Challenges to Open Access and Areas for Action Recommendations

OBJECTIVES Recommend open access actions to the Canadian research community Help to preserve historically significant data Generate workable solutions to the different barriers to access

BACKGROUND Introduction -Public funding debate – value for money -Open access as an accelerator vs commercial interests -Need for systematic data archiving -Other issues

BACKGROUND (Cont’d) OECD Ministerial Declaration on Access to Public Research Data (2004) Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (Canada) Consultation on National Data Archive (2002)

FORUM (November 2004) Task Force, chaired by David Strong PARTICIPANTS Task Force, chaired by David Strong Project Management, chaired by Gordon Wood Participants: N = 74 Wide coast-to-coast representation of organizations and disciplines

Participants Senior Academic Researchers Senior Academic Administrators Federal Networks of Centres of Excellence Research Laboratory Senior Scientists Research Laboratory Administrators Data Libraries (CARL) Granting Council Senior Staff Statistics Canada Researchers 74 participants -- Task Force plus 45 other scientists (bench and policy setting eg. VPs research; all relevant disciplines, all provinces, all research universities); detailed list in Report Emphasis on university sector because they are the ones who mostly think of themselves as personally ‘owning’ their data. Data generated by government scientists are covered by policies of their ministries -- policies which themselves may be poor (eg. selling geographical data at high costs) but are a slightly different problem Good cross-section; very good rapport, many compliments on the process Held at LAC; seemed most fitting setting Claire Morris, President of Assoc. of Universities and Colleges of Canada, dinner speaker (considered a real coup to have her speak as it is this group which most needs to get on board)

FORUM (Cont’d) FORMAT Prominent speakers to set tone, give background & focus minds Facilitated, small groups discussions with periodic plenary sessions Generated a « mind-map » - means of grouping ideas

FORUM– “Mind-Map” In reality, was a sheet of paper (about 20 feet long by 4 feet high) in which the various ideas were grouped together in real time (by Jac van Beek) Turned out to be a very effective tool

Speakers Dr. Arthur Carty – Keynote Address Chuck Hasel (subst. for Martin Godbout ) – Genome Canada Marie Tobin – Industry Canada. (OECD Rep.) Janet Halliwell – SSHRC Lessons learned Paul Uhlir – US National Academy David Moorman – SSHRC Charlyn Black – CIHR Greetings from Partner organizations Patricia Kosseim – CIHR Eliot Phillipson – CFI Steve Shugar – NSERC Michael Raymont (Bernard Dumouchel) – NRC Dr. Carty Keynote “A Vision for Scientific Research Access” (intro by Ian Wilson) Chuck Hasel (sub for Martin Godbout ) Genome Canada “The Power of Accessibility” Marie Tobin, Industry Canada, “Implications and Possibilities of the Ministerial Declaration on Access to Publicly Funded Research Data” Janet Halliwell, SSHRC, “An Introduction to recent experiences in developing access to scientific research data” Lessons learned Paul Uhlir – US NA, American perspective David Moorman – Canadian Social Sciences perspective Charlyn Black – CIHR perspective Greetings from Partner organizations Patricia Kosseim, CIHR Eliot Phillipson, CFI Steve Shugar, NSERC Michael Raymont (Bernard Dumouchel), NRC

Sponsors Managing Sponsor Primary Sponsors Collaborating Sponsor National Research Council of Canada Primary Sponsors Canada Foundation for Innovation Canadian Institutes of Health Research Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Collaborating Sponsor Industry Canada

Relate to a vision of the Canadian data scene in 2020 FORUM – Strategy Relate to a vision of the Canadian data scene in 2020 Think from perspective of 2020; how things are being done then and what we did to get there – much better than getting bogged down in details about how bad things are perceived to be now

Vision – 2020 Canada is the centre of the global knowledge grid. It has become the desired nation with which to partner in research because of its national system of open access to research data. Canadian creativity and innovation is the highest in the world. Open but secure access to powerful and globally assembled data has transformed scientific research. … Vision was developed by the Task Force as a challenge for the Forum participants to consider. As a vision, was purposely grandiose and far reaching – a stretch but a worthy goal

Vision – 2020 (Cont’d) Researchers routinely analyze problems of previously unimaginable complexity in months rather than decades Resulting knowledge and discovery have enriched quality of life, transformed healthcare, improved social equality, provided greater security, broadened decision perspectives, transformed advancement of human knowledge. Essentially self explanatory

FORUM – Given that Vision … What were the challenges? What were the inhibitors? What did we do to get there? What are the actions needed now?

Findings – Impact areas New Science Better Science Leadership in Innovation Superior Policy and Strategy More Efficient Research Enhanced Education

Findings – Challenges to Open Access Priority of Need Champions for Change Culture (research, administrative and bureaucratic) Training Standards and Processes Archival Expertise Responsibilities, Systems and Tools Other Challenges and Opportunities Priority -- Data tend to be taken as a given; always secondary to issues like funding, curricula, expansion, ageing infrastructure, etc. Champions – need to move now from studies and discussions to actions by one or more champions Culture – cost recovery policies of some agencies; competitiveness rather than collaboration re public good at the individual researcher level Training – few researchers have expertise or interest in db dev. or preservation; reticence to assume db management responsibility beyond their immediate research project interests Standards/Processes – most are developed within a given discipline; stds suitable for cross-disciplinary access will be difficult both technically and culturally Archival expertise – in Canada there are an insufficient number of trained archivists; need for the specialty to be recognized as essential to the research enterprise Responsibilities, Systems & Tools – issues of who is responsible for a db at the conclusion of active use; for any liability from use of the data, etc.; tools that will last as long as the data Other – unreadable media; poor or non-existent metadata; location unknown

Findings – Areas for Action Research Culture and Behavior Research Institute Management, Policies and Strategies Legal and Policy Frameworks Financing and Budgeting of Research Data Technologies and Computing Infrastructure Flow quite clearly from the Challenges identified in the previous slide and are all addressed in the Recommendations to be reviewed in the next 3 slides

Recommendations (1) Sponsors/Partners Data Force Establish ‘Data Force’ Data Force Commission small scale pilot project Plan & supervise formation of Data Canada Education – foster awareness in leadership Funding – seek long-term funding for Data Canada Develop data access strategic plan Data Force An ad hoc body of finite lifetime to ‘get the ball rolling‘ Sponsors/Partners identified as the logical parties to establish it Sufficiently broadly representative to be credible and viable yet not so large as to be unwieldy – a potentially challenging balancing act

Recommendations (2) Data Canada Interaction with international community Deal with ethics, privacy, liability and anonymization issues Establish a framework for archiving selected data Take steps to preserve databases at risk Develop assessment criteria for data quality and value (via international collaboration) Data Canada A permanent Canadian data access organization Implement the strategic plan by doing the sorts of activities listed

Recommendations (3) Funding Agencies Universities and Researchers Train principal investigators in data management practices Require data management plans in grant applications Provide resources to fund preservation of important data Establish peer review mechanism for evaluating data Establish reasonable time limits for denying access by others Universities and Researchers Extend reward system to include recognition of excellence in data ‘management’ Train specialists in data preservation and curation Funding Agencies These recommendations represent a fairly major shift in current emphases of these organizations – activities related to data have typically been seen as relatively unimportant and have not attracted grants This is one of the reasons these bodies were recruited as sponsors of the NCASRD These agencies are key to ‘getting the attention’ of university researchers re the importance of making their data available – dollars usually triumph over altruism/public good as a motivator Universities Excellence in data-related work has to be valued re tenure ‘points’; not regarded as second-class science as is often the case Just as the need for bio-informaticians was recognized about 10 years and new programs were initiated so is there now a need for data preservation specialists

Conclusion - Next Steps Find Champion(s) to take forward with support of Partners/Sponsors Final Report available online: http://ncasrd-cnadrs.scitech.gc.ca/NCASRDReport_e.pdf In progress; maybe David Strong will have some news by the 13th?