Open data has the potential to improve research management

Significant amounts of diverse data are created as a result of research management and administration, many of which are available, or could be available, as open data.

Some is well managed and accessible under open licences or conditions. Some may be available but is not accessible consistently as open data; other data has the potential to be available as open data but is not accessible. There are many opportunities for even more efficiency and innovation if we take an open data lens to data about research management.

Jisc – formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee – recently conducted an independent review into the use of open data in research management and administration in the United Kingdom.

It had been asked by the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to lead the implementation of the digital and data recommendations in the Independent Review of Research Bureaucracy, which included a focus on “the development and further integration of the research information ecosystem, including research management data”.

Fully open and reusable data

The report highlights a wide range of opportunities to make better use of the data that already exists on UK research by moving towards fully open and reusable data, including:

• Establishing a foundational step towards shared efficiencies and simplified approaches to managing research in the UK – reducing bureaucracy, removing unnecessary complexity and technical debt, and lowering costs.

• Collaborative efforts coordinated by Jisc, through the Bureaucracy Review Reform and Implementation Network (BRRIN), include representation from all UK nations and aim to enhance the research management ecosystem with efficient, sustainable, low-bureaucracy solutions.

• The importance of an audit of open data could reveal further value, highlighting significant opportunities to leverage open data for research management.

• The suggestion to adopt common data standards to support application programming interfaces or APIs could lead to a more integrated and streamlined system.

• The opportunity to use existing open data infrastructure and policies from across the public sector offers immediate opportunities for improvement.

The review, conducted in collaboration with Research Consulting and in association with SIRIS Academic, aimed to enhance understanding of open data’s potential to improve research management and support efficient and innovative use of data, aligning with government and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) recommendations.

Jisc wants to develop a high-level understanding of the scope, extent and potential of open data about research management and administration, and to identify ways to improve the landscape and explore the potential for open data as a sector asset to support efficiency and insight.

The Open Data Institute summarises open data as “data that anyone can access, use or share”. The landscape of data about research management and administration is comprehensive. It is an important resource for analysis and insight into the research and innovation system.

The data in scope is not personally, commercially or otherwise sensitive or disclosive. It may comprise aggregated, anonymised or linked data from a range of sources and, when combined in aggregated, linked form, it would also not be personally, commercially or otherwise sensitive or disclosive.

Complex landscape

Research infrastructure investments, public sector, independent and private research organisations, member bodies, professional groups, commercial organisations and charitable sector organisations independently produce data and intersect with government, funders and higher education institutions to produce data.

The four nations of the UK have different processes for managing research. This complex landscape includes data that can duplicate or consolidate existing resources, data collection activities and data service platforms, in some cases overlapping with other data and adding to the complexity and bureaucracy that exists.

Access routes are mediated in many different ways and this can reduce the data’s quality and interoperability.

Metadata availability and alignment between data sources is patchy and rare. Application programming interfaces or APIs exist in some areas and enable programmatic data analysis, but they are either not consistent or their standards are not always defined. We have explored open data about research management and administration using a Jisc-defined, six-tier typology to review the data types.

More efficiencies and innovation

The landscape review highlights the clear and relatively low-burden opportunity for better access to significant data resources produced in the administration of research. It has identified a wealth of data which could potentially be made available under open licences through our existing organisational landscape.

Jisc looks forward to working with the UK government’s bureaucracy reduction digital working group to progress the next steps towards bringing even more efficiencies and innovation to the data landscape in the management of research and aligning more closely with our colleagues in the wider public sector as exemplified by data.gov.uk and in local government.

Dr Victoria Moody is director of higher education and research, Jisc, United Kingdom.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the authors only and not their employer and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.