Motivating Scenario
Name
Indicators for monitoring Research Performing Organisations
Description
Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) require tools and data to monitor and measure their performance for specific activities in relation to Open Science (and beyond). They key here is Open Science. Open Science is characterised by a few principles, but it is important to understand that not everything must be measured in relation to Open Science activities. Open Science is characterised by openness, the FAIRness of the research objects, and by whether a research entity applies early sharing of its research practices, such as publishing pre-prints, pre-registering research, sharing datasets. The diversity of activities in the Open Science spectrum creates further challenges on how to distinguish and create a clear boundary on how to assess an output that is considered aligned with Open Science practices. Primarily, there are dominant practices that are prioritised in terms of defining Open Science practices: Open Access to Scholarly publications (Green, Gold, and Diamond Route). Note that this includes Open Access publications for Books/Monographs; Publication of datasets in a trusted repository; Publication of preprints in a trusted platform such as Arxiv, SocArxiv etc.; Pre-registration of studies in OSF or any other relevant platform. Open Peer Review, in the context of monitoring an RPO cannot be included in this scenario given that it is an individuals preference to perform an open peer review or not, or a journal requirement.
Examples
Example 1
University of Bologna needs to monitor its Open Access scholarly publications and they need to track which pathways have been used as part of its Open Access policy. It needs to be noted, that University of Bologna, is aiming for an 100% Open Access publication for its scholarly publications by 2030. This policy has been established in 2022. In its policy it defines Open Access as the Version of Record to be OA on day 1 of publication. This creates some confusion about whether Green can be applied as part of the record or not, but while debate is ongoing, the Library team has decided to track all of the performance across the various paths. Additionally, the team will like to know similar information for Open Access Books/Monographs to understand gaps and discrepancies.
Example 2
As part of its new Research Data policy since 2021, University of Bologna is encouraging all authors of scholarly publication to publish their data as a means to verifiability and replicability. However, they don’t seem to have any data to understand the university behaviour. It is important the dataset count to be tracked according to Department, Unit, school and not to the individual level. This will allow the university to understand how the disciplines and schools are sharing their datasets. It would be beneficial to know if those datasets are linked to any funding. The university will review datasets for the period 2014-2024 to align it with Horizon 2020, and Horizon Europe periods.
Example 3
Senior Management of University of Bologna has noted that it’s becoming more prevalent for researchers to publish preprints. As such they asked the Library team to organise some data around preprints.