Knowledge Exchange news

Welcome to the last Knowledge Exchange (KE) newsletter of 2020.

This year has been dominated by the coronavirus pandemic and hard work to adapt to the strictly virtual ways to connect, exchange and collaborate. The good thing is that we have developed our skills and built experience using virtual means and approaches to organise attractive and engaging online events.

Our expert community adapted to working together online only and we can report on several productive online sessions; A stakeholder workshop and focus group meetings within the Openness Profile activity; and working meetings by the Open Scholarship and Open Access Expert Groups to scope several new activities, some of which have already started their efforts, collaborating virtually. We also brought together all experts and colleagues within KE for an inspiring Open Scholarship & Open Access workshop, including many networking opportunities and also marking our 15 year anniversary!

Current Activities

Openness Profile Stakeholder Event & Focus group meetings

Our work on the Openness Profile has continued, following up the report 'Openness Profile: Defining the Concepts' published earlier this year, which provides an extensive overview of strategies, barriers, and community needs regarding new evaluation approaches geared to openness.

A stakeholder workshop to gather together key experts in open scholarship, road-test the Openness Profile concept and to seek consensus on possible next steps, was planned for April 2020, but postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions. The face-to-face workshop was replaced by an online workshop held in early July, followed by a series of five focus group sessions, conducted between August and September 2020.

During the workshop and focus group sessions, use cases were produced and have fed into discussions delineating the challenges and possible ways to extend recognition and credit for open scholarship and research support work in grant applications, assessments and careers. In line with previous KE work and outputs, discussions raised the value of collective action and sponsorship to carry openness as a key to evaluation forward.

Publication of our final report ‘Knowledge Exchange Openness Profile: A reference model for the evaluation of open scholarship’ is expected in February 2021.

Our Work

Open Scholarship Expert Group initiates two new activities

Our new Open Scholarship Expert Group first met in February this year. Following this meeting, the group has continued to meet virtually to identify and agree two activities in the area of Open Scholarship for KE to work on in 2021. These activities are ‘PID’s: Risks and Trust’ and ‘FAIR data & software supporting reproducibility’.  

 PID’s: Risks and Trust

Through this activity, KE plans to address the risks (commercial actors increasing control, unstable funding mechanisms for crucial PID providers, lack of interoperability, poor quality of metadata, duplication issues, inconsistent freshness of information, etc.) and trust-building measures involved when trying to build, maintain and use an efficient and well-functioning PID infrastructure.

A Task and Finish group for this work has been formed and is working to further scope the activity. Experts working on this activity are:

• Britta Dreyer, TIB, Germany
• Clifford Tatum, Leiden University, Netherlands
• Frank Manista, Jisc, UK (KE Lead)
• Gaëlle Béquet, ISSN, France
• Hilda Muchando, Jisc, UK
• Jessica Parland-von Essen, CSC, Finland
• Josefine Nordling, CSC, Finland (KE Co-Lead)
• Laurents Sesink, Leiden University, Netherlands
• Lorna Wildgaard, Copenhagen University Library, Denmark
• Martin Matthiesen, CSC, Finland (Expert Co-lead)
• Nathalie Fargier, CCSD, France
• Pascal Aventurier, IRD, France
• Rene Belsø, DeiC, Denmark (Expert Lead)
• Sally Rumsey, Jisc, UK

We aim to bring you more details of this work and will keep you updated on progress in 2021.

FAIR Data & Software Supporting Reproducibility

Experts have started to define the scope for our work on FAIR data and software supporting reproducibility. This topic was identified as a strategic priority for KE by our Partners, as reproducibility is one of the pillars of good research. However, whereas digital technologies should make it easy, reproducibility is often hard to achieve.

We have started work with experts, discussing ways to explore how theory on reproducibility compares to practice, and how to look deeper into the balance between effort and benefits of focussing on reproducibility.

We will keep you updated on the progress of this work in the coming months.

The start of two new activities in the KE Open Access Expert Group

Publishing Reproducible Research Output

Reproducibility and transparency can be regarded as cornerstones of research. Despite the fact that most researchers agree reproducibility and transparency are desirable goals and are part of good scientific practice, efforts in these regards are not widespread.

In this Knowledge Exchange project, we will investigate current practices and barriers related to publishing reproducible research outputs, to determine how infrastructure – both technical and social – can support this.

We will conduct a literature review about reproducibility from the view of researchers, infrastructure services and funders; an online survey with researchers and infrastructure services; and in-depth interviews with selected stakeholders.

A Task and Finish group for this activity has been formed, including experts from each of the partner countries:

• Anna Mette Morthorst, DeiC, Denmark (KE Co Lead)
• Birgit Schmidt, University of Göttingen Germany
• Birte Christensen Dalsgaard, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Daniel Nüst, University of Münster, Germany
• Jeroen Sondervan, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
• Juliane Kant, DFG, Germany (KE Lead)
• Matthew Jacquiery, University of Oxford, UK
• Pierre-Carl Langlais, Université de Montpellier Paul Valéry / Sorbonne Université, France
• Saskia Woutersen-Windhouwer, Leiden University, The Netherlands
• Verena Heise, University of Oxford, UK
• Yrsa Neuman, Åbo Akademi University, Finland

We are delighted that we will once again work with Research Consulting to support us in undertaking this work.

Find out more on the KE website

Small Publishers and the transition to Open Access

What changes are needed to help smaller-size publishing houses transition to Open Access? We have formed a Task and Finish group to address this question, through identifying and understanding which publishers experience challenges in transitioning to Open Access and the technical, funding and policy issues they face. The group are working to further scope this activity and aim to start work in early 2021.

The Task and Finish group for this activity includes:

• Anna-Mette Morthorst, DeiC, Denmark
• Anne Thorst Melbye, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
• Antti-Jussi Nygard, The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies,  Finland
• Arja Tuuliniemi, Finnish National Library, Finland
• Emmanuelle Morlock, CNRS, France
• Frank Manista, Jisc, UK (KEG co-lead)
• Jean-François Lutz, University of Lorraine, France
• Jean-François Nominé, CNRS, France (KEG lead)
• Jeroen Sondervan, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
• Jesper Boserup Thestrup, Royal Danish Library, Denmark
• Margo Bargheer, Göttingen State and University Library, Germany
• Markus Putnings, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
• Saskia Woutersen-Windhouwer, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Other News

Changes within Knowledge Exchange

We’re sad to say goodbye to Matthias Katerbow (DFG) and Irina Kupiainen (CSC), after serving in the KE Steering Group for several years. The new steering group member on behalf of DFG is Kathrin Winkler. Maijastiina Arvola will join on behalf of CSC. Welcome Kathrin and Maijastiina!

Take care and stay healthy,

The purpose of Knowledge Exchange is to exchange knowledge, build expert networks and cooperate between partners, with special a focus on Open Access and Open Scholarship. KE has an open eye for emerging opportunities to enhance and support an open higher education and research infrastructure.

Feedback or comments on this newsletter? You can contact us at office@knowledge-exchange.info or visit our website