DOI: 10.3897/rio.12.e195997

Authors: Dragan Ivanovic, Grischa Fraumann, Jennifer Dusdal, Kim Holmberg, Vladimir Trajkovik, Houcemeddine Turki, Colin Layfield, Stevo Popovic, Haris Memisevic, Lidija Ivanovic, Tim Engels, Georgia Kapitsaki, Cristina Huidiu, Đilda Pečarić, Romain David, Rossana Morriello

Abstract: The open science paradigm, digitalisation, interdisciplinarity and internationalisation have significantly changed the research process, collaboration, dissemination and impact of scholarly work in the 21st century. Research impact assessment should include new metrics based on Web 2.0 channels suffering from the following issues: data quality (i.e. accuracy, coverage, comprehensiveness), heterogeneity of data sources and APIs and potential manipulation (i.e. metrics gaming). Although the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) principles were designed for research data, they can also be applied to research impact metrics to increase their discoverability and reusability. The main aim of this European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action is to remove barriers for the wider adoption and reusability of metrics, based on Web 2.0 technologies, which are a significant and vital part of research ecosystems. These metrics can serve as the basis for enhanced research impact assessment and, thus, improve recognition of excellence and foster the further development of science and society. Although Scientometrics, based on Web 2.0, is a paradigm that is over 10 years old, it has not yet been widely adopted. Therefore, a plan or roadmap for transition to Scientometrics 2.0 is needed. This should include recommendations for overcoming the challenges associated with new research impact metrics, as well as frameworks for the evaluation of new metrics and data sources. These challenges include the heterogeneity and comprehensiveness of metrics data sources, the varying quality of metrics data, metrics data gaming etc. Due to the multifaceted nature of these challenges, the Action proposes to create synergies between all interested actors: researchers, research software engineers, librarians, representatives of metrics data providers and policy-makers.This article presents an edited version of the original funding proposal submitted to the COST Open Call 2021.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.12.e174543

Authors: Luciana Chavez Rodriguez, Guilherme Oyarzabal, Bruno Eleres Soares, Alejandra Guzmán Luna, César Marín

Abstract: A brain drain phenomenon, i.e. the migration of highly skilled professionals, has represented and still represents a severe loss of intellectual capital for Global South countries. Factors driving this migration include limited research infrastructure, funding constraints, political instability and the lack of scientific career prospects in the Global South and the consequences are multifaceted. While this can hinder local development in the Global South, it simultaneously enriches research ecosystems in the Global North, exacerbating existing global inequalities in science and technology. Under this scenario, scientific diasporas represent an effort to counterbalance the brain drain scenario through initiatives that aim to increase science and technology development, which are led by self-organised expat professionals and scientists. While we can find some successful examples of international cooperation driven by scientific diasporas, without a proper organisation and full participation of the governments of the countries of origin, scientific diasporas can become dysfunctional and can promote more migration upon training. We, five early-career scientists, discuss our perspectives and personal reflections on scientific diasporas. We describe three migration models of highly skilled professionals, starting with a brain drain model, scientific diaspora and dysfunctional scientific diaspora and provide some ideas to help the implementation of successful scientific diasporas. We believe that migration must be a personal decision seeking scientific growth and professional development and not the only option we should have to pursue a fulfilling career in science.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e181727

Authors: Alexandra-Maria Klein, Anda Adamsone-Fiskovica, Georgina Alins, Per Angelstam, Aurelie Belveze, Jordi Bosch, Tom Breeze, Richard Comont, Elise de Groot, Lynn Dicks, Anselm Rodrigo Dominguez, György Dudás, Lotta Fabricius Kristiansen, Mariia Fedoriak, Nicola Gallai, Michael Garratt, Mikelis Grivins, Christina Grozinger, Nigel Jenner, Georgios Kleftodimos, David Kleijn, Anikó Kovács-Hostyánszki, Bodo Krauss, Sara Leonhardt, Julia Osterman, Annie Ouin, Amy Plowman, Simon Potts, Claus Rasmussen, Laura Roquer-Beni, Daniele Rossi, Maj Rundlöf, Oliver Schweiger, Henrik Smith, Jane Stout, Louis Sutter, Martin Thorsøe, George Vlontzos, Dimitry Wintermantel, Nina Kranke, Amibeth Thompson

Abstract: RestPoll is a transdisciplinary project aiming to provide society with tools to reverse wild insect pollinator declines and to position Europe as a global leader in pollinator restoration and set the future agenda for pollinator restoration worldwide. The RestPoll consortium combines the expertise of natural and social scientists, as well as representatives of NGOs, businesses and ministries. RestPoll - together with stakeholders ranging from individual land managers to public authorities - co-designs, evaluates and refines measures and cross-sectoral approaches to restore pollinators and their services. Central to RestPoll is the establishment of a Europe-wide network of pollinator restoration case-study areas with Living Labs, which are unique hubs for experimentation, demonstration and mutual learning at various spatial scales (field, farm, landscape, European scales), in landscapes dominated by intensively managed crops or grasslands. The RestPoll consortium explores, tests, evaluates and refines cross-sectoral pollinator restoration approaches to conserve biodiversity and to benefit nature and society. Our holistic approach also aims to engage in participatory planning and the development of new business models along the food value chain by engaging through newly-developed participatory approaches at diverse social, ecological and political scales. Learning outcomes are communicated to a diverse range of regional and European partners and collaborators, which allows for making a lasting impact beyond the end of the project.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e177547

Authors: Elisaveta Kozhuharova

Abstract: The decline of wild bees is a hazard to both agricultural products and biodiversity. Since the problem, in general, is of anthropogenic origin, society must be well-informed and educated, so that adequate actions can be taken. This is valid, particularly for the future generation. The aim of this study is to investigate 1) the knowledge of children about bees and their role in the ecosystems and 2) which information sources do children rely on, and how do they assess their credibility. An interview was conducted with 60 children aged between 6 and 12. The study reveals that knowledge of facts about bees is limited. Although 70.0% of children know that bees are “useful and necessary”, and 78.3% of children think that “plants need bees”, they generally do not understand their role in ecosystems. Therefore, education about biodiversity conservation is crucial. The challenge for researchers and educators is to present well-adapted information about bees to children, with a special focus on wild bees. Media literacy is a bridge between the children and the digital world. It can be an efficient tool to create "an ecological way of thinking for biodiversity conservation" as a part of the children‘s personal value system. Children should be prepared to filter true from fake information. In the future they must be capable of advocating a competent citizenship position for biodiversity protection in policy making.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e179253

Authors: Ronny Gey, Daniel Mietchen, Oliver Karras, Tim Wittenborg, Moritz Schubotz, Jan Bumberger

Abstract: Across essentially all fields of research, many aspects of the respective research processes – whether experimental, theoretical, empirical or outright computational – are closely related to software. Yet the process of finding software that is directly suitable or at least a good starting point for a given research task is cumbersome.This project aims to develop a community-driven system that provides potential users of research software with a diversity of pathways towards actually finding software that closely matches their research needs if such software exists. Conversely, it will provide software developers with mechanisms to make their software findable for research-related tasks and it will highlight mismatches between software supply and demand for specific tasks.To this end, we will document how various stakeholders of the research landscape have been searching for – or stumbling upon – research software so far, identify variables associated with successful search outcomes and build workflows that assist in describing software and associated concepts in a standardised fashion. These descriptions will then be aligned across various sources of relevant information and integrated into Wikidata, the knowledge graph that anyone can edit and that already contains considerable breadth and depth of information related to research, software and their interactions.While keeping an eye on similar approaches to software discovery that might work in parts of the research ecosystem, existing Wikidata content and workflows will be reviewed and built upon. Additional documentation, tooling and workflows will be developed to enrich, expand, curate, query and explore this content, both for specific use cases and with ongoing engagement of the communities involved in research software, open data or collaborative curation. Within its three years, the project seeks to establish a dedicated community overseeing a well-documented and smoothly running infrastructure for software discovery and to devise a plan for how this can be sustained for the longer term.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e175726

Authors: António Jorge do Rosário Cruz, Fernanda Herrera-Mesías, Anna Hauprich, Dylan Thissen, Alexander Weigand

Abstract: The ultimate goal of the beelibre project is to provide a kind of “one-stop-shop” online resource, hosting within a single multi-lingual website (beelibre.lu) relevant information concerning the wild bee fauna of Luxembourg. This website will provide free and immediate access to information on the taxonomy, natural history and geographical distribution of the over 350 species of wild bees species recorded in Luxembourg. For this purpose, four sections (a.k.a “libraries”) are hosted within the website: i) a database of high-quality images taken from live bees and museum specimens (for morpho-taxonomic identification and outreach); ii) a bibliographic repository of all nationally relevant publications (for metadata analysis and knowledge exchange), incl. short summaries; iii) a pollen inventory pilot experiment aiming to uncover potential ecological interactions between regional host flowering plants and their associated wild bee pollinators and iv) a DNA barcode reference library of wild bee species from Luxembourg currently lacking reference material in BOLD systems (for molecular taxonomic identification).This initiative to produce and transfer knowledge about wild bees is aligned with Luxembourg's national action plan for pollinators and contributes directly to reducing knowledge shortfalls in relation to European bees. Therefore, all materials will be freely available to both researchers and the general public, socialising scientific knowledge to a wider audience and raising awareness on national pollinator biodiversity. With this initiative, we aim to provide a space that combines past efforts with current technology, building a platform that can be used to further assist and develop national conservation strategies protecting the wild bee fauna of Luxembourg.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e171656

Authors: Daniel Mietchen, Sheeba Samuel

Abstract: Computational notebooks like Jupyter have transformed scientific and educational workflows in computational fields by combining code, text, and visualizations. They have also become a popular mechanism to share computational workflows. However, ensuring their reproducibility remains a persistent challenge due to often insufficiently documented direct and indirect dependencies, missing data, and inconsistencies in execution environments. Existing datasets lack the multimodal, fine-grained structure needed for AI applications. FAIRJupyter4AI aims to address this gap by creating a large-scale, AI-ready corpus of Jupyter notebooks enriched with executable code, markdown, outputs, and structured annotations. The project integrates these into a hybrid knowledge graph (KG) that incorporates symbolic, statistical, and execution-based representations. Key objectives include: curating diverse notebooks (initially Python, later R, with provisions for additional languages); automating reproducibility testing; building a KG for cross-notebook queries; training AI models for tasks like error repair and notebook generation; and fostering community use via APIs and integration with community platforms like NFDI or Hugging Face.The project will be implemented using the infrastructure established by the NFDI Basic Service Jupyter4NFDI, in the upcoming Integration Phase of which (October 2025-September 2027) the applicants are actively involved. Its central JupyterHub provides cross-consortial and cross-institutional access to scalable computing and data resources and associated software stacks for both research and training purposes.The FAIRJupyter4AI work programme is structured around five interlinked work packages: (1) Data Collection & Curation, (2) Reproducibility Assessment, (3) Knowledge Graph Development (4) AI Model Training, and (5) Communication, Community & Sustainability. Key innovations include continuous updates and enrichment pipelines (avoiding static snapshots), unifying multimodal content for AI, and bridging reproducibility with AI. Building on prior work involving 27,000+ notebooks and the FAIR Jupyter Knowledge Graph, FAIRJupyter4AI will curate, annotate and release over 20,000 notebooks that are research-related and openly licensed. In addition, we will share a metadata corpus for 50,000 research-related notebooks, along with open-source tools, models, and associated documentation. By making Jupyter notebooks metadata FAIR, reusable, and machine-understandable, this project will set a new standard for reproducible and AI-enhanced computational science, and it will open up new opportunities for learning and teaching about computational reproducibility across multiple domains of research.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e163815

Authors: Gonzalo Bravo, Gregorio Bigatti, Mariana Lozada, Luke Thompson, Juan Livore, María Mendez, Lorena Arribas, Lino Bigatti, Tyler Christian, Erasmo Macaya, Edgardo Londoño-Cruz, Nicolas Moity, Juan Cruz-Motta, Augusto Flores, Gabriela Vélez-Rubio, Maria Palomo, Cesar Cordeiro, Franciane Pellizzari, Maritza Cárdenas-Calle, La Daana Kanhai, Ivonne Vivar Linares, Patricia Gil-Kodaka, Linsey Martinez, Pablo Sugliano, Agostina Trigo, Juan Zottola, Dulce Blanco, Matias Tricase, Nadia Bravo, Mariana Degrati, Camila Tavano Formigo, Frank Muller-Karger, Enrique Montes

Abstract: The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Pole to Pole of the Americas (MBON Pole to Pole) brought together 30 participants from 10 countries in Patagonia, Argentina, to strengthen observing capacity of coastal biodiversity across the Americas. The network held a five-day workshop focused on three core components: standardized rocky intertidal photo-quadrat surveys, low-cost environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling, and affordable plankton imaging tools. Participants included researchers, park rangers, and conservation practitioners fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment. Key outcomes included field validation of protocols, identification of context-specific methodological adaptations (e.g., for low tidal amplitude areas), adoption of novel tools for monitoring marine life, and strategies for broader participation and data harmonization. The workshop highlighted the potential of simple, replicable methods to support long-term monitoring, and emphasized the value of shared protocols, tools, and open data for building a more connected and resilient regional observation network.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e155393

Authors: Elizabeth Adams, Natalie Raia, Saebyul Choe, Isaac Wink, Doug Curl

Abstract: State geological surveys create and steward valuable long-term earth and environmental science datasets and often serve as physical archives for material samples. Often funded directly through state legislatures, these agencies face varying degrees of support, nuanced regulations and public-serving missions that direct their research and day-to-day operations. Scientists at state geological surveys produce a range of outputs: datasets that may be stored internally, through an institutional repository or disseminated to broader community repositories and publications that may include both grey and peer-reviewed literature. This paper discusses a workshop held at the Kentucky Geological Survey to introduce researchers to data management, sharing and stewardship practices and to better understand obstacles to implementing such practices.

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DOI: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e132163

Authors: Marit Schnepf, Simone Prestes Dürrnagel, Giacomo Laghetto, Teresa Pastor, Carol Ritchie

Abstract: NaturaConnect is a Horizon Europe research project, which aims to work closely with key stakeholders to co-develop tools and build capacity that will assist European Union Member States to design a resilient, coherent, and well-connected network of protected and conserved areas – the Trans-European Nature Network (TEN-N). The project aims to elicit stakeholder visions and to tailor knowledge and tools, resulting from engagement and dissemination efforts across Europe and in six specific case study areas. This report provides an overview of the stakeholder engagement during the first half of the project, outlines the capacity building approach and briefly discusses the main communication activities. An overview of applied methods in the stakeholder analysis, results from the stakeholder mapping and an evaluation of the engagement activities conducted until end of 2023 are described. Capacity building is a crucial project component in developing knowledge, understanding, skills and competences for users of the NaturaConnect frameworks, data and tools. The capacity building evaluation of this report focuses on the NaturaConnect Learning Platform and the NaturaConnect Training Needs Assessment. This mid-term report assesses engagement activities conducted until date in order to address any identified bottlenecks. The capacity building part provides an overview of applied methods and tools for assessing training needs and describes key features of the NaturaConnect Learning Platform.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.10.e124977

Authors: Steffen Neumann, Ann-Christin Andres, Felix Bach, Theo Bender, Christian Bonatto Minella, Franziska Eberl, Tillmann Fischer, Benjamin Golub, Shashank Harivyasi, Sonja Herres-Pawlis, Pei-Chi Huang, Johannes Hunold, John Jollife, Nicole Jung, Johannes Liermann, Venkata Nainala, Matthias Razum, Oliver Koepler, Christoph Steinbeck

Abstract: The progress of the DFG-funded NFDI4Chem consortium (NFDI 4/1 - project number 441958208) in data management in chemistry is outlined in our latest report, highlighting the steps we have taken to integrate a data-centric approach within the chemistry community. This interim report offers a comprehensive overview of our data management activities, covering the reporting period from October 2020 to August 2023.The shift to digital tools in research documentation is driven by our work with Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELNs), such as Chemotion ELN, offering systematic data storage for easy retrieval and sharing. Additionally, we focus on developing repositories, such as Chemotion repository and RADAR4Chem, which fulfil the needs for the storage of chemical data. The NFDI4Chem Search Service ensures easy data access from our repositories. Our efforts extend to community engagement through conference visits and online presence, aimed at creating awareness for (digital) research data management and connecting to chemistry students and researchers. Our training programs have reached over 600 participants to date. Initiatives like the FAIR4Chem award and the Chemistry Data Days promote cultural change towards FAIR data. Our Editors4Chem initiative collaborates with publishers for standardised data management and the Ontologies4Chem workshops organised by our consortium promote the ontology development in the field.Apart from the consortium's engagement for chemists, NFDI4Chem members played key roles in the development of the NFDI as a whole. Being actively involved in the sections and task forces, NFDI4Chem promotes collaborative solutions across NFDI consortia.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.10.e126660

Authors: Gonzalo Bravo, Gregorio Bigatti, María Bagur, Erasmo Macaya, Nelson Valdivia, Ariel Rodriguez, Mariela Gauna, Ian Walker, Juan Pablo Livore, María Mendez, Rocío Nieto Vilela, Fernando Lima, Rui Seabra, Enrique Montes

Abstract: The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Pole to Pole of the Americas (MBON Pole to Pole) conducted two workshops on 27-31 March 2023 and 22-26 January 2024 in the Argentinian Patagonia aiming to enhance capacity for long-term monitoring of rocky intertidal communities in Argentina and Chile by applying novel and easy-to-use methods for biodiversity observing. In these workshops, participants received training on the collection and processing of benthic photo-quadrat imagery and their analysis using open-source artificial intelligence applications. Workshop participants included park rangers, undergraduate and graduate students and scientists. These training activities covered theoretical concepts of rocky shore ecology and field exercises. The workshops promoted collaboration and knowledge exchange between users of biodiversity data and ecologists resulting in the development of a standardised biodiversity monitoring protocol for rocky intertidal communities available in the Ocean Best Practices System of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. Participants learned to identify dominant species and functional groups (e.g. macro-algal taxa, molluscs, barnacles) commonly present in these habitats and their zonation patterns along elevation gradients, capture high-quality benthic photographs using quadrat frames and cameras provided by the MBON Pole to Pole and compute percentage cover estimates of observed taxonomic groups using open-source automated classifiers. Emerging recommendations underscored the importance of actively involving park rangers in survey efforts and facilitating communication with decision-makers managing Marine Protected Areas. These activities were endorsed by the UN Decade as contributions to the Marine Life 2030 programme towards increasing capacity in the implementation of coordinated, standardised and sustained biodiversity observing efforts in the Americas.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.10.e124884

Authors: Egon Willighagen, Marc Teunis, Alyanne De Haan

Abstract: Cheminformatics is the research field that deals with information about chemical systems. This includes the chemical structure which is used in computational chemistry where quantum chemistry is too complex. The Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) was one of the first Open Science libraries in chemistry, co-founded in The Netherlands. The source code goes as far back as 1997 and has been maintained for more than 25 years. The CDK is used by many tools in drug discovery, computational toxicology, and bioinformatics. This project will develop improvements to the core library and update tools using the CDK to use the latest release.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.10.e119805

Authors: Daniel Mietchen, Jonathan Jeschke, Tina Heger

Abstract: Hypotheses play a central role in the scientific process, yet the way they are introduced often leaves much room for interpretation, which makes it difficult to use them later on: to study and test them, to delineate their scope and to explore the relationships they have to other hypotheses or concepts, to datasets, methodologies or other resources. Here, we introduce a new article type in RIO that is dedicated to them: Hypothesis Descriptions. Such articles combine a specific verbal definition of a hypothesis with a concise description of its components and provide pointers to prior work as well as alignments with formal ways of knowledge representation, optionally including relevant nanopublications. With this format, we aim to facilitate the study of hypotheses in and of themselves, to improve their testability along with the documentation and interpretability of such tests, and to stimulate efforts towards standardization and automation in this space.

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DOI: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e116673

Authors: Pooja Bhattacharjee, Ian Bird, Francesca Calore, Caterina Doglioni, Christopher Eckner, Elena Gazzarrini, Lukas Heinrich, Tetiana Hryn'ova, Valerio Ippolito, Jared Little, Stephen Serjeant, Mikhail Smirnov

Abstract: This document summarizes the design, status and results of the Dark Matter Science Project from the ESCAPE cluster within the EOSC-Future project as of November 2022. 

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e113294

Authors: Gael Lymer, Frederik Leliaert, Patricia Mergen, Stefaan Pijls

Abstract: Mechanisms and sources of funding for European Research Infrastructure Consortiums (ERICs) are diverse, complex and can be challenging to identify and to use. This paper provides a roadmap for Research & Development (R&D) within the pre-commercial procurement (PCP) framework and the landscape of funding for ERICs available from the European Union with a perspective on other tracks of funding. Our objective is to offer a starting point and underline opportunities and challenges, for existing and future ERICs. The work presented in this paper results from the research carried-out for the business model of the DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) ERIC, which is currently in its transition phase and will be constructed in the following years.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e108765

Authors: Anne Fouilloux, Elisa Trasatti, Federica Foglini, Alejandro Coca-Castro, Jean Iaquinta

Abstract: The numerous benefits of Open Science (OS) and of the four FAIR foundational principles - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable - are increasingly valued in academia, although what OS and FAIR entail is still largely misunderstood. In such conditions, putting into practice OS and applying the FAIR principles is challenging and underrated. However, realising OS is perfectly within our grasp provided that an infrastructure supporting the management of the research lifecycle is available. ROHub (https://www.rohub.org/) is a Research Object (RO) management platform implementing three complementary technologies: Research Objects, Data Cubes and Text Mining services. ROHub enables researchers to collaboratively manage, share and preserve their research while they are still working on it (rather than after the work is finished). In this paper, three communities from Earth Sciences, namely Geohazards, Sea Monitoring and Climate Change, demonstrate how ROHub helped them to understand each other and to work openly and, more importantly, how communities of practice play an important role in facilitating reuse and interdisciplinary collaboration. These findings are illustrated with several use cases from these various communities.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e105155

Authors: Mathilde Bessert-Nettelbeck, Andreas Bischof, Ulrike Sturm, Emilia Nagy, Martina Schraudner, Julia Backhaus, Till Bruckermann, Susanne Hecker, Justus Henke, Karola Köpferl, Sabrina Kirschke, Christin Liedtke, Felix Mahr, Arne Maibaum, Audrey Podann, Wiebke Rössig, Martina Schäfer, Carolin Schröder, Philipp Schrögel, Victoria Shennan, Norbert Steinhaus, Mhairi Stewart, Vanessa van den Bogaert, Silke Voigt-Heucke

Abstract: Citizen science, transdisciplinary research, dialogic forms of science communication or public engagement: these and other research approaches and fields, often subsumed under participatory research, have in common that they enable people outside of academia to actively engage in the production of scientific knowledge. However, each of these fields sets its own goals, uses different formats and has a different scope and impact. The conference 'Opportunities and Limitations of Participation in Academia' held in September 2022 as part of the German Science Year 'Participate!' aimed to connect the various participation communities in Germany and to explore commonalities and success factors. Through intensive discussions in four working groups, a keynote speech and a panel discussion, the conference initiated an exchange of ideas and experiences amongst researchers in a converging field. This report is a summary of the key questions and outcomes of the conference.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e94851

Authors: Gabriele Fahrenkrog, Lambert Heller, Ina Blümel

Abstract: This paper aims to provide a structured overview of four open, participatory formats that are particularly applicable in inquiry-based teaching and learning contexts: hackathons, book sprints, barcamps, and learning circles. Using examples, mostly from the work and experience context of the Open Science Lab at TIB Hannover, we address concrete processes, working methods, possible outcomes and challenges.The compilation offers an introduction to the topic and is intended to provide tools for testing in practice.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e96476

Authors: Étienne Serbe-Kamp, Jens Bemme, Daniel Pollak, Katja Mayer

Abstract: Citizen Science or community science has been around for a long time. The scope of community involvement in Citizen Science initiatives ranges from short-term data collection to intensive engagement to delve into a research topic together with scientists and/or other volunteers. Although many volunteer researchers have academic training, it is not a prerequisite for participation in research projects. It is important to adhere to scientific standards, which include, above all, transparency with regard to the methodology of data collection and public discussion of the results, and open educational resources (OER). Hereby, Citizen Science is closely linked to Open Science. In our contribution, we will introduce two projects, both developed within the Wikimedia Fellowship Freies Wissen.The top-down approach: ERGo! An Entomology Research Tool to raise awareness of biodiversity protection.Inclusion in academia and pressing social problems such as climate change are fundamentally social justice issues. To facilitate early participation in the scientific process on the part of people holding underrepresented identities in science, we develop a Citizen Science initiative based on a low-cost open-source platform (ERGo!) to perform a technique for electrical recordings from insect eyes known as electroretinograms (ERGs) while presenting visual stimuli. Pasadena Unified School District High School students pilot ERG experiments to test the feasibility of this technique as a large-scale Citizen Science initiative. With ERGo!, future Citizen Scientists contribute data to cutting-edge research that monitors insect biodiversity, adaptation, and health in rapidly changing environments caused by monocultures, pesticides, and climate change.The bottom-up approach: Open cultural data collection. A Citizen Science initiative for regional knowledge curation.We catalogued the 18th century German magazine ‘Die Gartenlaube’ (in Wikisource) with bibliographic metadata in Wikidata in a project called ‘Die Datenlaube’. We develop collaborative approaches for linked open data methods to produce data sets about historical knowledge. The concept of ‘Open Citizen Science’ offers a methodological baseline for Open Science practises in fields of digital humanities. Scanned documents and structured open metadata revealed open access to historic collections. Through the Wikimedia platforms 'Die Datenlaube' creates possibilities to edit entries, to design own investigations, and to contribute to OER.Based on the elaboration of the two rather different projects (natural and social sciences, involvement of pupils vs citizens, top-down vs bottom-up), we will discuss similarities and hence the challenges and lessons learned for using and developing Open Science elements in Citizen Science and mutual learning. Furthermore, we will conclude by focusing on the opportunities resulting from the integration of societal expectations in science and vice versa.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e85860

Authors: Felicitas Kruschick, Kerstin Schoch

Abstract: Knowledge equity is a broad concept. Although it is linked to the goals of Open Science, it is rarely discussed in the scientific community. The term refers to a variety of aspects such as epistemology, research methods, data analysis, inclusive education, equal representation, participation, and science communication. It is reflected on individual, institutional, and structural levels.In this article, we attempt to outline the field theoretically against the background of a power-theoretical perspective and discuss what knowledge is in the first place. In a second step, we explore the question of what is hidden behind the terms equality and equity and to what extent these concepts can be linked to the underlying concept of knowledge. When can we speak of equity, why, and to what extent? Finally, the article links the overall social development of increasing sensitivity to diversity, which is discussed in conjunction with inclusive education and inclusion in general. Herein we refer to concepts of intersectional feminist research, the principles of Open Science, and a critical perspective on the concept of diversity.For illustration, exemplary projects associated with the Open Science Fellow Program, which address the issue of marginalized groups in the research process, are described. Among others, these relate to the following focal points: Data collection of non-binary gender, awareness of adultism, collaborative interpretation with interviewees, queer narratives, diversity in editorial boards, research in the context of North-South relations, participatory science communication using art, and exclusion factors of science communication.The overarching question we ask in this article is the extent to which knowledge equity is relevant to marginalized groups and exclusive dynamics in terms of an inclusive rationale and how those dynamics can be identified by using critical perspectives and self-reflexive considerations.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e95174

Authors: Oliver Keller, Stefan Appelhoff, Benjamin Paffhausen, Tobias Wenzel

Abstract: The promise of open hardware as a branch of open science is a sustainable change of research instrumentation towards more openly documented and licensed designs. Methods, code, and data are already valued by journal editors and peer-reviews to judge if a study's result can be replicated with the information provided in a manuscript. The open hardware movement seeks to include laboratory tools and research instrumentation into the same category. Availability of and access to open hardware equipment are set to democratize professional lab work and field studies as well as enhance the transferability of methods to civic science settings. Here, we report four case studies from the first five years of the Wikimedia Program "Free Knowledge", an open science fellowship funded by Wikimedia Germany and partners. The project developers discuss and evaluate the impact related to key aspects typically attributed with open hardware: costs, availability, adaptability, community and educational value. The open hardware projects covered in this review span from natural sciences to life sciences to education.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e94685

Authors: Shweata Hegde, Ayush Garg, Peter Murray-Rust, Daniel Mietchen

Abstract: Ethical aspects of research continue to gain attention, be that in the process of proposing and planning research or performing, documenting or publishing it. One of the ways in which this trend manifests itself is the increasingly common addition of ethics statements to publications in fields like biomedicine, psychology or ethnography. Such ethics statements in publications provide the reader with a window into some of the practical yet typically hidden aspects of research ethics. As more and more publications are becoming available in full text and in machine readable formats through repositories like Europe PubMed Central, we propose to mine the literature for ethics statements and to extract information about the various aspects of research ethics that they address. The more standardized these statements are, the better the mined materials can be converted into structured and queryable information that can in turn be used to inform efforts towards higher levels of standardization in research ethics. This paper sketches out the motivation for such mining and outlines some methodological approaches that could be leveraged towards this end.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e97853

Authors: Xavier Pouwels

Abstract: Lack of research reproducibility, restricted access to scientific knowledge to citizens, fake news (on social media) and limited citizens’ involvement during scientific knowledge generation are phenomena which negatively affect the relationship between Science and society. Unfortunately, students, who will be the next scientists, practitioners and citizens, are not educated to address these scientific and societal challenges. Teaching Open Science (OS) principles to students may equip them to deal with these challenges during their future career. OS refers to any endeavour aiming to make one’s research more open, inclusive, accessible, reproducible and replicable. Therefore, OS is expected to address these challenges by promoting: open and reproducible research, publicly available scientific knowledge, public engagement of (scientific) experts within society and greater citizens’ involvement in Science. OS consequently promises to transform the relationship between Science and society. This teaching innovation will introduce Health Care Technology and Management students with the theoretical underpinning of OS and will let students practise OS during a group project. The teaching activities will comprise a series of interactive lectures and practical assignments. Key topics of this teaching innovation are an introduction to OS and FAIR principles, pre-registration, performing open reproducible research, open peer-review and practise public outreach. The teaching materials and activities will be co-created with students who already participated in this course to ensure the OS content matches students’ knowledge, interests and needs. Dissemination efforts will be undertaken during the entire duration of the project to increase awareness concerning the importance of teaching OS within educational curricula.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e98457

Authors: Tony Ross-Hellauer, Thomas Klebel, Alexandra Bannach-Brown, Serge P.J.M. Horbach, Hajira Jabeen, Natalia Manola, Teodor Metodiev, Haris Papageorgiou, Martin Reczko, Susanna-Assunta Sansone, Jesper Schneider, Joeri Tijdink, Thanasis Vergoulis

Abstract: Lack of reproducibility of research results has become a major theme in recent years. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic pressures and exposed consequences of lack of societal trust in science make addressing reproducibility of urgent importance. TIER2 is a new international project funded by the European Commission under their Horizon Europe programme. Covering three broad research areas (social, life and computer sciences) and two cross-disciplinary stakeholder groups (research publishers and funders) to systematically investigate reproducibility across contexts, TIER2 will significantly boost knowledge on reproducibility, create tools, engage communities, implement interventions and policy across different contexts to increase re-use and overall quality of research results in the European Research Area and global R&I, and consequently increase trust, integrity and efficiency in research.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e89980

Authors: Rima-Maria Rahal, Hanjo Hamann, Hilmar Brohmer, Florian Pethig

Abstract: The open and transparent documentation of scientific processes has been established as a core antecedent of free knowledge. This also holds for generating robust insights in the scope of research projects. To convince academic peers and the public, the research process must be understandable and retraceable (reproducible), and repeatable (replicable) by others, precluding the inclusion of fluke findings into the canon of insights. In this contribution, we outline what reproducibility and replicability (R&R) could mean in the scope of different disciplines and traditions of research and which significance R&R has for generating insights in these fields. We draw on projects conducted in the scope of the Wikimedia "Open Science Fellows Program" (Fellowship Freies Wissen), an interdisciplinary, long-running funding scheme for projects contributing to open research practices. We identify twelve implemented projects from different disciplines which primarily focused on R&R, and multiple additional projects also touching on R&R. From these projects, we identify patterns and synthesize them into a roadmap of how research projects can achieve R&R across different disciplines. We further outline the ground covered by these projects and propose ways forward.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e86663

Authors: Sigrid Fahrer, Tamara Heck, Ronny Röwert, Naomi Truan

Abstract: The Open Science Fellow Program built a community where researchers learned how to work openly. Within this environment, questions emerged on what it means to teach openly, i.e. which practices represent open learning and teaching and which examples can be shared amongst colleagues and peers? Different concepts of open educational practices (OEP) aim at giving answers to open learning and teaching. At the same time, OEP still lack a common definition and many discussions on the topic only give minimal or implicit guidance to concrete approaches of being open —despite the creation and sharing of open educational resources.Investigating how we as practitioners implement concepts of OEP in the classroom was the starting point for the autoethnographic study we describe in this paper. We conducted a literature review to map explicit concepts of OEP, we reflected those concepts regarding the adaptation in our own teaching and our experiences with OER-based and other open teaching concepts. We discuss four research papers and our respective position as practitioners in higher education in Germany. We reflect on the current state of ideas of OEP and their practical adaptation and implementation in learning and teaching scenarios.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e86384

Authors: Caroline Fischer, Simon David Hirsbrunner, Vanessa Teckentrup

Abstract: Open data offer the opportunity to economically combine data into large-scale datasets, fostering collaboration and re-use in the interest of treating researchers’ resources as well as study participants with care. Whereas advantages of utilising open data might be self-evident, the production of open datasets also challenges individual researchers. This is especially true for open data that include personal data, for which higher requirements have been legislated. Mainly building on our own experience as scholars from different research traditions (life sciences, social sciences and humanities), we describe best-practice approaches for opening up research data. We reflect on common barriers and strategies to overcome them, condensed into a step-by-step guide focused on actionable advice in order to mitigate the costs and promote the benefit of open data on three levels at once: society, the disciplines and individual researchers. Our contribution may prevent researchers and research units from re-inventing the wheel when opening data and enable them to learn from our experience.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e86387

Authors: Isabel Steinhardt, Felicitas Kruschick

Abstract: How can Knowledge In/Equity be addressed in qualitative research by taking the idea of Open Science into account? Two projects from the Open Science Fellows Programme by Wikimedia Deutschland will be used to illustrate how Open Science practices can succeed in qualitative research, thereby reducing In/Equity. In this context, In/Equity is considered as a fair and equal representation of people, their knowledge and insights and comprehends questions about how epistemic, structural, institutional and personal biases generate and shape knowledge as guidance. Three questions guide this approach: firstly, what do we understand by In/Equity in the context of knowledge production in these projects? Secondly, who will be involved in knowledge generation and to what extent will they be valued or unvalued? Thirdly, how can data be made accessible for re-use to enable true participation and sharing?

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e95972

Authors: Guido Aben, Juri Hößelbarth

Abstract: This talk discusses the use of Fair Digital Objects (FDOs for short) for a democratised approach to FAIRness, that is, adherence to the Findable/Accessible/Interoperable/Reusable set of requirements, collectively called FAIR. This capability is being built for the CS3MESH4EOSC project.CS3MESH4EOSC is a 3-year EU-funded project in the EOSC context (we started Feb 2020) that addresses the challenges of the fragmentation of file and application services, digital sovereignty and the application of FAIR principles in the everyday practice of researchers. Initially, 7 major data services will be combined into ScienceMesh - a federated service mesh providing a frictionless collaboration platform for hundreds of thousands of users (researchers, engineers, students and staff). The service will offer easy access to data across institutional and geographical boundaries. The infrastructure will be gradually expanded and offered to the entire education and research community in Europe and beyond. The initial service will connect services in NL (SURFdrive), PL (PSNCBox), AU (CloudStor), DE (Sciebo), CZ (owncloud@CESNET), CH (SWITCHdrive) and DK (ScienceData), as well as domain data stores at CERN (CERNBox) and the EU's own Joint Research Centre's Copernicus (earth observation) datastore.The CS3MESH4EOSC project is busy designing, building and deploying the necessary technology to achieve this. CS3MESH4EOSC grew out of the grassroots "CS3" community, which started out as a self-help forum of infrastructure builders and providers from the academic sector who look after rapidly growing datastores of the "synch-'n'-share" paradigm (dropbox is a commercial equivalent); this type of store is growing rapidly more popular as a basic building block for live data storage and collaboration in research.The mission for the CS3MESH4EOSC project is to improve scientific collaboration across the entire mesh (essentially an interoperating federation of data stores), and to ensure that data sharing across this resulting mesh is done according to FAIR principles. This puts the CS3MESH4EOSC in a unique position: we need to bring FAIR tooling in front of a broad audience of research users (not just "FAIR literate" ones), and convice them that FAIRness is relevant at the point where live data is being collected, not just when data has congealed to collections. We recognise two main obstacles:FAIR-aware infrastructure needs to be simply available, right in front of every user's face, and be so usable that it gets broad uptake. By rule of thumb every additional step required sheds half of the userbase you start out with.Research communities need to be motivated, trained and assisted to use the FAIR infrastructure. It needs to make their lives easier. Without relevant infrastructure in place, there is no point in mounting FAIRness awareness campaigns.Therefore, CS3MESH4EOSC's approach to FAIR uptake is to start from the Science Mesh of datastores as described in the first paragraph, already in widespread use by researchers. We add a FAIR Description Service to these stores, available for any researcher of the system to use (an instance of the "Describo" tool, https://arkisto-platform.github.io/tools/description/describo-online/). Thus they can create FAIR Digital Object packages from their own data (using the RO-Crate standard) and also manage the deposition process, initially targeting the open access Zenodo and Dataverse repository services and the Open Science Framework (OSF) science workflow portal. The resulting system of metadata annotation and user guidance wizards that facilitate the process is called "ScieboRDS" (https://www.research-data-services.org/page/about/).By thus adding metadata awareness and annotation capabilities to this mesh that already has several hundreds of thousands of users and tens of Petabytes of live data on it, we end up with a democratised, low-barrier-of-entry approach to FAIR. Allowing researchers to generate FDOs from their live data (no onerous upload / collections steps) will help create more FAIR data supply. The capabilities thus far described are already available and are being deployed to users starting Q3 2022. Further development is underway that allows better capability negotiation between the live data store ("the Science Mesh") and the backend repository, such that users can rely on the relevant schema being autoprovisioned and ontologies being agreed upon before the FDO is packaged, thus improving metadata quality.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e95943

Authors: Esteban Gonzalez, Daniel Garijo, Oscar Corcho

Abstract: A Digital Object (DO) "is a sequence of bits, incorporating a work or portion of a work or other information in which a party has rights or interests, or in which there is value". DOs should have persistent identifiers, meta-data and be readable by both humans and machines. A FAIR Digital Object is a DO able to interact with automated data processing systems (De Smedt et al. 2020) while following the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable principles) principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016).Although FAIR was originally targeted towards data artifacts, new initiatives have emerged to adapt other research digital resources such as software (Katz et al. 2021) (Lamprecht et al. 2020), ontologies (Poveda-Villalón et al. 2020), virtual research environments and even DOs (Collins et al. 2018). In this paper, we describe the challenges when assessing the level of compliance of a DO with the FAIR principles (i.e., its FAIRness), assuming that a DO contains multiple resources and captures their relationships. We explore different methods to calculate an evaluation score, and we discuss the challeneges and importance of providing explanations and guidelines for authors.FAIR assessment tools There are a growing number of tools used to assess the FAIRness of DOs. Community groups like FAIRassist.org have compiled lists of guidelines and tools for assessing the FAIRness of digital resources. These range from self assessment tools like questionnaires and checklists to semi-automated validators (Devaraju et al. 2021). Examples of automated validation tools include the F-UJI Automated FAIR Data Assessment Tool (Devaraju and Huber 2020), FAIR Evaluator and FAIR Checker for datasets or individual DOs; HowFairIs (Spaaks et al. 2021) for code repositories; and and FOOPS (Garijo et al. 2021) to assess ontologies.When it comes to assessing FDOs, we find two main challenges:Resource score discrepancy: Different FAIR assessment tools for the same type of resource produce different scores. For example, a recent study over datasets showcases differences in scores for the same resource due to how the FAIR principles are interpreted by different authors (Dumontier 2022).Heterogeneous FDO metadata: Validators include tests that explore metadata of the digital object. However, there is no agreed metadata schema to represent FDO metadata, which complicates this operation. In addition, metadata may be specific to a certain domain (De Smedt et al. 2020). To address this challenge, we need i) to agree on minimum common set of metadata to measure the FAIRness of DOs and ii) propose a framework to describe extensions for specialized digital objects (datasets, software, ontologies, VRE, etc.).In (Wilkinson et al. 2019), the authors propose a community-driven framework to assess the FAIRness of individual digital objects. This framework is based on:a collection of maturity indicators,principle compliance tests, anda module to apply those tests to digital resources.The proposed indicators may be a starting point to define which tests are needed for each type of resource (de Miranda Azevedo and Dumontier 2020).Aggregation of FAIR metrics Another challenge is the best way to produce an assessment score for a FDO, independently of the tests that are run to assess it. For example, each of the four dimensions of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) usually have a different number of associated assessment tests. If the final score is presented based on the number of tests, then by default some dimensions may have more importance than others. Similarly, not all tests may have the same importance for some specific resources (e.g., in some cases having a license in a resource may be considered more important than having its full documentation).In our work we consider a FDO as an aggregation of resources, and therefore we face the additional challenge of creating an aggregated FAIRness score for the whole FDO. We consider the following aggregation scores:Global score: calculated by formula (see Fig. 1-1). It represents the percentage of total passed tests. It doesn’t take into account the principle to which a test belongs.FAIR average score: calculated by formula (see Fig. 1- 2). It represents the average of the passed tests ratios for each principle plus the ratio of passed tests used to evaluate the Research Object itself.Both metrics are agnostic to the kind of resource analyzed. The score they produce ranges from [0 - 100].Discussion A FDO has metadata records that describe it. Some records are common for all DOs, and others are specific to a DO. This makes it difficult to assess some FAIR principles like "F2: "data are described with rich metadata". Therefore, we believe a discussion of a minimal set of FAIR metadata should be addressed by the community.In addition, a FAIR assessment score can change significantly depending on the formula used for aggregating all metrics. Therefore, it is key to explain to users the method and provenance used to produce such score. Different communities should agree on the best scoring mechanism for their FDOs, e.g., by adding a weight to each principle and figuring out the right number of tests for each principle, which may give more importance to the principles with tests.We believe that the objective of a FAIR scoring system should not be to produce a ranking, but become a mechanism to improve the FAIRness of a FDO.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e94244

Authors: Sara El-Gebali, Christopher Erdmann, Donald Winston

Abstract: The FAIRPoints organization, co-founded by the authors, aims to provide a platform for conversations to take place around realistic and pragmatic implementations of the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. The uniqueness of the FAIRPoints effort stems from an additional aim: to capture conversation contributions in the form of “bite-sized” objects – “points” – in a way that facilitates dynamic composition by instructors for the delivery of audience-customized training experiences. Thus, FAIRPoints aims to cultivate pragmatic learning resources to help realize the FAIR principles in practice, both throughinviting speakers to prime and lead discussions focused on choices/challenges regarding FAIR, andamplifying downstream value potential by serializing “points” made during such events as FAIR resources.Currently, event outcomes are serialized as LearningResource-typed JSON-LD objects in the schema.org sense, i.e. sdo:LearningResource, where @prefix sdo: <https://schema.org/> ., and conform to the bioschemas.org TrainingMaterial profile. However, any differences in participant perspectives must be reconciled, via git revision control, towards a single “view” of a sdo:LearningResource. This situation is at odds with other explicit aims of the FAIRPoints organization such as including diverse voices and collecting heterogeneous input from a global perspective.Using the FAIR Digital Object (FDO) approach, a FAIRPoints sdo:LearningResource instance may be the Object to which an Identifier points, through an FDO Identifier Record, and sdo:LearningResource may be the FDO Type. Crucially, there may be a multiplicity of Metadata records pointed to by an FDO Identifier Record and thus a formal mechanism to cultivate and publish diverse perspectives.This presentation will outline FAIRPoints’ approach to FDO implementation for learning resources and its relation to published practice. Specifically, in relation to the FAIR Digital Twins approach*1, our approach may be seen as the stewardship of a “fluid graph” of learning-resource “knowlets” with support for “qua” projection in service of e.g. an instructor’s dynamic composition of training material for a targeted workshop.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e94771

Authors: Lane Rasberry, Daniel Mietchen

Abstract: Scholia for Software is a project to add software profiling features to Scholia, which is a scholarly profiling service from the Wikimedia ecosystem and integrated with Wikipedia and Wikidata. This document is an adaptation of the funded grant proposal. We are sharing it for several reasons, including research transparency, our wish to encourage the sharing of research proposals for reuse and remixing in general, to assist others specifically in making proposals that would complement our activities, and because sharing this proposal helps us to tell the story of the project to community stakeholders.A "scholarly profiling service" is a tool which assists the user in accessing data on some aspect of scholarship, usually in relation to research. Typical features of such services include returning the biography of academic publications for any given researcher, or providing a list of publications by topic. Scholia already exists as a Wikimedia platform tool built upon Wikidata and capable of serving these functions. This project will additionally add software-related data to Wikidata, develop Scholia's own code, and address some ethical issues in diversity and representation around these activities. The end result will be that Scholia will have the ability to report what software a given researcher has described using in their publications, what software is most used among authors publishing on a given topic or in a given journal, what papers describe projects which use some given software, and what software is most often co-used in projects which use a given software.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e86985

Authors: Yuichi Kano

Abstract: Morphological data of life forms are fundamental for documenting and understanding biodiversity. I developed a photogrammetry technique for reconstructing the outer coloured morphology of various creatures and published more than 1000 models online (https://sketchfab.com/ffishAsia-and-floraZia). By suspending it with nylon fishing line(s), taking digital photos from multiple angles and analysing the photos with photogrammetry software, we can obtain a fine 3-dimensional (3D) model of a creature. I believe the challenge could contribute to various fields, such as taxonomy, museology, morphology, anatomy, ecology, education, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, metaverse and, eventually, open/citizen science. Herein, I report the idea and achievement, which I have termed “bio-photogrammetry.”

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e86401

Authors: Andrey Vyshedskiy

Abstract: Did the boy bite the cat or was it the other way around? When processing a sentence with several objects, one has to establish ‘who did what to whom’. When a sentence cannot be interpreted by recalling an image from memory, we rely on the special type of voluntary constructive imagination called Prefrontal synthesis (PFS). PFS is defined as the ability to juxtapose mental visuospatial objects at will. We hypothesised that PFS has fundamental importance for language acquisition. To test this hypothesis, we designed a PFS-targeting intervention and administered it to 6,454 children with language deficiencies (age 2 to 12 years). The results from the three-year-long study demonstrated that children who engaged with the PFS intervention showed 2.2-fold improvement in combinatorial language comprehension compared to children with similar initial evaluations. These findings suggest that language can be improved by training the PFS and exposes the importance of the visuospatial component of language. This manuscript reflects on the experimental findings from the point of view of human language evolution. When used as a proxy for evolutionary language acquisition, the study results suggest a dichotomy of language evolution, with its speech component and its visuospatial component developing in parallel. The study highlights the radical idea that evolutionary acquisition of language was driven primarily by improvements of voluntary imagination rather than by improvements in the speech apparatus.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e89446

Authors: Ulrike Sturm, Elisabeth Heyne, Elisa Herrmann, Bergit Arends, Anna-Lisa Dieter, Eric Dorfman, Frank Drauschke, Nicole Heller, Rebecca Kahn, Katja Kaiser, Gerda Koch, Nicolas Kramar, Alicia Mansilla Sánchez, Franz Mauelshagen, Tahani Nadim, Richard Pell, Mareike Petersen, Katharina Schmidt-Loske, Henning Scholz, Colin Sterling, Helmuth Trischler, Sarah Wagner

Abstract: The knowledge needed to tackle future environmental and societal challenges can only be generated through exchange between science and society. The conventional distinction made between natural and cultural heritage in museums and other institutions is no longer appropriate in the Anthropocene. Museums must rethink the social and cultural dimensions of existing museum collections and reinvent the organization of knowledge production for our present. In three workshops at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, practitioners and interdisciplinary theorists discussed the concept of “Anthropocenic objects” and considered how they create opportunities for the emergence of new collecting practices involving participatory research and open exchange between research, society, and conservation institutions.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e83853

Authors: Melanie Pivarski, Matt von Konrat, Thomas Campbell, Ayesha Qazi-Lampert, Laura Trouille, Heaven Wade, Aimee Davis, Selma Aburahmeh, Joseph Aguilar, Cosmin Alb, Ken Alferes, Ella Barker, Karl Bitikofer, Kelli Boulware, Carla Bruton, Sicong Cao, Arturo Corona Jr., Christine Christian, Kaltra Demiri, Daniel Evans, Nkosi Evans, Connor Flavin, Jasmine Gillis, Victoria Gogol, Elizabeth Heublein, Edward Huang, Jake Hutchinson, Cyrus Jackson, Odaliz Jackson, Lauren Johnson, Michi Kirihara, Henry Kivarkis, Annette Kowalczyk, Alex Labontu, Briajia Levi, Ian Lyu, Sylvie Martin-Eberhardt, Gaby Mata, Joann Martinec, Beth McDonald, Mariola Mira, Minh Nguyen, Pansy Nguyen, Sarah Nolimal, Victoria Reese, Will Ritchie, Joannie Rodriguez, Yarency Rodriguez, Jacob Shuler, Jasmine Silvestre, Glenn Simpson, Gabriel Somarriba, Rogers Ssozi, Tomomi Suwa, Cheyenne Syring, Nidhi Thirthamattur, Keith Thompson, Caitlin Vaughn, Mario Viramontes, Chak Shing Wong, Lauren Wszolek

Abstract: Globally, thousands of institutions house nearly three billion scientific collections offering unparallelled resources that contribute to both science and society. For herbaria alone - facilities housing dried plant collections - there are over 3,000 herbaria worldwide with an estimated 350 million specimens that have been collected over the past four centuries. Digitisation has greatly enhanced the use of herbarium data in scientific research, impacting diverse research areas, including biodiversity informatics, global climate change, analyses using next-generation sequencing technologies and many others. Despite the entrance of herbaria into a new era with enhanced scientific, educational and societal relevance, museum specimens remain underused. Natural history museums can enhance learning and engagement in science, particularly for school-age and undergraduate students. Here, we outline a novel approach of a natural history museum using touchscreen technology that formed part of an interactive kiosk in a temporary museum exhibit on biological specimens. We provide some preliminary analysis investigating the efficacy of the tool, based on the Zooniverse platform, in an exhibit environment to engage patrons in the collection of biological data. We conclude there is great potential in using crowd‐sourced science, coupled with online technology to unlock data and information from digital images of natural history specimens themselves. Sixty percent of the records generated by community scientists (citizen scientists) were of high enough quality to be utilised by researchers. All age groups produced valid, high quality data that could be used by researchers, including children (10 and under), teens and adults. Significantly, the paper outlines the implementation of experiential learning through an undergraduate mathematics course that focuses on projects with actual data to gain a deep, practical knowledge of the subject, including observations, the collection of data, analysis and problem solving. We here promote an intergenerational model including children, high school students, undergraduate students, early career scientists and senior scientists, combining experiential learning, museum patrons, researchers and data derived from natural history collections. Natural history museums with their dual remit of education and collections-based research can play a significant role in the field of community engagement and people-powered research. There also remains much to investigate on the use of interactive displays to help learners interpret and appreciate authentic research. We conclude with a brief insight into the next phase of our ongoing people-powered research activities developed and designed by high school students using the Zooniverse platform.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e85859

Authors: Alexander Weigand, Szilárd-Lehel Bücs, Stanimira Deleva, Lada Lukić Bilela, Pierrette Nyssen, Kaloust Paragamian, Axel Ssymank, Hannah Weigand, Valerija Zakšek, Maja Zagmajster, Gergely Balázs, Shalva Barjadze, Katharina Bürger, William Burn, Didier Cailhol, Amélie Decrolière, Ferdinando Didonna, Azdren Doli, Tvrtko Drazina, Joerg Dreybrodt, Lana Ðud, Csaba Egri, Markus Erhard, Sašo Finžgar, Dominik Fröhlich, Grant Gartrell, Suren Gazaryan, Michel Georges, Jean-Francois Godeau, Ralf Grunewald, John Gunn, Jeff Hajenga, Peter Hofmann, Lee Knight, Hannes Köble, Nikolina Kuharic, Christian Lüthi, Cristian Munteanu, Rudjer Novak, Dainis Ozols, Matija Petkovic, Fabio Stoch, Bärbel Vogel, Ines Vukovic, Meredith Hall Weberg, Christian Zaenker, Stefan Zaenker, Ute Feit, Jean-Claude Thies

Abstract: This manuscript summarizes the outcomes of the 6th EuroSpeleo Protection Symposium. Special emphasis was laid on presenting and discussing monitoring activities under the umbrella of the Habitats Directive (EU Council Directive 92/43/EEC) for habitat type 8310 "Caves not open to the public" and the Emerald Network. The discussions revealed a high level of variation in the currently conducted underground monitoring activities: there is no uniform definition of what kind of underground environments the "cave" habitat should cover, how often a specific cave has to be monitored, and what parameters should be measured to evaluate the conservation status. The variation in spatial dimensions in national definitions of caves further affects the number of catalogued caves in a country and the number of caves to be monitored. Not always participants are aware of the complete national monitoring process and that data sets should be freely available or easily accessible. The discussions further showed an inherent dilemma between an anticipated uniform monitoring approach with a coherent assessment methodology and, on the contrary, the uniqueness of caves and subterranean biota to be assessed – combined with profound knowledge gaps and a lack of resources. Nevertheless, some good practices for future cave monitoring activities have been identified by the participants: (1) Cave monitoring should focus on bio- and geodiversity elements alike; (2) Local communities should be involved, and formal agreements envisaged; (3) Caves must be understood as windows into the subterranean realm; (4) Touristic caves should not be excluded ad-hoc from regular monitoring; (5) New digital tools and open FAIR data infrastructures should be implemented; (6) Cave biomonitoring should focus on a large(r) biological diversity; and (7) DNA-based tools should be integrated. Finally, the importance of the 'forgotten' Recommendation No. 36 from the Bern Convention as a guiding legal European document was highlighted.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e83031

Authors: Egon Willighagen, Martina Kutmon, Marvin Martens, Denise Slenter

Abstract: Like humans have a unique social security number and different phone numbers from various providers, so do proteins and metabolites have a unique structure but different identifiers from various databases. BridgeDb is an interoperability platform that allows combining these databases, by matching database-specific identifiers. These matches are called identifier mappings, and they are indispensable when combining experimental (omics) data with knowledge in reference databases. BridgeDb takes care of this interoperability between gene, protein, metabolite, and other databases, thus enabling seamless integration of many knowledge bases and wet-lab results. Since databases get updated continuously, so should the Open Science BridgeDb project.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e81136

Authors: Lyubomir Penev, Dimitrios Koureas, Quentin Groom, Jerry Lanfear, Donat Agosti, Ana Casino, Joe Miller, Christos Arvanitidis, Guy Cochrane, Donald Hobern, Olaf Banki, Wouter Addink, Urmas Kõljalg, Kyle Copas, Patricia Mergen, Anton Güntsch, Laurence Benichou, Jose Benito Gonzalez Lopez, Patrick Ruch, Corinne Martin, Boris Barov, Iliyana Demirova, Kristina Hristova

Abstract: BiCIKL is an European Union Horizon 2020 project that will initiate and build a new European starting community of key research infrastructures, establishing open science practices in the domain of biodiversity through provision of access to data, associated tools and services at each separate stage of and along the entire research cycle. BiCIKL will provide new methods and workflows for an integrated access to harvesting, liberating, linking, accessing and re-using of subarticle-level data (specimens, material citations, samples, sequences, taxonomic names, taxonomic treatments, figures, tables) extracted from literature. BiCIKL will provide for the first time access and tools for seamless linking and usage tracking of data along the line: specimens > sequences > species > analytics > publications > biodiversity knowledge graph > re-use.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e80457

Authors: Tina Heger, Sina Zarrieß, Alsayed Algergawy, Jonathan Jeschke, Birgitta König-Ries

Abstract: Developing a precise argument is not an easy task. In real-world argumentation scenarios, arguments presented in texts (e.g. scientific publications) often constitute the end result of a long and tedious process. A lot of work on computational argumentation has focused on analyzing and aggregating these products of argumentation processes, i.e. argumentative texts. In this project, we adopt a complementary perspective: we aim to develop an argumentation machine that supports users during the argumentation process in a scientific context, enabling them to follow ongoing argumentation in a scientific community and to develop their own arguments. To achieve this ambitious goal, we will focus on a particular phase of the scientific argumentation process, namely the initial phase of claim or hypothesis development. According to argumentation theory, the starting point of an argument is a claim, and also data that serves as a basis for the claim. In scientific argumentation, a carefully developed and thought-through hypothesis (which we see as Toulmin's "claim'' in a scientific context) is often crucial for researchers to be able to conduct a successful study and, in the end, present a new, high-quality finding or argument. Thus, an initial hypothesis needs to be specific enough that a researcher can test it based on data, but, at the same time, it should also relate to previous general claims made in the community. We investigate how argumentation machines can (i) represent concrete and more abstract knowledge on hypotheses and their underlying concepts, (ii) model the process of hypothesis refinement, including data as a basis of refinement, and (iii) interactively support a user in developing her own hypothesis based on these resources. This project will combine methods from different disciplines: natural language processing, knowledge representation and semantic web, philosophy of science and -- as an example for a scientific domain -- invasion biology. Our starting point is an existing resource in invasion biology that organizes and relates core hypotheses in the field and associates them to meta-data for more than 1000 scientific publications, which was developed over the course of several years based on manual analysis. This network, however, is currently static (i.e. needs substantial manual curation to be extended to incorporate new claims) and, moreover, is not easily accessible for users who miss specific background and domain knowledge in invasion biology. Our goal is to develop (i) a semantic model for representing knowledge on concepts and hypotheses, such that also non-expert users can use the network; (ii) a tool that automatically computes links from publication abstracts (and data) to these hypotheses; and (iii) an interactive system that supports users in refining their initial, potentially underdeveloped hypothesis.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e78118

Authors: Ina Berg, Julia Prieß-Buchheit

Abstract: This dataset is drawn from feedback given by participants, lecturers, and experts on the Path2Integrity learning cards programme for research integrity in 2020. Positive as well as negative feedback is presented, thus recording what went well, what did not, and what must be improved. The data collected is viewed as crucial for the further development of tools for teaching and learning research integrity, in particular Path2Integrity’s learning cards.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e76240

Authors: Natalie Evans, Marc van Hoof, Laura Hartman, Ana Marusic, Bert Gordijn, Kris Dierickx, Lex Bouter, Guy Widdershoven

Abstract: Background: The areas of Research Ethics and Research Integrity (RE+RI) are rapidly evolving. In the EU and internationally, new legislation, codes of conduct and good practices are constantly being developed. New technologies (e.g. gene editing), complex statistical methods (e.g. biostatistics), pressure to publish and obtain grants, and growing emphasis on stakeholder driven science (e.g. public-private partnerships) increase the complexity of conducting science. In this complex and dynamic environment, researchers cannot easily identify the correct rules and best tools for responsible conduct of research. This also increasingly constitutes a challenge for RE+RI experts.Aim: Our aim is to create a platform that makes the normative framework governing RE+RI easily accessible, supports application in research and evaluation, and involves all stakeholders in a participatory way, thus achieving sustainability. The platform will foster uptake of ethical standards and responsible conduct of research, and ultimately support research excellence and strengthen society’s confidence in research and its findings.Vision: Our vision is that in order to make the normative framework governing RE+RI accessible, a dynamic online Wiki-platform, owned by the community of RE+RI stakeholders, is needed. The value of this platform will lie in the availability of practical information on how to comply with EU, national and discipline-specific RE+RI standards and legislation, including information on rules and procedures, educational materials, and illustrative cases and scenarios. Adopting open science (open source and open data) approaches, the platform will be easy to use, by applying novel techniques for data collection and comparison, enabling users to navigate quickly and intuitively to appropriate content. In order to keep the platform up-to-date and sustainable, it will be based upon active involvement of the RE+RI community, and will contribute to further development of this community by providing a podium for reflection and dialogue on RE+RI norms and practices.Objectives: EnTIRE’s work packages (WP) will: undertake an in-depth stakeholder consultation across EU countries exploring RE+RI experiences and practices in order to define the boundaries of data to be collected, and developing a mapping structure adapted to user needs (WP 2); assemble the relevant normative elements, including RE+RI rules and procedures, educational materials, and illustrative casuistry, and identify relevant institutions across EU countries (WP 3-5); develop a user-friendly Wiki-platform and online resources to foster and facilitate responsible research practices and to promote compliance amongst European researchers with RE+RI standards and pertinent legislation and regulations (WP 6); and foster further development of the RE+RI community, that will support the platform and be supported by it, will keep the information up-to-date, disseminate the project’s findings and develop innovative strategies for maintaining the platform and building relationships to relevant organisations for further dissemination, including sustainable funding (WP 7).Relevance to the work programme: The proposed project responds directly to the core requirement of call SwafS-16-2016 to ‘provide a dynamic mapping of the RE+RI normative framework which applies to scientific research conducted in the EU and beyond’. Our proposal does this by using a participatory approach, stimulating knowledge transfer regarding codes and regulations, resources and institutions, and cases, by applying innovative ICT solutions and open science approaches, and by further developing a community of active users, to enable sustainability after the end of the project.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e76875

Authors: Arto Luttinen, Risto Väinölä, Jaana Halla, Björn Kröger, Kari Lintulaakso, Aino Juslén, Markku Oinonen, Pasi Sihvonen, Marko-Tapio Hyvärinen

Abstract: The Geology Collection is part of the national collections of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus. General principles and guidelines for the collections are defined in the General Collection Policy of Luomus. The Geology Collection Policy is subordinate to the General Collection Policy of Luomus, clarifying its content with reference to the special characteristics of the geological collections. The Geological Collection includes mineral, rock, and meteorite specimens worldwide and from all geologic ages to support Finnish research and educational projects. The coverage emphasizes specimens from Finland, Scandinavia, Africa, and Antarctica. The Geology Collection Policy defines the purpose of the collections, the objectives, the distribution of responsibilities for collection management and maintenance in the organisation, and the principles of collection accumulation, preservation, accessibility and use to public.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e70042

Authors: Lane Rasberry, Daniel Mietchen

Abstract: We present the design of a project to develop Wikipedia content on general vaccine safety and the COVID-19 vaccines, specifically. This proposal describes what a team would need to distribute public health information in Wikipedia in multiple languages in response to a disaster or crisis, and to measure and report the communication impact of the same. Researchers at the School of Data Science at the University of Virginia made this proposal in response to a February 2021 call from a sponsor which was seeking to share public health information to respond globally to vaccine hesitancy related to the COVID-19 vaccines. This proposal was not selected for funding, and now the research team is sharing the proposal here with an open copyright license for anyone to reuse and remix. Most of the text here is from the original proposal, but there are modifications to remove the names of the funder, named partners, and for other details to make this text more reusable. The budget in this proposal has been converted from a dollar amount to equivalent descriptions in terms of labor hours, and the timeline was adapted from absolute to relative months.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e68258

Authors: Natalie Evans, Ana Marusic, Nicole Foeger, Erika Lofstrom, Marc van Hoof, Sabine Vrijhoef-Welten, Giulia Inguaggiato, Kris Dierickx, Lex Bouter, Guy Widdershoven

Abstract: Background: Recognising the importance of addressing ethics and research integrity (ERI) in Europe, in 2017, the All European Academies (ALLEA) published a revised and updated European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (ECoC). Consistent application of the ECoC by researchers across Europe will require its widespread dissemination, as well as an innovative training programme and novel tools to enable researchers to truly uphold and internalise the principles and practices listed in the Code.Aim: VIRT2UE aims to develop a sustainable train-the-trainer blended learning programme enabling contextualised ERI teaching across Europe focusing on understanding and upholding the principles and practices of the ECoC.Vision: The VIRT2UE project recognises that researchers not only need to have knowledge of the ECoC, but also to be able to truly uphold and internalise the principles underpinning the code. They need to learn how to integrate them into their everyday practice and understand how to act in concrete situations. VIRT2UE addresses this challenge by providing ERI trainers and researchers with an innovative blended (i.e. combined online and off-line approaches) learning programme that draws on a toolbox of educational resources and incorporates an e-learning course (including a YouTube channel) and face-to-face sessions designed to foster moral virtues. ERI trainers and researchers from academia and industry will have open access to online teaching material. Moreover, ERI trainers will learn how to facilitate face-to-face sessions of researchers, which focus on learning how to apply the content of the teaching material to concrete situations in daily practice.Objectives: VIRT2UE’s work packages (WP) will: conduct a conceptual mapping amongst stakeholders to identify and rank the virtues which are essential for good scientific practice and their relationship to the principles and practices of the ECoC (WP1); identify and consult ERI trainers and the wider scientific community to understand existing capacity and deficiencies in ERI educational resources (WP2); develop the face-to-face component of the train-the-trainer programme which provides trainers with tools to foster researchers’ virtues and promote the ECoC and iteratively develop the programme based on evaluations (WP3); produce educational materials for online learning by researchers and trainers (WP4); implement and disseminate the train-the-trainer programme across Europe, ensuring the training of sufficient trainers for each country and build capacity and consistency by focusing on underdeveloped regions and unifying fragmented efforts (WP5); and develop the online training platform and user interface, which will be instrumental in evaluation of trainers’ and researchers’ needs and project sustainability (WP6).Impact: The VIRT2UE training programme will promote consistent application of the ECoC across Europe. The programme will affect behaviour on the individual level of trainers and researchers – simultaneously developing an understanding of the ECoC and other ERI issues, whilst also developing scientific virtues, enabling the application of the acquired knowledge to concrete situations and complex moral dilemmas. Through a dedicated embedding strategy, the programme will also have an impact on an institutional level. The train-the-trainer approach multiplies the impact of the programme by reaching current and future European ERI trainers and, subsequently, the researchers they train.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e68121

Authors: Daniel Mietchen, Lane Rasberry, Thais Morata, John Sadowski, Jeanette Novakovich, James Heilman

Abstract: In this era of information overload and misinformation, it is a challenge to rapidly translate evidence-based health information to the public. Wikipedia is a prominent global source of health information with high traffic, multilingual coverage, and acceptable quality control practices. Viewership data following the Ebola crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic reveals that a significant number of web users located health guidance through Wikipedia and related projects, including its media repository Wikimedia Commons and structured data complement, Wikidata.The basic idea discussed in this paper is to increase and expedite health institutions' global reach to the general public, by developing a specific strategy to maximize the availability of focused content into Wikimedia’s public digital knowledge archives. It was conceptualized from the experiences of leading health organizations such as Cochrane, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other United Nations Organizations, Cancer Research UK, National Network of Libraries of Medicine, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Each has customized strategies to integrate content in Wikipedia and evaluate responses.We propose the development of an interactive guide on the Wikipedia and Wikidata platforms to support health agencies, health professionals and communicators in quickly distributing key messages during crisis situations. The guide aims to cover basic features of Wikipedia, including adding key health messages to Wikipedia articles, citing expert sources to facilitate fact-checking, staging text for translation into multiple languages; automating metrics reporting; sharing non-text media; anticipating offline reuse of Wikipedia content in apps or virtual assistants; structuring data for querying and reuse through Wikidata, and profiling other flagship projects from major health organizations.In the first phase, we propose the development of a curriculum for the guide using information from prior case studies. In the second phase, the guide would be tested on select health-related topics as new case studies. In its third phase, the guide would be finalized and disseminated.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e68056

Authors: Vazrick Nazari

Abstract: Entomological postage stamps are unique means of communication of science with the public and have been suggested as effective teaching tools in primary and secondary education. A survey of the taxonomic and other information contained on insect- and arachnid-themed stamps issued globally from 1891 to 2020 reveals that 30% of these stamps contain various errors and are scientifically unreliable. In addition, representations of insects are highly biased towards only two orders (Lepidoptera and Odonata), while other mega-diverse orders (e.g. Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera) are poorly represented or not represented at all. This phenomenon can negatively affect public perception of priorities in biodiversity and conservation. Standardization of taxonomic information on entomological stamps and implementation of rigorous quality control measures are encouraged to assure dissemination of accurate scientific information.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e68595

Authors: Daniel Mietchen, Lyubomir Penev, Teodor Georgiev, Boriana Ovcharova, Iva Kostadinova

Abstract: Since Research Ideas and Outcomes was launched in late 2015, it has stimulated experimentation around the publication of and engagement with research processes, especially those with a strong open science component. Here, we zoom in on the first 300 RIO articles that have been published and elucidate how they relate to the different stages and variants of the research cycle, how they help address societal challenges and what forms of engagement have evolved around these resources, most of which have a nature and scope that would prevent them from entering the scholarly record via more traditional journals. Building on these observations, we describe some changes we recently introduced in the policies and peer review process at RIO to further facilitate engagement with the research process, including the establishment of an article collections feature that allows us to bring together research ideas and outcomes from within one research cycle or across multiple ones, irrespective of where they have been published.

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DOI: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e66720

Authors: Julia Prieß-Buchheit, Lisa Häberlein, Tom Lindemann

Abstract: Do you want to teach researchers how to clarify their own role in research, as well as help them understand how important reliable research is for society? This handbook accompanies the Path2Integrity learning cards (P2ILC) on eight topics (https://www.path2integrity.eu/ri-materials) and introduces you to an easy and fun learning programme that has been evaluated in over 20 training sessions. The Path2Integrity learning cards Y-series is especially designed for early career and active researchers to learn how responsible research must necessarily be conducted in order to be reliable and in this sense useful for society.

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DOI: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e66719

Authors: Julia Prieß-Buchheit, Lisa Häberlein, Tom Lindemann

Abstract: Do you want to teach future researchers how to integrate their knowledge into their own research activities, as well as help them understand how important reliable research is for society? This handbook accompanies the Path2Integrity learning cards (P2ILC) on six topics (https://www.path2integrity.eu/ri-materials) and introduces you to an easy and fun learning programme that has been evaluated in over 15 training sessions. The Path2Integrity learning cards M-series is especially designed for graduates who already have a university degree. They learn how responsible research needs to be conducted in order to be reliable and thus useful for society.

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DOI: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e66718

Authors: Julia Prieß-Buchheit, Lisa Häberlein

Abstract: Do you want to teach your students how to do research, as well as help them understand how important reliable research is for society? This handbook accompanies the Path2Integrity learning cards (P2ILC) on five topics (https://www.path2integrity.eu/ri-materials) and introduces you to an easy and fun learning programme that has been evaluated in over 25 training sessions. The Path2Integrity learning cards S-series is especially designed for secondary school students and undergraduates. Through this series, students learn how research results must be produced in order to be reliable and thus useful for society.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e60614

Authors: Amelie Derobert, Françoise Lantheaume

Abstract: This data management plan was created using the OPIDoR (Optimiser le partage et l'interopérabilié des données de la recherche/ Tools and services to support french research data mangement). It describes all data collected and created as part of the postdoctoral research for the project "Circulation of knowledge: between sciences, policies, and practices in education (CIVOIR)" under the scientific direction of Professor Françoise Lantheaume and with the participation of German Fernandez Vavrik, University Lumiere Lyon 2, France. The data produced in this survey was collected through a mechanism specifically created for this project: the cooperative laboratory - CoopLa.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e64121

Authors: Vincent Weidlich

Abstract: Prejudice against citizens with right-aligned political views in western cosmopolitan cities was explored, and possible interventions proposed. Literature and theories were reviewed, with social psychological and sociological theories compiled that explain the reasons for this prejudice and an intervention to solve this problem. Scientific research in social sciences is dominated by bias from left-aligned researchers in social psychology and psychology. Dysfunctional scientific processes prominent in this area of sciences are due to the sacralization of social science. A significantly small percent of social and personality psychologists identify as politically conservative. A significant amount of errors and distortions were found in sociology textbooks. Media and corporation biases toward left-aligned political views were found, and right-aligned individuals are out-group members in cosmopolitan cities. Inoculation by media assignments and critical literacy education is proposed, that could prevent school students from being influenced by stealth messages and propaganda. Media campaigns targeting the full spectrum of political views is proposed, that could help reduce biases of citizens. A family and community health class is proposed, that could improve student’s psychological, family, and social health. Youth and adult clubs are proposed, that could help reduce animosity between social groups, and promote solidarity and community health.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e62808

Authors: Björn Kröger, Anniina Kuusijärvi, Leena Myllys, Pasi Sihvonen, Gunilla Ståhls-Mäkelä, Henry Väre, Markku Oinonen, Aino Juslén, Leif Schulman, Marko-Tapio Hyvärinen

Abstract: The Paleontological Collection (PalCo) is one of partial collections of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus. General principles and guidelines for the collections are defined in the General Collection Policy of Luomus. The PalCo Policy is subordinate to the General Collection Policy of Luomus, clarifying its content with reference to the special characteristics of the paleontological collections. The PalCo includes fossil plant, invertebrate and vertebrate specimens worldwide in scope and from all geologic ages to support Finnish research and educational projects. The coverage emphasizes Paleozoic and Quaternary specimens from Finland, the Baltic countries and Scandinavia. The PalCo Policy defines the purpose of the collections, the objectives, the distribution of responsibilities for collection management and maintenance in the organisation, and the principles of collection accumulation, preservation, accessibility and use.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e63850

Authors: Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Peter Reich, Philip Townsend, Arindam Banerjee, Ethan Butler, Ankur Desai, Amanda Gevens, Sarah Hobbie, Forest Isbell, Etienne Laliberté, José Eduardo Meireles, Holly Menninger, Ryan Pavlick, Jesús Pinto-Ledezma, Caitlin Potter, Meredith Schuman, Nathan Springer, Artur Stefanski, Pankaj Trivedi, Amy Trowbridge, Laura Williams, Charles Willis, Ya Yang

Abstract: The proposed Biology Integration Institute will bring together two major research institutions in the Upper Midwest—the University of Minnesota (UMN) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW)—to investigate the causes and consequences of plant biodiversity across scales in a rapidly changing world—from genes and molecules within cells and tissues to communities, ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere. The Institute focuses on plant biodiversity, defined broadly to encompass the heterogeneity within life that occurs from the smallest to the largest biological scales. A premise of the Institute is that life is envisioned as occurring at different scales nested within several contrasting conceptions of biological hierarchies, defined by the separate but related fields of physiology, evolutionary biology and ecology. The Institute will emphasize the use of ‘spectral biology’—detection of biological properties based on the interaction of light energy with matter—and process-oriented predictive models to investigate the processes by which biological components at one scale give rise to emergent properties at higher scales. Through an iterative process that harnesses cutting edge technologies to observe a suite of carefully designed empirical systems—including the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and some of the world’s longest running and state-of-the-art global change experiments—the Institute will advance biological understanding and theory of the causes and consequences of changes in biodiversity and at the interface of plant physiology, ecology and evolution.INTELLECTUAL MERITThe Institute brings together a diverse, gender-balanced and highly productive team with significant leadership experience that spans biological disciplines and career stages and is poised to integrate biology in new ways. Together, the team will harness the potential of spectral biology, experiments, observations and synthetic modeling in a manner never before possible to transform understanding of how variation within and among biological scales drives plant and ecosystem responses to global change over diurnal, seasonal and millennial time scales. In doing so, it will use and advance state-of-the-art theory. The institute team posits that the designed projects will unearth transformative understanding and biological rules at each of the various scales that will enable an unprecedented capacity to discern the linkages between physiological, ecological and evolutionary processes in relation to the multi-dimensional nature of biodiversity in this time of massive planetary change. A strength of the proposed Institute is that it leverages prior federal investments in research and formalizes partnerships with foreign institutions heavily invested in related biodiversity research. Most of the planned projects leverage existing research initiatives, infrastructure, working groups, experiments, training programs, and public outreach infrastructure, all of which are already highly synergistic and collaborative, and will bring together members of the overall research and training team.BROADER IMPACTSA central goal of the proposed Institute is to train the next generation of diverse integrative biologists. Post-doctoral, graduate student and undergraduate trainees, recruited from non-traditional and underrepresented groups, including through formal engagement with Native American communities, will receive a range of mentoring and training opportunities. Annual summer training workshops will be offered at UMN and UW as well as training experiences with the Global Change and Biodiversity Research Priority Program (URPP-GCB) at the University of Zurich (UZH) and through the Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory (CABO). The Institute will engage diverse K-12 audiences, the general public and Native American communities through Market Science modules, Minute Earth videos, a museum exhibit and public engagement and educational activities through the Bell Museum of Natural History, the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (CCESR) and the Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Association.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e62373

Authors: Risto Väinölä, Lauri Kaila, Jaakko Mattila, Pasi Sihvonen, Marko-Tapio Hyvärinen, Leif Schulman, Aino Juslén

Abstract: The collection policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus is hierarchically structured. General principles and guidelines are defined in the General Collections Policy. Subordinate to it, the collection policies for the individual sub-collections implement and specify these guidelines and instructions, considering the special nature of each sub-collection. The invertebrate collections policy in 2017 was the first sub-collection policy to observe this hierarchical structure, and was guided by the standards set by the European SYNTHESYS collections management self-assessment procedure. The invertebrate collections policy directs all activities related to the Luomus invertebrate collections (apart from DNA and tissue samples), which comprise the separately managed entomological collections (ca. 9 million specimens) and collections of other invertebrates (0.4 million). The policy defines the purpose of the collections, outlines the objectives and content of procedures and activities related to them, the division of responsibilities for the administration and care of the collections within the organisation, and the principles and practices for the acquisition, preservation, accessibility and use of the collections.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e60683

Authors: Richard Coppell

Abstract: The concept of the anti role model has had much less attention than the role model in modern social learning theory. The anti role model differs in that it describes an individual whose negative behaviours influence another peer or relative to practice the opposite behaviours in order to avoid a negative outcome. It may have become a neglected term because it does not exhibit as significantly in promotion based cultures which appear predominant in western liberal societies. However, in the United Kingdom, poorer socioeconomic subsets of students are now having to complete academic study to a higher standard up to the age of 18 and so these less promotion-based, more collectivist portions of society have become a more important concern for the education system. As such the anti role model concept may be reconsidered with regards to practice and research pertaining to these students and their social backgrounds.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e60470

Authors: Henry Väre, Leena Myllys, Risto Väinölä, Pasi Sihvonen, Anniina Kuusijärvi, Gunilla Ståhls-Mäkelä, Björn Kröger, Markku Oinonen, Aino Juslén, Leif Schulman, Marko-Tapio Hyvärinen

Abstract: The herbarium collections are sub-collections of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus that manages national natural history collections, as referred to in the Universities Act. The general collections policy defines the overall principles and guidelines concerning the collections practices. The sub-collections policies specify its guidelines and instructions, considering the special nature of the sub-collections. The policy for the botanical and mycological herbarium collections guides the activities related to all botanical, mycological and phycological collections in herbaria, hence excluding digital collections, DNA and tissue samples as well as living collections, which have separate policies. The herbarium collections policy defines and outlines the purpose of the collections as is to accrue and preserve natural specimens representing biodiversity for research and university-level teaching. The policy defines the objectives and content of related activities, the division of responsibilities for the administration and care of the collections within the organisation, and the general principles and practices for the acquisition, preservation, availability and use of the collections.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e60450

Authors: Marko-Tapio Hyvärinen, Mikael Lindholm, Heli Fitzgerald, Mari Miranto, Aino Anttila, Outi Pakkanen, Merja Pulkkinen, Pertti Pehkonen, Henry Väre, Pasi Sihvonen, Anniina Kuusijärvi, Leena Myllys, Björn Kröger, Mikko Heikkinen, Aino Juslén, Markku Oinonen, Leif Schulman

Abstract: The collections policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus is hierarchically structured. The general collections policy defines the overall principles and guidelines. The sub-collections policies, such as the Living collections policy, comply with and apply the general collections policy and specify its guidelines and instructions, taking the special nature of the sub-collections into account. The living plant collections policy guides the care of the collections in the botanic gardens and the seed bank, excluding DNA and tissue samples which are covered by a separate genomic resources policy. The purpose of the collections policy is to help guide the care of the garden collections and the processing of information relating to the collections, thereby providing the basis for developing the botanic gardens.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e58434

Authors: Lisa Häberlein, Oliver Claas

Abstract: This dataset lists feedback given by participants and educators of lessons based on the Path2Integrity learning cards for research integrity. The feedback recorded both positive and negative teaching experiences, what worked well and which difficulties the educators encountered. It is deemed relevant for the further improvement of the learning cards.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e58167

Authors: Marko-Tapio Hyvärinen, Risto Väinölä, Henry Väre, Gunilla Ståhls-Mäkelä, Pasi Sihvonen, Anniina Kuusijärvi, Leena Myllys, Björn Kröger, Mikko Heikkinen, Aino Juslén, Markku Oinonen, Leif Schulman

Abstract: As part of its quality management and goal-driven strategic development, the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus drafts policy documents to guide its operational sectors. The purpose of such policies is to define the content and procedures of the Museum’s activities. They answer the questions “what”, “why”, “who” and “for whom” about the activities they discuss, which is to say that they define and delimit the scope of the operational sector, provide the operations with a purpose and determine their content, describe the allocation of responsibilities in the sector under the Luomus organisation and identify the target groups. The policies provide general objectives and thus form the basis for target programmes and any action plans which in turn answer the question “How can we reach the designated goals?”. Policies are not tied to a schedule, unlike target programmes, even though they must be dynamic and updated periodically to better serve the organisation. The core activities at Luomus are: (1) maintenance of the scientific collections, (2) research and (3) expert services. The General Collections Policy sets guidelines for the maintenance of the scientific collections based on the mission of the University of Helsinki and Luomus.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e57036

Authors: Reinhard Altenhöner, Ina Blümel, Franziska Boehm, Jens Bove, Katrin Bicher, Christian Bracht, Ortrun Brand, Lisa Dieckmann, Maria Effinger, Malte Hagener, Andrea Hammes, Lambert Heller, Angela Kailus, Hubertus Kohle, Jens Ludwig, Andreas Münzmay, Sarah Pittroff, Matthias Razum, Daniel Röwenstrunk, Harald Sack, Holger Simon, Dörte Schmidt, Torsten Schrade, Annika-Valeska Walzel, Barbara Wiermann

Abstract: Digital data on tangible and intangible cultural assets is an essential part of daily life, communication and experience. It has a lasting influence on the perception of cultural identity as well as on the interactions between research, the cultural economy and society. Throughout the last three decades, many cultural heritage institutions have contributed a wealth of digital representations of cultural assets (2D digital reproductions of paintings, sheet music, 3D digital models of sculptures, monuments, rooms, buildings), audio-visual data (music, film, stage performances), and procedural research data such as encoding and annotation formats. The long-term preservation and FAIR availability of research data from the cultural heritage domain is fundamentally important, not only for future academic success in the humanities but also for the cultural identity of individuals and society as a whole. Up to now, no coordinated effort for professional research data management on a national level exists in Germany. NFDI4Culture aims to fill this gap and create a user-centered, research-driven infrastructure that will cover a broad range of research domains from musicology, art history and architecture to performance, theatre, film, and media studies.The research landscape addressed by the consortium is characterized by strong institutional differentiation. Research units in the consortium's community of interest comprise university institutes, art colleges, academies, galleries, libraries, archives and museums. This diverse landscape is also characterized by an abundance of research objects, methodologies and a great potential for data-driven research. In a unique effort carried out by the applicant and co-applicants of this proposal and ten academic societies, this community is interconnected for the first time through a federated approach that is ideally suited to the needs of the participating researchers. To promote collaboration within the NFDI, to share knowledge and technology and to provide extensive support for its users have been the guiding principles of the consortium from the beginning and will be at the heart of all workflows and decision-making processes. Thanks to these principles, NFDI4Culture has gathered strong support ranging from individual researchers to high-level cultural heritage organizations such as the UNESCO, the International Council of Museums, the Open Knowledge Foundation and Wikimedia. On this basis, NFDI4Culture will take innovative measures that promote a cultural change towards a more reflective and sustainable handling of research data and at the same time boost qualification and professionalization in data-driven research in the domain of cultural heritage. This will create a long-lasting impact on science, cultural economy and society as a whole.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e56508

Authors: Kristin Briney, Heather Coates, Abigail Goben

Abstract: The importance of research data has grown as researchers across disciplines seek to ensure reproducibility, facilitate data reuse, and acknowledge data as a valuable scholarly commodity. Researchers are under increasing pressure to share their data for validation and reuse. Adopting good data management practices allows researchers to efficiently locate their data, understand it, and use it throughout all of the stages of a project and in the future. Additionally, good data management can streamline data analysis, visualization, and reporting, thus making publication less stressful and time-consuming. By implementing foundational practices of data management, researchers set themselves up for success by formalizing processes and reducing common errors in data handling, which can free up more time for research. This paper provides an introduction to best practices for managing all types of data.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e55852

Authors: Christoph Steinbeck, Oliver Koepler, Felix Bach, Sonja Herres-Pawlis, Nicole Jung, Johannes Liermann, Steffen Neumann, Matthias Razum, Carsten Baldauf, Frank Biedermann, Thomas Bocklitz, Franziska Boehm, Frank Broda, Paul Czodrowski, Thomas Engel, Martin Hicks, Stefan Kast, Carsten Kettner, Wolfram Koch, Giacomo Lanza, Andreas Link, Ricardo Mata, Wolfgang Nagel, Andrea Porzel, Nils Schlörer, Tobias Schulze, Hans-Georg Weinig, Wolfgang Wenzel, Ludger Wessjohann, Stefan Wulle

Abstract: The vision of NFDI4Chem is the digitalisation of all key steps in chemical research to support scientists in their efforts to collect, store, process, analyse, disclose and re-use research data. Measures to promote Open Science and Research Data Management (RDM) in agreement with the FAIR data principles are fundamental aims of NFDI4Chem to serve the chemistry community with a holistic concept for access to research data. To this end, the overarching objective is the development and maintenance of a national research data infrastructure for the research domain of chemistry in Germany, and to enable innovative and easy to use services and novel scientific approaches based on re-use of research data. NFDI4Chem intends to represent all disciplines of chemistry in academia. We aim to collaborate closely with thematically related consortia. In the initial phase, NFDI4Chem focuses on data related to molecules and reactions including data for their experimental and theoretical characterisation.This overarching goal is achieved by working towards a number of key objectives:Key Objective 1: Establish a virtual environment of federated repositories for storing, disclosing, searching and re-using research data across distributed data sources. Connect existing data repositories and, based on a requirements analysis, establish domain-specific research data repositories for the national research community, and link them to international repositories.Key Objective 2: Initiate international community processes to establish minimum information (MI) standards for data and machine-readable metadata as well as open data standards in key areas of chemistry. Identify and recommend open data standards in key areas of chemistry, in order to support the FAIR principles for research data. Finally, develop standards, if there is a lack.Key Objective 3: Foster cultural and digital change towards Smart Laboratory Environments by promoting the use of digital tools in all stages of research and promote subsequent Research Data Management (RDM) at all levels of academia, beginning in undergraduate studies curricula.Key Objective 4: Engage with the chemistry community in Germany through a wide range of measures to create awareness for and foster the adoption of FAIR data management. Initiate processes to integrate RDM and data science into curricula. Offer a wide range of training opportunities for researchers.Key Objective 5: Explore synergies with other consortia and promote cross-cutting development within the NFDI.Key Objective 6: Provide a legally reliable framework of policies and guidelines for FAIR and open RDM.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e55141

Authors: Mareike Petersen, Bianca Pramann, Ralf Toepfer, Janna Neumann, Harry Enke, Jana Hoffmann, Reiner Mauer

Abstract: This report describes the results of a workshop on research data management (RDM) that took place in June 2019. More than 50 experts from 46 different non-university institutes covering all Leibniz Sections participated. The aim of the workshop was the intra- and transdisciplinary exchange among RDM experts of different institutions and sections within the Leibniz Association on current questions and challenges but also on experiences and activities with respect to RDM. The event was structured in inspiring talks, a World Café to discuss ideas and solutions related to RDM and an exchange of experts following their affiliation to the different Leibniz sections. The workshop revealed that most institutions, independent of scientific fields, face similar overarching problems with respect to RDM, e.g. missing incentives and no awareness of the benefits that would arise from a proper RDM and data sharing. The event also endorsed that the Research Data Working Group of the Leibniz Association (AK Forschungsdaten) is a place for the exchange of all topics around RDM and enables discussions on how to refine RDM at all institutions and in all scientific fields.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e54770

Authors: Daniel Mietchen, Jundong Li

Abstract: In this project, we will explore the range of data-related decisions made during public health emergencies like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and analyze the flow of information, data, and metadata within networks of such decisions.Data sharing is now considered a key component of addressing present, future, and even past public health emergencies, from local to global levels. Researchers, research institutions, journals and others have taken steps towards increasing the sharing of data around the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and in preparation for future pandemics.We will quantify the effects of data flow modifications to identify parameter sets under which specific modes of sharing or withholding information have the largest effects on outbreak dynamics. For these high-impact parameter sets, we will then assess the current and past availability of corresponding data, metadata, and misinformation, and estimate the effects on outbreak mitigation and preparedness efforts.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e53921

Authors: Julia Prieß-Buchheit, Arja Aro, Iliyana Demirova, Dirk Lanzerath, Pavel Stoev, Nicolaus Wilder

Abstract: The Path2Integrity project is a two-component coordination and support action to enhance research integrity cultures. Path2Integrity develops and fosters role-models and rotatory role-play scenarios for secondary school students, undergraduates, graduates, and early career researchers. A Path2Integrity campaign for scientific facts about research integrity and role-models, raises awareness of research integrity within secondary schools and universities. A complementary Path2Integrity handbook of instructions, which contains vivid stories involving research integrity and rotatory role-playing increases students’ ability to form judgements about the acceptance or rejection of norms in research. A train-the-trainer program shows how to use the Path2Integrity handbook of instructions, especially how to apply the handbook to the educators’ discipline and how to implement it into organisations. Partners from the Consortium have award-winning experience in creating those settings, which allows Path2Integrity to work with educational practices already in existence. Taking into account that different disciplines and different schools of thought are involved, it is the Consortium’s paramount concern, to ensure explicitly that the Path2Integrity handbook and campaign are based on optimal and systematic evidence-based decisions.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e50675

Authors: Thomas Borsch, Albert-Dieter Stevens, Eva Häffner, Anton Güntsch, Walter G. Berendsohn, Marc Appelhans, Christina Barilaro, Bánk Beszteri, Frank Blattner, Oliver Bossdorf, Helmut Dalitz, Stefan Dressler, Rhinaixa Duque-Thüs, Hans-Joachim Esser, Andreas Franzke, Dethardt Goetze, Michaela Grein, Uta Grünert, Frank Hellwig, Jörn Hentschel, Elvira Hörandl, Thomas Janßen, Norbert Jürgens, Gudrun Kadereit, Timm Karisch, Marcus Koch, Frank Müller, Jochen Müller, Dietrich Ober, Stefan Porembski, Peter Poschlod, Christian Printzen, Martin Röser, Peter Sack, Philipp Schlüter, Marco Schmidt, Martin Schnittler, Markus Scholler, Matthias Schultz, Elke Seeber, Josef Simmel, Michael Stiller, Mike Thiv, Holger Thüs, Natalia Tkach, Dagmar Triebel, Ursula Warnke, Tanja Weibulat, Karsten Wesche, Andrey Yurkov, Georg Zizka

Abstract: Plants, fungi and algae are important components of global biodiversity and are fundamental to all ecosystems. They are the basis for human well-being, providing food, materials and medicines. Specimens of all three groups of organisms are accommodated in herbaria, where they are commonly referred to as botanical specimens.The large number of specimens in herbaria provides an ample, permanent and continuously improving knowledge base on these organisms and an indispensable source for the analysis of the distribution of species in space and time critical for current and future research relating to global biodiversity. In order to make full use of this resource, a research infrastructure has to be built that grants comprehensive and free access to the information in herbaria and botanical collections in general. This can be achieved through digitization of the botanical objects and associated data.The botanical research community can count on a long-standing tradition of collaboration among institutions and individuals. It agreed on data standards and standard services even before the advent of computerization and information networking, an example being the Index Herbariorum as a global registry of herbaria helping towards the unique identification of specimens cited in the literature.In the spirit of this collaborative history, 51 representatives from 30 institutions advocate to start the digitization of botanical collections with the overall wall-to-wall digitization of the flat objects stored in German herbaria. Germany has 70 herbaria holding almost 23 million specimens according to a national survey carried out in 2019. 87% of these specimens are not yet digitized. Experiences from other countries like France, the Netherlands, Finland, the US and Australia show that herbaria can be comprehensively and cost-efficiently digitized in a relatively short time due to established workflows and protocols for the high-throughput digitization of flat objects.Most of the herbaria are part of a university (34), fewer belong to municipal museums (10) or state museums (8), six herbaria belong to institutions also supported by federal funds such as Leibniz institutes, and four belong to non-governmental organizations. A common data infrastructure must therefore integrate different kinds of institutions.Making full use of the data gained by digitization requires the set-up of a digital infrastructure for storage, archiving, content indexing and networking as well as standardized access for the scientific use of digital objects. A standards-based portfolio of technical components has already been developed and successfully tested by the Biodiversity Informatics Community over the last two decades, comprising among others access protocols, collection databases, portals, tools for semantic enrichment and annotation, international networking, storage and archiving in accordance with international standards. This was achieved through the funding by national and international programs and initiatives, which also paved the road for the German contribution to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).Herbaria constitute a large part of the German botanical collections that also comprise living collections in botanical gardens and seed banks, DNA- and tissue samples, specimens preserved in fluids or on microscope slides and more. Once the herbaria are digitized, these resources can be integrated, adding to the value of the overall research infrastructure. The community has agreed on tasks that are shared between the herbaria, as the German GBIF model already successfully demonstrates.We have compiled nine scientific use cases of immediate societal relevance for an integrated infrastructure of botanical collections. They address accelerated biodiversity discovery and research, biomonitoring and conservation planning, biodiversity modelling, the generation of trait information, automated image recognition by artificial intelligence, automated pathogen detection, contextualization by interlinking objects, enabling provenance research, as well as education, outreach and citizen science.We propose to start this initiative now in order to valorize German botanical collections as a vital part of a worldwide biodiversity data pool.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.5.e49755

Authors: Lisa Häberlein, Paula-Manuela Cengiz, Iliyana Demirova, Agnieszka Dwojak-Matras, Mette Jacobsen, Agnieszka Koterwas, Belén Lopez, Teodor Metodiev, Maria Palianopoulou

Abstract: This document is an up-to-date map on curricula in which research integrity (RI) or research ethics (RE) is currently included. It contains a collection of curricula in which RI/RE or associated fields are mentioned from the Path2Integrity partner countries Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Spain. Moving forward, the Path2Integrity training programme for educators will develop research integrity courses for trainers using this map as a reference. In this way, the project aims to support educators in closing possible gaps. At a broader level, Path2Integrity is involved in discourse with various stakeholders to establish a board of educational policymakers and stakeholders comprised of members from at least eight different countries to foster RI and parts of RI in European curricula.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.5.e48809

Authors: Matthew Murray, Megan O'Donnell, Mark Laufersweiler, John Novak, Betty Rozum, Santi Thompson

Abstract: This report shares the results of a Spring 2018 survey of 35 academic libraries in the United States in regard to the research data services (RDS) they offer. An executive summary presents key findings while the results section provides detailed information on the answers to specific survey questions related to data repositories, metadata, workshops, and polices.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.5.e47232

Authors: Dasapta Irawan, Andri Kesmawan, Mochammad Multazam, Eric Kunto

Abstract: An online ride-hailing app is a must-have app on your mobile devices, because it's features have been extended to meet almost modern urban needs. What if we could adopt the same features and functionalities for the academic publishing ecosystem. We proudly introduce the conceptual of GO-PUB. GO-PUB is an online app that provides a spatial database of scholarly journal publishers in Indonesia and to connect it with potential authors. Potential authors could find the perfect journal near their locations, complete with supporting pieces of information about the journal publishing system. The concept of GO-PUB is open source and cross platforms, hosted in public repository to make sure everyone could share their knowledge and contribution to the project.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.5.e36119

Authors: Anfal Astek

Abstract: Implementation of exercises and physical activity as a preventative management strategy in public health, which is in turn connected to undergraduate teaching in order to place physiotherapists as exercise experts in clinical practice, has become one of the essential areas for building comprehensive knowledge in a physiotherapy education program. As physiotherapists are experts in biomechanics, with a knowledge of pathology and its effects on body systems, they are the ideal professionals to meet the challenge of ensuring exercise expertise. An exercise therapy course could develop the content of the entry-level curriculum (BSc degree) in physiotherapy professional education programs to meet the current national and international needs of healthcare professionals who promote, guide and manage effective exercise strategies. In addition, the implementation of this course would improve the services provided by physiotherapy graduates in healthcare, thus emphasising the significant role of exercise as a physiotherapy intervention in prevention and management. Key to this process is analysing and reviewing existing physical activity and exercise therapy course and reporting the topics that will need to be implemented in the undergraduate physiotherapy program in KAU. Implementation of this course in the undergraduate curriculum requires the engagement of academic staff, clinical tutors in the physical therapy department, Faculty of Applied Medical Science (FAMS), KAU and community health centre staff, in order to establish and deliver the course content to students via lectures, lab sessions and clinical visits.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.5.e36276

Authors: Oleh Prylutskyi, Armine Abrahamyan, Nina Voronova, Tatevik Aloyan, Oleg Borodin, Valerii Darmostuk, Naira Gasparyan, Natalya Ivanova, Rukaya Johaadien, Hrant Khachatryan, Stanisav Krasovskii, Gleb Krishin, Alena Kulikova, Shifo Kurbonbekova, Elena Makeyeva, Anton Savchenko, Mukhabbatkhon Mamadalieva, Andreas Melikyan, Akobir Mirzorakhimov, Astghik Movsisyan, Shoista Mubalieva, Andriy Novikov, Laura Russell, Maxim Shashkov, Anna Sheriko, Dmitry Schigel, Eugeny Sysoliatin, Piotr Tykarski, Brecht Verstraete, Iryna Yatsiuk, Mariia Zykova, Dag Endresen, Hugo De Boer

Abstract: BioDATA is an international project on developing skills in biodiversity data management and data publishing. Between 2018 and 2021, undergraduate and postgraduate students from Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, have an opportunity to take part in the intensive courses to become certified professionals in biodiversity data management. They will gain practical skills and obtain appropriate knowledge on: international data standards (Darwin Core); data cleaning software, data publishing software such as the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT), and preparation of data papers. Working with databases, creating datasets, managing data for statistical analyses and publishing research papers are essential for the everyday tasks of a modern biologist. At the same time, these skills are rarely taught in higher education. Most of the contemporary professionals in biodiversity have to gain these skills independently, through colleagues, or through supervision. In addition, all the participants familiarize themselves with one of the important international research data infrastructures such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The project is coordinated by the University of Oslo (Norway) and supported by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The project is funded by the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (DIKU).

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.5.e35820

Authors: Lane Rasberry, Egon Willighagen, Finn Nielsen, Daniel Mietchen

Abstract: Knowledge workers like researchers, students, journalists, research evaluators or funders need tools to explore what is known, how it was discovered, who made which contributions, and where the scholarly record has gaps. Existing tools and services of this kind are not available as Linked Open Data, but Wikidata is. It has the technology, active contributor base, and content to build a large-scale knowledge graph for scholarship, also known as WikiCite. Scholia visualizes this graph in an exploratory interface with profiles and links to the literature. However, it is just a working prototype. This project aims to "robustify Scholia" with back-end development and testing based on pilot corpora. The main objective at this stage is to attain stability in challenging cases such as server throttling and handling of large or incomplete datasets. Further goals include integrating Scholia with data curation and manuscript writing workflows, serving more languages, generating usage stats, and documentation.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e32449

Authors: Katja Seltmann, Sara Lafia, Deborah Paul, Shelley James, David Bloom, Nelson Rios, Shari Ellis, Una Farrell, Jessica Utrup, Michael Yost, Edward Davis, Rob Emery, Gary Motz, Julien Kimmig, Vaughn Shirey, Emily Sandall, Daniel Park, Christopher Tyrrell, R. Sean Thackurdeen, Matthew Collins, Vincent O'Leary, Heather Prestridge, Christopher Evelyn, Ben Nyberg

Abstract: Georeferencing is the process of aligning a text description of a geographic location with a spatial location based on a geographic coordinate system. Training aids are commonly created around the georeferencing process to disseminate community standards and ideas, guide accurate georeferencing, inform users about new tools, and help users evaluate existing geospatial data. The Georeferencing for Research Use (GRU) workshop was implemented as a training aid that focused on the creation and research use of geospatial coordinates, and included both data researchers and data providers, to facilitate communication between the groups. The workshop included 23 participants with a wide background of expertise ranging from students (undergraduate and graduate), professors, researchers and educators, scientific data managers, natural history collections personnel, and spatial analyst specialists. The conversations and survey results from this workshop demonstrate that it is important to provide opportunities for biocollections data providers to interact directly with the researchers using the data they produce and vice versa.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e31701

Authors: Simone Monachino, Eric James McDermott, Andre Maia Chagas

Abstract: The first edition of the Aspects of Neuroscience Brainhack took place at the Department of Physics at University of Warsaw, Poland between November 17th and 19th 2017. This hackathon was one of the satellite events of the Aspects of Neuroscience conference, it was organized by the Brainhack organization to promote interaction between researchers, encouraging open (neuro)science and collaborations on projects related to the study of the nervous system. The event had a total of nine projects on many different topics including functional connectivity research, white matter tractography, classification of brain-ageing biomarkers through machine learning, presentation of a portable one channel EEG registration device and a do it yourself 3D-printed neurobiology lab. The latter is highlighted in this paper.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e31412

Authors: Helen Roy, Quentin Groom, Tim Adriaens, Gaia Agnello, Marina Antic, Anne-Sophie Archambeau, Sven Bacher, Aletta Bonn, Peter Brown, Giuseppe Brundu, Bernat López, Michelle Cleary, Dan Cogălniceanu, Maarten de Groot, Tiago De Sousa, Alan Deidun, Franz Essl, Živa Fišer Pečnikar, Anna Gazda, Eugenio Gervasini, Milka Glavendekic, Guillaume Gigot, Sven Jelaska, Jonathan Jeschke, Dariusz Kaminski, Paraskevi Karachle, Tamas Komives, Katharina Lapin, Frances Lucy, Elizabete Marchante, Dragana Marisavljevic, Riho Marja, Laura Martín Torrijos, Angeliki Martinou, Dinka Matosevic, Clare Mifsud, Jurga Motiejūnaitė, Henn Ojaveer, Nataša Pasalic, Ladislav Pekárik, Esra Per, Jan Pergl, Vladimir Pesic, Michael Pocock, Luís Reino, Christian Ries, Laurentiu Rozylowicz, Sven Schade, Snorri Sigurdsson, Ofer Steinitz, Nir Stern, Aco Teofilovski, Johann Thorsson, Rumen Tomov, Elena Tricarico, Teodora Trichkova, Konstantinos Tsiamis, Johan van Valkenburg, Noel Vella, Laura Verbrugge, Gábor Vétek, Cristina Villaverde, Johanna Witzell, Argyro Zenetos, Ana Cristina Cardoso

Abstract: There is no sign of saturation in accumulation of alien species (AS) introductions worldwide, additionally the rate of spread for some species has also been shown to be increasing. However, the challenges of gathering information on AS are recognized. Recent developments in citizen science (CS) provide an opportunity to improve data flow and knowledge on AS while ensuring effective and high quality societal engagement with the issue of IAS (Invasive Alien Species). Advances in technology, particularly on-line recording and smartphone apps, along with the development of social media, have revolutionized CS and increased connectivity while new and innovative analysis techniques are emerging to ensure appropriate management, visualization, interpretation and use and sharing of the data. In early July 2018 we launched a European CO-operation in Science and Technology (COST) Action to address multidisciplinary research questions in relation to developing and implementing CS, advancing scientific understanding of AS dynamics while informing decision-making specifically implementation of technical requirements of relevant legislation such as the EU Regulation 1143/2014 on IAS. It will also support the EU biodiversity goals and embedding science within society. The Action will explore and document approaches to establishing a European-wide CS AS network. It will embrace relevant innovations for data gathering and reporting to support the implementation of monitoring and surveillance measures, while ensuring benefits for society and citizens, through an AS CS European network. The Action will, therefore, increase levels of participation and quality of engagement with current CS initiatives, ensuring and evaluating educational value, and improve the value outcomes for potential users including citizens, scientists, alien species managers, policy-makers, local authorities, industry and other stakeholders.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e29773

Authors: Daisuke Tsugama

Abstract:

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e29375

Authors: Mikel Cole

Abstract:

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e25606

Authors: Daniel Russell

Abstract: Since changes in all 4 dimensions of spacetime are components of displacement for gravitational waves, a theoretical result is presented that their speed is undefined, and that the Theory of Relativity is not reliable to predict their speed. Astrophysical experiments are proposed with objectives to directly measure gravitational wave speed, and to verify these theoretical results. From the circumference of two merging black hole's final orbit, it is proposed to make an estimate of a total duration of the last ten orbits, before gravitational collapse, for comparison with durations of reported gravitational wave signals. It is proposed to open a new field of engineering of spacetime wave modulation with an objective of faster and better data transmission and communication through the Earth, the Sun, and deep space. If experiments verify that gravitational waves have infinite speed, it is concluded that a catastrophic gravitational collapse, such as a merger of quasars, today, would re-define the geometry and curvature of spacetime on Earth, instantly, without optical observations of this merger visible, until billions of years in the future.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e25485

Authors: Álvaro Briz-Redón, Ángel Serrano-Aroca

Abstract: Programming a computer is an activity that can be very beneficial to undergraduate students in terms of improving their mental capabilities, collaborative attitudes and levels of engagement in learning. Despite the initial difficulties that typically arise when learning to program, there are several well-known strategies to overcome them, providing a very high benefit-cost ratio to most of the students. Moreover, the use of a programming language usually raises the interest of students to learn any specific concept, which has caused that many teachers around the world employ a programming language as a learning environment to treat almost every possible topic. Particularly, mathematics can be taught and learnt while using a suitable programming language. The R programming language is endowed with a wide range of capabilities that allow its use to learn different kind of concepts while programming. Therefore, complex subjects such as mathematics could be learnt with the help of this powerful programming language. In addition, since the R language provides numerous graphical functions, it could be very useful to acquire simultaneously basic plane geometry and programming knowledge at the undergraduate level. This paper describes the LearnGeom R package, a novel pedagogical tool, which contains multiple functions to learn geometry in R at different levels of difficulty, from the most basic geometric objects to high-complexity geometric constructions, while developing numerous programming skills.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e25312

Authors: Roberto Toro, Rembrandt Bakker, Thierry Delzescaux, Alan Evans, Paul Tiesinga

Abstract: The first days after birth in ferrets provide a privileged view of the development of a complex mammalian brain. Unlike mice, ferrets develop a rich pattern of deep neocortical folds and cortico- cortical connections. Unlike humans and other primates, whose brains are well differentiated and folded at birth, ferrets are born with a very immature and completely smooth neocortex: folds, neocortical regionalisation and cortico-cortical connectivity develop in ferrets during the first postnatal days. After a period of fast neocortical expansion, during which brain volume increases by up to a factor of 4 in 2 weeks, the ferret brain reaches its adult volume at about 6 weeks of age. Ferrets could thus become a major animal model to investigate the neurobiological correlates of the phenomena observed in human neuroimaging. Many of these phenomena, such as the relationship between brain folding, cortico-cortical connectivity and neocortical regionalisation cannot be investigated in mice, but could be investigated in ferrets. Our aim is to provide the research community with a detailed description of the development of a complex brain, necessary to better understand the nature of human neuroimaging data, create models of brain development, or analyse the relationship between multiple spatial scales. We have already started a project to constitute an open, collaborative atlas of ferret brain development, integrating multi-modal and multi-scale data. We have acquired data for 28 ferrets (4 animals per time point from P0 to adults), using high-resolution MRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). We have developed an open-source pipeline to segment and produce – online – 3D reconstructions of brain MRI data. We propose to process the brains of 16 of our specimens (from P0 to P16) using high-throughput 3D histology, staining for cytoarchitectonic landmarks, neuronal progenitors and neurogenesis. This would allow us to relate the MRI data that we have already acquired with multi-dimensional cell-scale information. Brains will be sectioned at 25 μm, stained, scanned at 0.25 μm of resolution, and processed for real-time multi-scale visualisation. We will extend our current web-platform to integrate an interactive multi-scale visualisation of the data. Using our combined expertise in computational neuroanatomy, multi-modal neuroimaging, neuroinformatics, and the development of inter-species atlases, we propose to build an open-source web platform to allow the collaborative, online, creation of atlases of the development of the ferret brain. The web platform will allow researchers to access and visualise interactively the MRI and histology data. It will also allow researchers to create collaborative, human curated, 3D segmentations of brain structures, as well as vectorial atlases. Our work will provide a first integrated atlas of ferret brain development, and the basis for an open platform for the creation of collaborative multi-modal, multi-scale, multi-species atlases.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21698

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: Derechos Digitales is a Latin American advocacy and research network focussed on freedom on the internet, privacy and copyright reform. For the pilot project a specific IDRC funded project was the notional focus of study. However in practice the effort for considering data sharing was aimed at being organisation wide. The organisation already shares reports and other resources (particularly images and infographics) by default. While open data was described as being “in the DNA of the organisation” there was little practice across the network of sharing preliminary and in-process materials. Some aspects of data collection on research projects, particularly to do with copyright and legal issues, have significant privacy issues and as the organisation focuses on privacy as one of its advocacy areas this is taken very seriously. Many materials from research projects are not placed online at all. Derechos Digitales run distributed projects and this creates challenges for consistent management. Alongside this the main contact at DD changed during the course of the pilot. This exchange exemplified the challenges of maintaining organisational systems and awareness through a personnel change.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21705

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: There is a wide and growing interest in promoting Research Data Management (RDM) and Research Data Sharing (RDS) from many stakeholders in the research enterprise. Funders are under pressure from activists, from government, and from the wider public agenda towards greater transparency and access to encourage, require, and deliver improved data practices from the researchers they fund. Funders are responding to this, and to their own interest in improved practice, by developing and implementing policies on RDM and RDS. In this review we examine the state of funder policies, the process of implementation and available guidance to identify the challenges and opportunities for funders in developing policy and delivering on the aspirations for improved community practice, greater transparency and engagement, and enhanced impact. The review is divided into three parts. The first two components are based on desk research: a survey of existing policy statements drawing in part on existing surveys and a brief review of available guidance on policy development for funders. The third part addresses the experience of policy implementation through interviews with funders, policy developers, and infrastructure providers. In our review we identify, in common with other surveys, that RDM and RDS policies are increasingly common. The most developed are found amongst funders in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and European Union. However many other funders and nations have aspirational statements or are developing policy. There is a broad pattern of policy development moving from aspiration, to recommendations, to requirements, and finally reporting and auditing of data management practice. There are strong similarities across policies: a requirement for data management planning, often in grant submissions, expectations that data supporting published articles will be made available, and in many cases requirements for data archiving and availability over extended periods beyond grants. However there are also important differences in implementation. There is essentially no information available on the uptake and success of different policies in terms of compliance rates, or degrees of data availability. Many policies require a Data Management Plan as part of grant submission. This requirement can be enforced but there is disagreement on the value of this. One view is that requirements such as DMPs are the only way to force researchers to pay attention to these issues. The other is that such requirements lead to a culture of compliance in which the minimal effort is made and planning is seen as a “tick-box” exercise that has no further value. In this view requirements such as DMPs may actually be damaging the effort to effect culture change towards improved community practice. One way to bring these two views together is to see DMPs as living documents that form the basis of collaboration between researchers, funders, and data managers throughout the life of a research project. This approach is reflected in guidance on policy development that emphasises the importance of clarifying responsibilities of various stakeholders and ensuring that researchers are both recognised for good practice and see tangible benefits. More broadly this points to the need for the program of improving RDM and RDS to be shared project with the incentives for funders and researchers aligned as far as is possible. In the interviews successful policy implementation was often seen to be dependent on funders providing the required support, both in the form of infrastructure and resourcing, and via the provision of internal expertise amongst program managers. Where resources are limited, leveraging other support, especially from institutional sources, was seen as important as was ensuring the scope of policy requirements were commensurate with the support available and readiness of research communities. Throughout the desk research and the interviews a consistent theme is the desire for cultural change, where data management and sharing practices are embedded within the norms of behaviour for research communities. There is general agreement that progress from aspirational policies to achieving compliance is challenging and that broad cultural change, with the exception of specific communities, is a long way off. It is interesting to note that discussion of cultural change is largely externalised. There is little engagement with the concept of culture as an issue to consider or work with and very little engagement with models of how cultural change could be enabled. The disagreement over the value of DMPs is one example of how a lack of active engagement with culture and how it changes is leading to problems. Key Findings Policies on RDM and RDS are being developed by a number of agencies, primarily in the Global North. These policies are broadly consistent in aspiration and outlines but differ significantly in details of implementation. Policies generally develop along a path starting with aspirational statements, followed by recommendations, then requirements, and finally auditing and compliance measures. Measurement of policy adoption and compliance in terms of the over goals of increased availability and re-use of data is not tracked and is likely unmeasurable currently. Data Management Plans are a central requirement for many policies, in part because they can be made compulsory and act as a general focus for raising awareness. There are significant differences in the views of stakeholders on the value of Data Management Planning in its current form. Some stakeholders regard them as successful in raising awareness albeit with some limitations. Some regard them as actively damaging progress towards real change in practice by making RDM appear as one administrative activity among the many required for grant submission Successful policy implementation is coupled with funder support for infrastructure and training. Seeing RDM as an area for collaboration between funders and researchers may be valuable Internal expertise and support within a funder is often a gap which becomes a problem with monitoring and implementation DMPs can be a helpful part of process but it will be important to make them useful documents throughout and beyond the project If the object of RDM and RDS policy is cultural change in research communities then direct engagement with understanding the various cultures of researcher and other stakeholder communities, alongside frameworks of how they change is an important area for future focus.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21280

Authors: E'lexis Brewer

Abstract: This paper proposes whether teacher-child attachment bonds have an effect on adolescent disobedience and whether adolescents with low self-esteem moderate the effect. In this study, the definition of disobedience is deviance and delinquency. The literature states that the teacher-child relationship demonstrates positive and negative outcomes in academic performance however it does not account for self-esteem or disobedience outside the school. I hypothesize attachment bonds to show a negative relationship with students who demonstrate low self-esteem and a positive trend in disobedience. To test my hypotheses, I use various coded questionnaires from Wave I and II of the ADD Health Survey that code for academics/education, delinquency, fighting and violence, drug use, and other deviant or disobedient behavior. In order to test, I would use cross tabulation to compare students’ attachment, self-esteem levels, and disobedience. All three variables require no specific order, as nominal variables, so they can compare against each other without regard for sequence. In summary, if implemented my study will add to the current research literature on the teacher-child relationship and potential evidence-based intervention programs for students.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e14672

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: This is the Data Management Plan for the project "Exploring the opportunities and challenges of implementing open research strategies within development institutions" the proposal for which was published as https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.2.e8880. The research proposal calls for support for a pilot project to conduct open data pilot case studies with eight (8) IDRC grantees to develop and implement open data management and sharing plans. The results of the case studies will serve to refine guidelines for the implementation of development research funders’ open research data policies.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e14673

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: There is a wide and growing interest in promoting Research Data Management (RDM) and Research Data Sharing (RDS) from many stakeholders in the research enterprise. Funders are under pressure from activists, from government, and from the wider public agenda towards greater transparency and access to encourage, require, and deliver improved data practices from the researchers they fund. Funders are responding to this, and to their own interest in improved practice, by developing and implementing policies on RDM and RDS. In this review we examine the state of funder policies, the process of implementation and available guidance to identify the challenges and opportunities for funders in developing policy and delivering on the aspirations for improved community practice, greater transparency and engagement, and enhanced impact. The review is divided into three parts. The first two components are based on desk research: a survey of existing policy statements drawing in part on existing surveys and a brief review of available guidance on policy development for funders. The third part addresses the experience of policy implementation through interviews with funders, policy developers, and infrastructure providers. In our review we identify, in common with other surveys, that RDM and RDS policies are increasingly common. The most developed are found amongst funders in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and European Union. However many other funders and nations have aspirational statements or are developing policy. There is a broad pattern of policy development moving from aspiration, to recommendations, to requirements, and finally reporting and auditing of data management practice. There are strong similarities across policies: a requirement for data management planning, often in grant submissions, expectations that data supporting published articles will be made available, and in many cases requirements for data archiving and availability over extended periods beyond grants. However there are also important differences in implementation. There is essentially no information available on the uptake and success of different policies in terms of compliance rates, or degrees of data availability. Many policies require a Data Management Plan as part of grant submission. This requirement can be enforced but there is disagreement on the value of this. One view is that requirements such as DMPs are the only way to force researchers to pay attention to these issues. The other is that such requirements lead to a culture of compliance in which the minimal effort is made and planning is seen as a “tick-box” exercise that has no further value. In this view requirements such as DMPs may actually be damaging the effort to effect culture change towards improved community practice. One way to bring these two views together is to see DMPs as living documents that form the basis of collaboration between researchers, funders, and data managers throughout the life of a research project. This approach is reflected in guidance on policy development that emphasises the importance of clarifying responsibilities of various stakeholders and ensuring that researchers are both recognised for good practice and see tangible benefits. More broadly this points to the need for the program of improving RDM and RDS to be shared project with the incentives for funders and researchers aligned as far as is possible. In the interviews successful policy implementation was often seen to be dependent on funders providing the required support, both in the form of infrastructure and resourcing, and via the provision of internal expertise amongst program managers. Where resources are limited, leveraging other support, especially from institutional sources, was seen as important as was ensuring the scope of policy requirements were commensurate with the support available and readiness of research communities. Throughout the desk research and the interviews a consistent theme is the desire for cultural change, where data management and sharing practices are embedded within the norms of behaviour for research communities. There is general agreement that progress from aspirational policies to achieving compliance is challenging and that broad cultural change, with the exception of specific communities, is a long way off. It is interesting to note that discussion of cultural change is largely externalised. There is little engagement with the concept of culture as an issue to consider or work with and very little engagement with models of how cultural change could be enabled. The disagreement over the value of DMPs is one example of how a lack of active engagement with culture and how it changes is leading to problems. Key Findings Policies on RDM and RDS are being developed by a number of agencies, primarily in the Global North. These policies are broadly consistent in aspiration and outlines but differ significantly in details of implementation. Policies generally develop along a path starting with aspirational statements, followed by recommendations, then requirements, and finally auditing and compliance measures. Measurement of policy adoption and compliance in terms of the over goals of increased availability and re-use of data is not tracked and is likely unmeasurable currently. Data Management Plans are a central requirement for many policies, in part because they can be made compulsory and act as a general focus for raising awareness. There are significant differences in the views of stakeholders on the value of Data Management Planning in its current form. Some stakeholders regard them as successful in raising awareness albeit with some limitations. Some regard them as actively damaging progress towards real change in practice by making RDM appear as one administrative activity among the many required for grant submission Successful policy implementation is coupled with funder support for infrastructure and training. Seeing RDM as an area for collaboration between funders and researchers may be valuable Internal expertise and support within a funder is often a gap which becomes a problem with monitoring and implementation DMPs can be a helpful part of process but it will be important to make them useful documents throughout and beyond the project If the object of RDM and RDS policy is cultural change in research communities then direct engagement with understanding the various cultures of researcher and other stakeholder communities, alongside frameworks of how they change is an important area for future focus.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e13589

Authors: Ross Mounce, Peter Murray-Rust, Matthew Wills

Abstract:

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e13088

Authors: Lyubomir Penev, Teodor Georgiev, Peter Geshev, Seyhan Demirov, Viktor Senderov, Iliyana Kuzmova, Iva Kostadinova, Slavena Peneva, Pavel Stoev

Abstract: The ARPHA-BioDiv Тoolbox for Scholarly Publishing and Dissemination of Biodiversity Data is a set of standards, guidelines, recommendations, tools, workflows, journals and services, based on the ARPHA Publishing Platform of Pensoft, designed to ease scholarly publishing of biodiversity and biodiversity-related data that are of primary interest to EU BON and GEO BON networks. ARPHA-BioDiv is based on the infrastructure, knowledge and exeprience gathered in the years-long research, development and publishing activities of Pensoft, upgraded with novel tools and workflows that resulted from the FP7 project EU BON.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e12641

Authors: Jingyuan Chen, Deepika Bagga

Abstract: Lower signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the scanning environment is generally considered to exert a negative impact on the inter-/intra-subject consistency of resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) metrics. Here, we show through simulations that this assumption is not always true - poor SNR may paradoxically increase reliability metrics of RSFC under certain circumstances, due to the reduced senstivity to dynamic changes in brain connectivity.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e12032

Authors: Nicolas Schmelling

Abstract: A proposal to create a full-semester zero-entry level course about the responsible handling of research data and the associated analyses, storage, and sharing. The syllabus will comprise open science workflows, the creation of data management plans, as well as the addressing issues about reproducibility and data sharing in science. The course and all its materials will be licensed under CC-BY or if possible under CC-0.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e9390

Authors: Larissa Smirnova, Patricia Mergen, Quentin Groom, Aaike De Wever, Lyubomir Penev, Pavel Stoev, Israel Pe’er, Veljo Runnel, Antonio Camacho, Timothy Vincent, Donat Agosti, Christos Arvanitidis, Francisco Bonet, Hannu Saarenmaa

Abstract: A fundamental constituent of a biodiversity observation network is the technological infrastructure that underpins it. The European Biodiversity Network project (EU BON) has been working with and improving upon pre-existing tools for data mobilization, sharing and description. This paper provides conceptual and practical advice for the use of these tools. We review tools for managing metadata, occurrence data, and ecological data and give detailed description of these tools, their capabilities and limitations. This is followed by recommendations on their deployment and possible future enhancements. This is done from the perspective of the needs of the biodiversity observation community with a view to the development of a unified user interface to these data – the European Biodiversity Portal (EBP). We described the steps taken to develop, adapt, deploy and test these tools. This document also gives an overview of the objectives that still need to be achieved and challenges to be addressed for the remainder of the project.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e9113

Authors: Katja Heuer, Satrajit Ghosh, Amy Robinson Sterling, Roberto Toro

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8817

Authors: Arno Klein

Abstract: We will analyze variations in brain anatomy and create the first integrated software environment to extract patterns from brains and target differences related to inter-individual variability, pathology, development, or degeneration. We will evaluate how well these differences can help diagnose and predict treatment outcome for major depressive disorder, which affects millions of Americans, but our work is intended to be applied to any mental illness, such as Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia – indeed to analyze differences in brain anatomy between any two populations.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8880

Authors: Cameron Neylon, Leslie Chan

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8813

Authors: Arno Klein

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8814

Authors: Arno Klein

Abstract: Visual communication is ubiquitous, commanding our attention and commandeering our inattention. The presentation of information can take myriad visual forms, such as bar charts, scatter plots, network diagrams, and tables. These information graphics are attempts to map potentially large amounts of complex data to easily navigable visual form for rapid and accurate knowledge transfer. However, there is not yet a satisfactory formal methodology for selecting the most appropriate visualization method for a given set of data. A data taxonomy and novel visual taxonomy will be used to select visual stimuli from a database of acquired and newly generated information graphics. Oculomotor responses (eye tracking data) and task-based responses (mouse clicks or keyboard input) are recorded; performance on the latter is used to establish an expert subgroup. These results will be used to satisfy the three primary objectives of the proposed research, determining: how the choice of data visualization impacts oculomotor behavior and task performance, if this behavior is discriminable between experts and novices, and an empirically-based taxonomy of visualization based on the results of 1 and 2. Intellectual merit of the proposed activity The proposed research will create a novel taxonomy for and database of acquired and generated information graphics as well as an associated web application to search, organize, and compare entries in the database. Part of this research program is intended to establish the most comprehensive, manually annotated (and taxonomically classified) information graphics database in the world, for use by the public via a web interface. These images will be important for procuring stimuli for other kinds of perceptual and cognitive psychology experiments. The eye tracking and task performance results should help lead to a better understanding of how humans look at data, respond to the relationship between data structures and visual composition, and respond differentially to visualizations of different types. With respect to qualifications, the PI has a background in brain imaging research, image processing, and programming applications for generating graphs. Through his collaborator Dr. Ferrera of Columbia University, he has access to facilities and faculty specialized in eye tracking and psychophysics research. Collaborator Dr. Michelle Zhou, a research manager at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, has years of experience in the areas of data and visual taxonomies, image databases, and automated generation of information graphics [Zhou and Feiner 1998, Zhou et al. 2002b, Zhou et al. 2002a]. Broader impacts of the proposed activity In addition to contributions the image taxonomy, database, and web application are intended to make to research, they will serve as a rich resource for teaching about the history and scope of visualization methods and design within and across disciplines, and for the general public with an interest in information graphics. The research will be conducted on subjects of varied background and race and will be broadly disseminated via websites in addition to publications. Additionally, defining a visual taxonomy will inform design choices made in information visualization. One implication of this research is a determination of how effective different visualization methods are at conveying information; this understanding will be of profound help to anyone interested in conveying information effectively in a graphical form.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8458

Authors: Willi Egloff, Donat Agosti, David Patterson, Anke Hoffmann, Daniel Mietchen, Puneet Kishor, Lyubomir Penev

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8424

Authors: Maryann Martone, Peter Murray-Rust, Jenny Molloy, Tom Arrow, Mark MacGillivray, Chris Kittel, Stefan Kasberger, Graham Steel, Charles Oppenheim, Anusha Ranganathan, Jonathan Tennant, Jon Udell

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