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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

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

6. 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)

7. 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

8. 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)

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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?

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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

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