Research data management (RDM) is as old as research itself. Scholars across the centuries have developed ways to organize and preserve the materials they work with. In today’s age of seemingly boundless technological possibilities, tool options, and ideas, more and more funders and institutions are outlining formal requirements around RDM to help overwhelmed researchers find their way to the latest best practices in handling data.

These requirements aren’t always experienced as helpful, of course. The lingo of RDM can sound alien; data management plan (DMP) templates don’t always align with recognizable research practices in different disciplines; tools for proper RDM are sometimes missing; and so on. These problems are (almost) as annoying for research support librarians like myself as they are for researchers themselves.

In moments of frustration, I like to go back to this 2015 video by data librarian Kristin Briney about the possibilities of RDM. Enjoy fifteen minutes of data inspiration:

To see or download the transcript, go to Rethinking research data on YouTube, click the three dots under de video next to “Save”, and click on “Show transcript” (detailed instructions).

Abstract:

The United States spends billions of dollars every year to publicly support research that has resulted in critical innovations and new technologies. Unfortunately, the outcome of this work, published articles, only provides the story of the research and not the actual research itself. This often results in the publication of irreproducible studies or even falsified findings, and it requires significant resources to discern the good research from the bad. There is way to improve this process, however, and that is to publish both the article and the data supporting the research. Shared data helps researchers identify irreproducible results. Additionally, shared data can be reused in new ways to generate new innovations and technologies. We need researchers to “React Differently” with respect to their data to make the research process more efficient, transparent, and accountable to the public that funds them.

Find more articles, resources, and general interesting stuff in the Artes Digital Scholarship Community on Zotero.

Are you a Dutch speaker who needs to transcribe old or new hand-written materials, or do optical character recognition (OCR) on print materials? Check out this upcoming webinar on Transkribus in Dutch, taking place on May 31, 2022, at 16h CEST:

Dit webinar van Dr. Annemieke Romein geeft een overzicht van de basis van Transkribus in het Nederlands. U leert hoe u documenten upload naar Transkribus, de lay-out analyse uitvoert, handmatige transcripties doet om trainingsdata te genereren, hoe u de geautomatiseerde herkenning gebruikt, welke publieke modellen we aanbieden, hoe de training van uw eigen model werkt en hoe u uw documenten kunt doorzoeken op speciale woorden en zinsdelen. We zullen de workflow stap voor stap doornemen en u krijgt de kans om vragen te stellen via de chat.

U hoeft zich niet te registreren om deel te nemen aan dit webinar (het zal ongeveer 45 minuten duren plus tijd voor vragen), u kunt er toegang toe krijgen via deze link: https://youtu.be/xe-OTS48FK

In the blog series “Researcher questions” the Artes Research team shares some common and/or pertinent questions that we get from researchers at the Faculty of Arts. The goal of the series is to share the advice that we give more broadly, as it might be helpful to others as well or make you consider something you had not thought about before.

“How will you apply metadata?” This question appears on every data management plan template. In workshops and resources like our research data management (RDM) guide, we talk about how using metadata to add structure to the content of research materials can improve the quality and potential of a project in countless often unexpected ways. Still, such brief and theoretical explanations don’t always make it clear what might be the point of using metadata to turn your specific research materials into structured data.

If this sounds like you, you may like to check out metadata-related pages from the user guides of the tools you would use to add metadata to your materials: reference managers, image management programs, online exhibition platforms, qualitative data analysis software, and so on. Such pages show directly how metadata application would work for you in practice, in accessible language and often with clear screenshots and recognizable examples from academic research.

Check out these examples:

Welcome to another overview of new digital scholarschip resources added to the Artes Digital Scholarship Community on Zotero (learn more about this group and join with your Zotero account to get the group’s resources right in Zotero on your desktop). It’s a brief one; we’re currently reading a lot of excellent data management plans from new PhD researchers, which will be their own blog post sometime in February.

In this edition: a fantastic new open access resource on data management in linguistics, unfortunate mishaps in publication and data management, more Zotero tips, and a long read for the weekend about the practicalities of supporting open access publishing at KU Leuven.

Welcome to another summary of new digital scholarschip resources added to the Artes Digital Scholarship Community on Zotero (learn more about this group and join with your Zotero account to get the group’s resources right in Zotero on your desktop).

In this edition: reference management tips and tricks, essential reading for those starting out with research on social media or other user-generated content online, a guide to organising and supporting citizen science projects, musings about the role of software in research, a warning shot for researchers who keep data on Google services (sorry), and for inspiration, a very lovely and fascinating visualization of character relationships in The Witcher:

• Want to start using a reference manager like Zotero, but worried about laboriously transferring every single reference in the long list of sources that you’ve been keeping in Word or elsewhere? AnyStyle converts a list of references into a structured format that can be imported by reference managers and other programs: Keil, S. (n.d.). AnyStyle.io. Retrieved December 23, 2021, from https://anystyle.io/
• We always recommend using a reference manager like Zotero to automatically generate bibliographies for your articles and ensure that your references section is complete and correct. If you haven’t used a reference manager, however, you can still use Recite to automatically check whether your in-text citations match your list of references: 4cite Labs. (n.d.). Recite: APA and Harvard citations checked instantly. Retrieved December 23, 2021, from https://reciteworks.com/
• A humorous interlude on reproducibility: Ben Golub. (2021, December 24). Economics paper with secret data be like https://t.co/wmUk2N4lrZ [Tweet]. @ben_golub. https://twitter.com/ben_golub/status/1474213075268128772
• A great summary of what researchers should keep in mind when using data from social media in their projects: Centre for Data, Culture, and Society. (2021). Social media research: Ethical guidance for researchers at the University of Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh. https://www.cdcs.ed.ac.uk/files/2021-09/Social_Media_Ethics.pdf
• A basic and essential guide to the ethical considerations that come with researching online materials: franzke, aline shakti, Bechmann, A., Zimmer, M., Ess, C., the, & Association of Internet Researchers. (n.d.). Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0. Retrieved January 10, 2022, from https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf
• A practical guide designed to assist those organising and participating in a citizen science project to get the most out of the experience: Group, L. C. S. W. (2021). Citizen Science Skilling for Library Staff, Researchers, and the Public. LIBER Citizen Science Working Group. https://doi.org/10.25815/hf0m-2a57
• An engaging example of network analysis and data visualization applied to textual data from the popular “Witcher” novels: Janosov, M. (2021, December 23). A Network Map of The Witcher. Nightingale. https://nightingaledvs.com/a-network-map-of-the-witcher
• On the crucial role of software in research, which is difficult to recognize within the traditional academic publication model: Jay, C., Haines, R., & Katz, D. S. (2021). Software Must be Recognised as an Important Output of Scholarly Research. International Journal of Digital Curation, 16(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v16i1.745
• And finally, a scary reminder that external cloud services exert sometimes unexpected amounts of control over the data posted there, and that scholarly data on cloud services is in danger if it’s flagged as a “potential policy violation”: Khalili, J. (2021, December 15). Google Drive could soon start locking your files. TechRadar. https://www.techradar.com/news/google-drive-could-soon-start-locking-your-personal-files

Starting this week, we’ll be posting regular summaries of new digital scholarschip resources that were added to the Artes Digital Scholarship Community on Zotero (learn more about this group and join with your Zotero account to get the group’s resources right in Zotero on your desktop).

In this inaugural edition, we have some great project management tips that are really about research data management (RDM), ways of using RSS feeds to keep track of updates on a website, how to export comments from Word files to turn them into structured data, ruminations on the influence of the coronavirus pandemic on scholarship, and more.

KU Leuven’s very own interdisciplinary ReproducibiliTea journal club is looking for coordinators and participants who want to learn from each other about what it takes to do open research. Learn more about everything from open data to preprint publishing, preregistration, and handling personal data, like in the following example:

That’s one of the most interesting things about ReproducibiliTea Leuven for me: Every time, I learn something new. For example, about the multitude of different data types that people work with or about the diverse array of issues researchers from different disciplines must consider. In one of our meetings, a colleague from movement sciences explained that they worked a lot with video data, which comes with major privacy issues; when a participant’s arm is being filmed and the participant has a tattoo, that is identifiable data. Another researcher talked about how to handle sensitive interview data from bereaved parents, and it all made me realize how crucial it is that open science practices are flexible, so they can cater to an array of potential use cases.

Would you like to stay up to date with new posts on the Scholarly Tales blog right from Outlook?

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is “a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format” (Wikipedia). Blogs and many other online resources, including academic journals and databases, often offer RSS feeds of their new content. By subscribing to RSS feeds, you can get updates from many sources delivered in one location.

Where can you find a website’s RSS feed? Search for a link called “feed”, “RSS”, or “RSS feed”, or look for a symbol that looks like a dot with curved lines extending from it: 

What tools are best for subscribing to RSS feeds? There is a host of dedicated RSS reader apps that make finding, subscribing to, and reading RSS feeds more enjoyable. Some research software you may already use, like Zotero, can also pull in content via RSS feeds. However, if you want to keep things very simple, you can also subscribe to RSS feeds right from your email client. If you’re at KU Leuven, you probably use Outlook in some form or another. Here’s how to get Scholarly Tales posts in Outlook:

1. In the right sidebar of the blog, under ‘Follow The Scholarly Tales’, click on ‘RSS feed for all posts‘. Then copy the web address of this feed page from the address bar.

2. In Outlook, in the Mail Navigation Pane, right-click RSS Feeds (Outlook 2013) or RSS Subscriptions (Outlook 2016), and then click Add a New RSS Feed.

3. In the dialog box that appears, paste the address you copied earlier into the box, click Add, and click Yes. (Based on instructions from Microsoft Support)

Happy reading!

Tropy, a sister project of the Zotero bibliography manager, is an open source program for managing and annotating research images and PDFs. For a thorough introduction to all of Tropy’s useful features, check out this recording of a webinar about Tropy that we announced earlier.

Do you work with language resources that contain information about living people? You may be working with “personal data” according to the (relatively) new General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. This free event on March 30 can help you find out more about your legal obligations:

The CLARIN Café will be devoted specifically to the rights of data subjects in the GDPR, and it will provide answers to the following questions, among others:

What are the rights granted to data subjects by the GDPR?
Are these rights limited when personal data are processed for the purposes of language research?
How to handle data subjects’ requests related to the exercise of their rights?
Who is responsible for handling such requests?

If you have questions about how the GDPR may or may not apply to your research, check out KU Leuven’s Privacy Portal and don’t hesitate to contact the experts there with specific questions. If you’re wondering how to safeguard personal data in a legal way, your local ICT help desk will also be happy to assist.

Looking for a simple but powerful tool to organize images for your research? Tropy is a free and open source program that is very much worth considering. You can attend a free webinar on Tropy on February 24:

This webinar will offer an introduction to Tropy, a free desktop software that allows you to organize and describe photos of archival research material. Directed toward historians, social science researchers, and students, the session will cover the basics of getting started in Tropy, recording relevant information about your materials, and annotating and tagging sources. Learn how to bring order to your research process—and spend more time using your research photos, and less time searching for them. To learn more about Tropy and download the application, visit tropy.org.

Registration: Introduction to Tropy: a Digital Tool for Organizing Archival Research Photos

If you’re curious about the ins and outs of Open Science, from open data to open access publishing and citizen science, check out the free Open Science Discovery for PhD Students event on March 25. Please register before February 28!

WHY WE NEED OPEN SCIENCE

At the end of a research project, we simply publish a paper with results and conclusions. How can we know that the research is reliable based on the paper alone? Transparency is needed about the methods used, the underlying data on which the findings are based, and how we went from data to conclusions. Preregistration of research protocols before research starts provides transparency and avoids bias during data collection, selection and analysis. So do openly available data, code and models. Open and more rapid forms of scientific communication and peer review are on the rise. Posting preprints online makes findings immediately available and allows feedback before manuscripts are submitted to journals. Citizens can also be active participants and stakeholders in scientific research, which helps breaking down barriers between scientists and citizens.

When? 25 March 2021, 14:00-16:30

Where? Online, link will be sent before the event

Target audience: PhD students

Language: English

Related event: Deepen your knowledge on the Open Science study Day on 3 May

Are you a doctoral student in Eastern and Arabic Studies (EAAS) at the Faculty of Arts of KU Leuven? Join us for the third EAAS PhD Seminar on Thursday 10 December from 13:00 to 14:30. This third edition will focus on research data management (RDM). We’ll cover the basics of RDM and discuss how RDM applies to everyone’s individual research projects.

If you’d like to participate, email Freya Terryn at freya.terryn@kuleuven.be to register.

New to research data management (RDM)? Not all that new but looking to brush up on topics like data storage, data sharing, or the latest KU Leuven regulations around RDM? “The hands-on guide to research data management for KU Leuven researchers, students, and research support staff in the humanities and social sciences” explains RDM best practices and guides you through completing a data management plan (DMP). Expect basic information about all aspects of RDM tailored to KU Leuven researchers, lots of real data stories, and DMP answer templates to get you started.

The guide was made for students, researchers, and other staff of KU Leuven who work in the social sciences and humanities. You can work through these materials independently or use them in the context of an RDM workshop organized at KU Leuven. The guide will be updated and improved, so your feedback is very welcome at rdm@kuleuven.be.

Citation info: Noppe, Nele, & Vanvelk, Jan. (2020, October). The hands-on guide to research data management for KU Leuven researchers, students, and research support staff in the humanities and social sciences (Version 1.2). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4115075.

On November 9, 2020, the doctoral school for the Arts and Humanities group is organizing an online workshop on research data management. Doctoral researchers in any arts and humanities field are warmly invited to attend. Register via the RDM portal to get email updates about the workshop.

The Parthenos Standardization Survival Kit shows how researchers can use a range of tools, methods, and data standards to create a standardized research workflow, depending on their discipline, chosen approach, specific research materials, and so on. What sort of workflow is good for creating 3D reconstructions in archaeology? Or interoperable TEI text resources? What specific tools are other researchers using for data gathering, annotation, or publishing? How are they working with images, texts, or artifacts?

In short, this is great tool to explore concrete ways to make a research project better with standards. You can also add your own workflows.

Mathematical engineer Joos Vandewalle, emeritus professor at the Faculty of Engineering Science (ESAT-STADIUS), is the very first Open Science ambassador at KU Leuven. Katrien Bollen, from KU Leuven’s Press Office and Policy Communications, interviewed Prof. Vandewalle about his views on Open Science.

The general public needs to trust scientists, and that requires openness. “In fact, without public trust, science loses much of its value. The corona crisis is a good example of this, but the same goes for research into, say, climate change, circular economy, or societal challenges such as the Sustainable Development Goals. In all these cases, scientists have to formulate independent recommendations based on scientific evidence.” But these recommendations will only be taken into account when there is trust.