Data Policies in Open Access Journals: Not all that glitters is “gold”

At the end of September, I was in beautifull Vienna for some days and presented a few results of our project at the 6th Open Access Days in a session about “Making Research Data publicly available: opportunities and challenges“.
It’s been a very nice conference – and some blogposts [Uli Herb -> telepolis (in German) | Astrid Recker -> admtic (in English)] report on the conference and some of the presentations. My colleques Olaf Siegert, Ralf Flohr and I also wrote a summary of the conference for ZfBB (in German) that will be published in the next issue of the journal.

Well, to come back to my talk:  In this post I want to point out some single aspects of my presentation: the availability of data policies in economic scholarly journals that are published open access.
Our project compared the number and quality of data policies we found in a sample of 43 open access Journals to a sample of 141 traditional subscription journals in regard to the implementation of data availability policies.

Generally speaking I wondered how open access journals acquit themselves in this context. Prior to starting our analysis I was quite sure that the percentage of journals equipped with a data availability policy would be higher in open access journals than the proportion of subscription journals equipped with such a policy. I even thought that open access journals could have a comparative advantage to traditional subscription journals: Read the rest of this entry »

RunMyCode.org – Make research easier to use and replicate

Last week Patrick, one of our project partners, made me aware of a very interesting website and service for researchers that is called runmycode.org. The concept of RunMyCode can be viewed as a novel attempt to provide  an executable paper solution.

Therefore I am very happy that Prof. Pérignon, one of the co-founders, has written a short introduction for our blog. If you would like to get more information about RunMyCode just visit the website or contact the team. Read the rest of this entry »

Data Policies in Economic Journals: What Data Authors have to provide beside the Manuscript?

As mentioned in some of my previous blogposts we analyzed more than 140 economic scholarly journals regarding their data availability policies. It has been an interesting work checking the quality and the extend of these data policies.

In our sample (that was evaluated in 2011 by the German Economics Bräuninger, Haucap and Muck regarding the reputation and relevance of these journals) we were able to find 29 journals equipped with a data availability policy and 11 journals that own a so called “replication policy”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thompson Reuters announces Start of „Data Citation Index“

Thomson Reuters, known for the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) or the Web of Knowledge, has announced to start a “data citation index (DCI).”

This new index will incorporate content from data sets and data studies deposited in over 80 established, curated repositories, from around the World, multidisciplinary coverage across social sciences, physical sciences, life sciences and arts and humanities.  The aim of the DCI is to facilitate the discovery, use and attribution and data studies, and link those data to peer reviewed literature.

Read the rest of this entry »

German Bibliothekartag: EDaWaX presents first Findings

On Thursday -24th of may- I presented first findings of our research project in a session on research data at the 101st German Bibliothekartag, managed by Goportis, the Leibniz Library Network for Research Information. Up to 100 colleques heard the presentation and some interesting questions were raised.

For introducing my presentation I gave a short overview on the project’s aims and our three project phases. Also the expected outcome and our project partners were introduced.

Read the rest of this entry »

OSF- Reproducibility Project tries to replicate the results published in three psychological journals

“If you’re a psychologist, the news has to make you a little nervous…”. With this statement Tom Bartlett introduced his article  “Is Psychology About to Come Undone?” in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The source of his fears is the Reproducibility Project  – a group of researchers that aim to replicate every study within the three journals Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition published in the year 2008.

The project is part of Open Science Framework (OSF), a group that is interested in increasing the alignment between scientific values and scientific practices. Despite developing some tools and infrastructure projects its stated mission is to “estimate the reproducibility of published psychological science.”

Read the rest of this entry »

EDaWaX-Project wins LIBER Award for Library Innovation 2012

At the end of last week I received an E-Mail from the LIBER Executive Director that congratulates our project for winning the LIBER Award for Library Innovation 2012! These are really great news!

Our abstract:  “Data Management in Scholarly Journals and Possible Roles for Libraries – Some Insights from EDaWaX” was among the top three papers that were submitted to the conference.

Read the rest of this entry »

Data Availability Policy: American Economic Review

As announced in my previous blogpost, I ‘m starting the presentation of some data availability policies and replication policies with the American Economic Review (AER). The AER is a flagship of the economic profession and one of the top ranked journals in this scientific discipline.
The AER was published in 1911 for the first time. Only 7 – 10 percent of the submissions are accepted and later on published.

The AER adopted a so called replication policy in 1986 – despite the fact that studies (for example by Dewald, Thursby and Anderson) already claimed, that a replication policy is not enough to promote replicable results.
In their policy, the Review pledged authors to provide datasets and code for processing the data to other scientists that are interested in replicating the results on request.

Replication policies have often failed, even if the corresponding author is willing to support other researchers…and I imagine that this szenario is not very common …After publishing an article, authors mostly don’t have incentives to prepare the data and code for other researchers. It costs time and the rewards the scientific system pays for sharing data often are marginal.

Read the rest of this entry »

Announcement: New section – Data Availability Policies in Economic Journals

Today, I want to introduce a new regular section here on edawax.de. Within the next weeks and months I’ m going to discuss some of the data availability policies we found during our investigations for our work package 2.

Even though you’ll find a lot of the information posted here in a condensed report by the end of spring, I thought it would be beneficial to our readers to get some preliminary information about the things we are currently doing. Of course I would be very happy to discuss the policies presented and some of my thoughts with you. So please feel free to comment or to send me an email.

Read the rest of this entry »

RatSWD-Newsletter: EDaWaX Project introduced

The German Data Forum (RatSWD) has just published its current newsletter. Beside many other interesting articles, book reviews, event notes etc., on page 3 a description of the EDaWaX-Project is included (see below).

I’m sorry for our international visitors, but the article and the whole newsletter is available in German only.

Additionally I want to point the attention of our readers to another publication (in German) of the German Data Forum: Prof. Gerd G. Wagner and D. Huschka published a comment on the nature magazine’s special issue “data replication and reproducibility.”

You’ll find the working paper 194 “Datenverfügbarkeit reicht nicht, um Replikationsstudien zur Routine zu machen” in the Download section of this blog or on the website of the German Data Forum.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Surfboard for Riding the Wave” Report: Data availability policies of journals

Additionally to my blogpost where I introduced the “Surfboard for Riding the Wave” report, I want to point out a single part of the report for this post:

In Chapter 3.5, data availability policies of journals are discussed – a subject connected to the tasks of the EDaWax work package  “Analysis of Data Policies”. Currently the EDaWax-Project is examining over 140 economic journals regarding their data availability policies.

Back to the “Surfboard”-Report: KE stated, that

“most peer-reviewed journals in science, technology and medicine have files where authors can add supplementary data related to the article, such as data sets, multimedia files, large tables, animations, and protocols.”

For example a study found out that the percentage of articles that contained supplementary materials increased from 7% in 2003 to 25% in 2009 – at least for the reviewed 28 high impact medical journals.

Read the rest of this entry »

About

[About]

The project “European Data Watch Extended” (EDaWaX) was a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) between 2011 and 2016.

One of the main purposes of the project was to develop a software to facilitate the management of replication files for editorial offices in economics and management.

After completing the project, this software component has become the ZBW Journal Data Archive. The ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics / German National Library of Economics now offers this service for editorial offices free of charge.

Beside developing the software for the Journal Data Archive, the project conducted a lot of surveys and published the results. The project’s analyses included examinations of journal data policies, data sharing behaviour of economists and surveys on perceptions of editorial offices towards data availability policies. In addition, EDaWaX checked if services for journals to manage replication data were available among scientific infrastructure service providers in Germany and abroad.

EDaWaX was a joint project of ZBW-Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, the German Data Forum (RatSWD), the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (MCIER) and the Research Data Centre of the Socio-Economic Panel (FDZ SOEP) at DIW Berlin.

More information:

• Click >here< for more information on EDaWaX’s project consortium.
• Click >here< for more information on EDaWaX’s second funding phase.
• Click >here< for more information on EDaWaX’s first funding phase.

Downloads

[Downloads]

In this section we list all our papers, journal articles and presentations of our project – divided by type of dissemination activity.

From project phase 1 we list only some of the core papers and findings at the bottom of the page.

For a detailed overview of the output of EDaWaX’s first funding phase, please click >here<.

For a list of related literature to the topic of reproducible research in social sciences and in economics in particular, click >here<.

Publications and presentations of EDaWaX’s 2nd funding phase:

Journal Articles, Working Paper and Conference Proceedings:

in English:

• • • Paper: Mueller-Langer, F., Andreoli-Versbach, P. (2017): “Open access to research data: Strategic delay and the ambiguous welfare effects of mandatory data disclosure”. Information Economics and Policy, doi:10.1016/j.infoecopol.2017.05.004
    • Working Paper: Mueller-Langer, F., Fecher, B., Harhoff, D., Wagner, Gert G. (2017). The Economics of Replication, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Research Paper No. 17 03
    • Paper: Vlaeminck, S., Podkrajac, F. (2017): Journals in Economic Sciences: Paying Lip Service to Reproducible Research? IASSIST Quarterly (41)1-4, doi: doi:10.29173/iq6
    • Comment: Fecher, B., Wagner G. (2016). A research symbiont, Science 351(6280), p. 1405-1406, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.351.6280.1405-b
    • Paper: Vlaeminck, S., Herrmann L. (2015): “Data policies and data archives: A new paradigm for academic publishing in economic sciences?” In: Schmidt, B. /Dobreva, M. (Eds.), New Avenues for Electronic Publishing in the Age of Infinite Collections and Citizen Science: Scale, Openness and Trust. Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Electronic Publishing, September 2015. doi:10.3233/978-1-61499-562-3-145.
    • Paper: Fecher, B., Friesike, S., Hebing, M. (2015). What Drives Academic Data Sharing? PLoS ONE 10(2): e0118053. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118053
    • Working Paper: Fecher, B., Friesike, S., Hebing, M., Linek, S., Sauermann, A. (2015). A Reputation Economy: Results from an Empirical Survey on Academic Data Sharing. DIW Berlin, Discussion Paper No. 1454, http://hdl.handle.net/10419/107686

Presentations:

In English:

• • • Presentation: ‘How to start RDM-services for Economists? The example of EDaWaX‘ | From Open Access to Open Science: Supporting the Transition to Managing Research Data | COAR Webinar | December 2018.
    • Presentation: ‘Work Closely with the Community!’ Experiences from a Project on Research Data Management for Economic Journals | LIBER Conference 2016 | Helsinki | Finland.
    • Presentation: Journals in Economic Sciences: Paying lip-services to reproducible Research? | IASSIST Conference 2016 | June 2016 | Bergen | Norway.
    • Presentation: National Research Data Services for Economics in Germany and the Role of the ZBW | INCONECSS – International Conference on Economics and Business Information | April 2016 | Berlin | Germany.
    • Presentation: Data policies and data archives: A new paradigm for academic publishing in economic sciences? | 19th International Conference on Electronic Publishing (ELPUB15) | 2015-9-2 | Valletta | Malta.
    • Presentation: Data policies and data archives as prerequisites of reproducible economic research | 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association | 2016/01/04 | San Francisco | USA
    • Presentation: ZBW’s role in establishing servies for RDM in economics | nereus workshop on open data, restricted data and the library role – Practical cases with regards to economics and social sciences | LIBER 2015 – pre-conference workshop | 2015-06-23 | London | UK.
    • Presentation: Data policies and data archives as prerequisites of reproducible published research in economics’ journals | 9th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing | 2014-11-27 | Tromsø | Norway.

In German:

• • • Presentation: Vlaeminck, S. / Fecher, B. : “Leibniz Science 2.0. Sharing Research Data in Academia” and “Data Sharing und Data Policies von Fachzeitschriften in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften.” Joint talk held at the meeting of the research data alliance (RDA) Germany | November 2014 | Potsdam | Germany.
    • Presentation: “Neue Entwicklungen im Journal-Management:  Data Policies & Datenarchive – Ein Überblick am Beispiel der Wirtschaftswissenschaften” | Presentation given at the third journal management workshop of the Leibniz Association | January 2015 | Berlin | Germany.
    • Presentation: “Aktive Vernetzung mit der Wissenschaftscommunity – zwei Beispiele aus dem Bereich Forschungsdaten in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften“. German Librarian’s Day | May 2015 | Nuremberg | Germany.
    • Presentation: “Der Einsatz von PIDs und Normdaten bei wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Informationsinfrastrukturen” | Annual Meeting of the German Initiative for Network Information – Working Group on Interoperable Metadata | April 2016 |Mannheim | Germany.
    • Presentation: “Der Aufbau eines publikationsbezogenen Forschungsdatenarchivs für die Wirtschaftswissenschaften” | Annual Meeting of FIS Education | April 2016 | Frankfurt | Germany.
    • Presentation: “Erleichterte Metadatengenerierung für wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fachzeitschriften: Das ZBW Journal Data Archive.” | 5th nestor/DINI workshop on research data | June 2016 | Kiel | Germany.
    • Presentations of the EDaWaX-workshop “Forschungsdatenmanagement für wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fachzeitschriften“. Pre-conference workshop at annual meeting of the German learned society for business research (VHB) | May 2016 | Munich | Germany
      • Talk 1 (Olaf Siegert, ZBW): “Kurzvorstellung des EDaWaX-Projekts”
      • Talk 2 (Dr. Frank Müller-Langer, MCI-IP): “Replication in Empirical Economics: A Matter of Impact and Efficiency” (Coming soon)
        
      • Talk 3 (Sven Vlaeminck, ZBW): “Data Policies in wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fachzeitschriften”
      • Talk 4 (Dr. Hendrik Bunke, ZBW): “Das ZBW Journal Data Archive”
      • Talk 5 (Prof. Dr. Peter Winker, University of Gießen & Editor- in-chief Journal of Economics and Statistics): “Erfahrungen mit der EDaWaX Applikation aus Sicht eines Herausgebers”
    • Presentations:  ZBW’s-workshop “Forschungsdatenmanagement“. Pre-conference workshop at annual meeting of the German learned society for economics (VfS) | September 2016 | Augsburg| Germany
      • Talk 1 (Ralf Toepfer, ZBW): “Kurzvorstellung des EDaWaX-Projekts”
      • Talk 2 (Benedikt Fecher, DIW & HIIG): “Forschungsdatenaustausch in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften”
      • Talk 3 (Sven Vlaeminck, ZBW):“Data Policies in wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fachzeitschriften”
      • Talk 4 (Dr. Hendrik Bunke, ZBW): “Das ZBW Journal Data Archive”
      • Talk 5 (Prof. Dr. Peter Winker, University of Gießen & Editor- in-chief Journal of Economics and Statistics): “Erfahrungen mit der EDaWaX Applikation aus Sicht eines Herausgebers”
      • Talk 6 (Prof. Dr. Thomas K. Bauer, RWI): “Forschungsdatenmanagement aus Sicht der Wirtschaftswissenschaften“
    • Presentation: “Der Aufbau eines publikationsbezogenen Forschungsdatenarchivs für die Wirtschaftswissenschaften.” VDB-Meeting of subject librarians in economics and management | September 2016 | Frankfurt am Main | Germany.

Miscellaneous:

• • The documentation of our application (ZBW Journal Data Archive) in German and in English.
  • The list of all journals in our sample investigated for the availability of a data policy.
  • The wording of all the 49 data availability policies and 22 ‘author responsibility policies’ we found.
  • Replication files and other supplemental information used for our article “Data Management in Scholarly Journals and Possible Roles for Libraries – Some Insights from EDaWaX“
  • Replication files and other supplemental information used for our article “Data Policies and Data Archives: A New Paradigm for Academic Publishing in Economic Sciences?”
  • GitHub Repository: CKAN application’s development

Some core publications and presentations of EDaWaX’s – 1st funding phase:

In English:

• • • Paper: Andreoli-Versbach, P.  / Mueller-Langer, F. (2014). “Open access to data: An ideal professed but not practised”. Research Policy, 43 (9), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2014.04.008.
    • Discussion Paper: Mueller-Langer, F.  /  Andreoli-Versbach, P. (2014). „Open access to research data: Strategic delay and the ambiguous welfare effects of mandatory data disclosure”. Munich Discussion Paper No. 2014-32.
    • Paper: Vlaeminck, S. (2013).”Data Management in Scholarly Journals and possible Roles for Libraries – Some Insights from EDaWaX.” Published in LIBER Quarterly, Vol.23, Issue 1, [html | pdf]
    • Paper: Vlaeminck, S. / Wagner G. (2014) “On the role of research data centres in the management of publication-related research data.” LIBER Quarterly Vol.23, Issue 4.

In German:

• • • Paper: Vlaeminck, S. / Wagner, G.G / Wagner, J. / Harhoff D. / Siegert, O. (2013): “Replizierbare Forschung in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften erhöhen – eine Herausforderung für wissenschaftliche Infrastrukturdienstleister.” LIBREAS. Library Ideas, 23.

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