Gamification

Thematic escape game related to Research Data Management (RDM): https://sites.google.com/vu.nl/datahorror/home created by Lieke Mulder and Merel Talbi in collaboration with three Dutch universities. At the Vrije University Amsterdam, this game was played live in 2020 in addition to the online version. The game is really great, give it a try, too! In addition, you will find a lot of great links not only to data management, but also to identifiers (persistent) and much more. So don't hesitate!

What is the proper approach to data management? This link will guide you through data management and the mistakes you can make when managing your data: https://forschungsdaten-thueringen.de/rdm-scarytales/articles/overview.html (also in Zenodo repository: https://zenodo.org/record/7276802). The card game will soon be available in printed version and you will be able to attend a workshop during Open Access Week at the University of South Bohemia, and try the game off-line!

Another great game where you can take on the role of a digital curator (i.e. the person responsible for preserving data and digital objects/materials) and discover a mystery of digital projects is this one: http://schreibman.eu/digcurv/curate-game/ (https://zenodo.org/record/438694). It is a card-based board game and it is intended for professionals (managers, librarians, etc.) as well as Ph.D. students and early career academics.

The board games have different themes and one of them is directly related to Open Access which we know from the publishing scene. The link to the "OA-board game" can be found here: https://hud.libguides.com/openaccess/GameOfOpenAccess. The game has been requested by our Academic Library. 

With a bit of skill, even Lego^© can be used to create a game focused on replicability of (meta)data: https://zenodo.org/record/3685685. This game for 4 to 24 players was designed at Glasgow University (https://eosc-pillar.eu/data-stewardship-resources/lego%C2%AE-metadata-reproducibility) and  publikovala (http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/196477/). For a guide how to set up your game, see this ReadMe (ReadMe files provide the necessary information or metadata needed to add value to digital research objects): https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/196477/4/ReadMe_Sep19.pdf.

A game focused on Open Science role and on Open Access: https://copyrightliteracy.org/resources/the-publishing-trap/. This game highlights the necessity of open communication and research sharing. The game will be appreciated by both novice researchers and experienced academics.

Open Science: A Practical Guide for (not only) PhD Students

The English version in pdf can be downloaded from the University College London webpage HERE.

A series of webinars to discover open science

Recordings of “Open for you! Third series of 4EU+ webinars to discover open science (2024)” can be found in English at European University Alliance webpage.

The Academic library of University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice is a member of the CzechELib consortium. The CzechELib National Centre ensures the purchase of key electronic resources for the entire research and education community in the Czech Republic, takes care of their management, including usage statistics, and supports open access publishing. The National Centre is part of the National Library of Technology and its establishment was supported by the European Operational Programme Research, Development, Education.

The Centre primarily provides its members with following:

• Support in the use of publishing contracts (Open Access agenda).
• Choice of electronic information resources (EIR) for central support.
• EIR supplier tenders.
• EIZ contract negotiations and purchase.
• Support to member institutions in accessing and using the EIRs purchased.
• Support to member institutions in processing of bibliometric analyses.
• Management of statistics on resource utilisation.

For more information visit the CzechElib web page.

As a CzechElib member we have arranged a discount or complete waiver of fees for open access publishing with several publishers. This is applicable only to the corresponding authors affiliated with the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice.

The APC (Article Processing Charge) for publishing is covered by the Academic library through a so-called token system.

Academic library tokens covering APC’s at the publishing houses in 2024.

Current status as of 15 November 2024 - please note that the figures are definitive for 2024!

Springer: there are NO tokens available

Taylor & Francis: there are NO tokens available

Wiley: there are NO tokens available

Oxford University Press: unlimited number of tokens available

Hints for the authors: How to publish Open Access

Before you publish please check:

1. Your institution is a part of the transformation contract with the publisher (you can check it HERE)
2. You are the corresponding author (please use your institution e-mail address as a different one could be a problem at some publishers)
3. The journal is from the list of eligible journals (HERE is a link to download the list in .xlsx format)
4. The paper type and the acceptance date are correct
5. Your institution has a free token to cover the publication expenses (APC’s)

Publisher: Oxford University Press

The largest university publisher in the world and the second oldest (after Cambridge University Press) founded in 1586. It is affiliated to the University of Oxford and it has published mainly scholarly works, musical scores and textbooks for the last 400 years. In addition, OUP is the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. The current CzechElib contract is valid until December 31, 2025. The number of tokens for APC coverage is unlimited.

Following types of papers can be published: Research Article, Review Article, Brief Report, Case Report.

All full Open Access journals and hybrid journals are eligible, except for following journals that are NOT ELIGIBLE:

• Astronomy & Geophysics
• Children & Schools
• Critical Values
• European Heart Journal Supplements
• Health and Social Work
• Holocaust And Genocide Studies
• Interactive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery
• Itnow
• JNCI Monographs
• Journal of American History
• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
• Journal Of The ICRU
• Music Theory Spectrum
• OAH Magazine of History
• Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics
• Reports of Patent, Design and Trade Mark Cases
• Shakespeare Quarterly
• Social Work
• Social Work Research
• The American Historical Review
• The Library¨
• The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
• The Year’s Work in English Studies
• Translational Animal Science
• Western Historical Quarterly

The author should manage the publication process through the journal web page. The corresponding author should use his/her institutional e-mail address (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), after successful peer review the paper is accepted for publication and then it is handed over to the production team with a unique ID. Then the author gets a welcome e-mail with a unique link to the licensing and payment system (Author Services), and if the institution identifier (Ringgold ID) matches the authorized institution (University of South Bohemia), the author gets a second email with instructions on how to take advantage of free Open Access publishing under the transformation agreement.

After the request, the Open Access administrator (Academic Library) has 7 days to approve or deny the request. Due to the unlimited usage, only other circumstances - e.g. the author is no longer a member of an eligible institution - can be a reason for refusal.

Warning: if an OA request is rejected by the institutional administrator, the author is required to pay the publication fee (APC).

Publisher: Wiley

The American publishing house has been in the business since 1807 with focus on academic publishing and educational materials. The current CzechElib contract is valid until December 31, 2026. The number of tokens for our university is limited (25 a year) so it is “first come first served”. Before you submit your paper, it is recommended to ask Academic Library if the APC’s can be covered with a token.

It is possible to publish for free in subscription only journals.

It is possible to publish Open Access in hybrid journals, the list can be found HERE. Following types are suitable for publishing: Research Article, Review Article, Commentary, Case Study, Data Article, Education, Lecture, Method and Protocol, Perspective, Practice and Policy, Rapid Publication, Short Communication, Technical Note.

A detailed “how to” has been prepared by Wiley HERE.

If the publishing house accepts the article for publication, the author is invited to edit the article in Author Services system. First he/she fills the form and special attention must be paid to the right responsible author (Responsible Corresponding Author) – there can be just one, he/she is responsible for signing the publishing agreement, and his/her affiliation will be used to determine eligibility to use the token. If the authors have multiple affiliations, they must indicate which affiliation they wish to use for APC payment.

The administrator (Academic Library) is automatically notified of the request. When the author's affiliation is correct and the tokens for the relevant period are available the publication is approved.

If the administrator rejects the request, the publisher will contact the author and offer him/her the option of publishing traditionally (free for the author, the article will be placed behind a paywall). Alternatively, if the author pays the APC directly, the article can be published in Open Access mode.

A Wiley how-to-publish video can be found HERE.

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

A British publisher with a tradition since 1798, it is dedicated to publishing the highest quality scientific research. The current CzechElib contract is valid until December 31, 2025. The number of tokens for our university is limited (just 3 a year) so it is “first come first served”. Again, before you submit your paper, it is recommended to ask Academic Library if the APC’s can be covered with a token.

All hybrid journals are eligible for Open Access publishing – a complete list can be found at  THIS PAGE.

These article formats are allowed: Article, Review, Research Article, Review Article, Report, Short Communication, Original Article.

At the submission portal the author fills initial information and uploads his/her text. It is highly recommended to use a university e-mail address.  The administrator (Academic Library) is informed and after the author’s affiliation is checked the token is used (if available as the number is strictly limited).

The Publisher then communicates with the author(s) through e-mails: request to complete an author agreement (APA), confirmation of metadata and authorship accuracy, and a license selection. The article is then published.

Step-by-step instructions can be found at CzechElib web page HERE.

Publisher: Springer Nature

Springer is a part of the German-British house Springer Nature and since 2015 has been one of the world's leading publishers in natural science. The current CzechElib contract is valid until December 31, 2025.

The number of tokens for our university is limited (14 a year) so it is “first come first served”. Again, before you submit your paper, it is recommended to ask Academic Library if the APC’s can be covered with a token.

Authors from CzechElib member institutions are allowed to publish in Open Access mode in hybrid journals (CAUTION! Not in journals published by BioMed Central, Springer Open, Scientific Reports, and Nature Communications).

It is possible to submit following articles: Original Paper (also called Research Article), Review Article, Brief Communication, Continuing Education.

Detailed tutorial on how to publish in Open Access mode can be found HERE.

At the Publisher’s WEB PAGE the author fills the initial information and submits his/her text. After the article is accepted, the author is asked to sign a publication agreement. Springer checks the author’s affiliation (University of South Bohemia) by the institutional email domain in the contact, by the affiliation chosen by the author (this is the most important parameter) and by the IP address from which he/she fills out the contract.

As long as the author's affiliation is verified, the article type eligible, and the journal is in the list of eligible titles, then the author is presented with information about the transformation agreement and can decide whether to continue publishing in Open Access mode and submit the article for approval. The author must then sign a License to Publish. Once the article has been approved by the administrator (Academic Library) for covering the APC with a token, the article is published in OA mode.

If the article is rejected by the administrator, the author has the option to pay the publication fee himself or choose to publish the article in the classic mode (the article will be behind a paywall).

A Springer how-to-publish video can be found HERE.

DMP is a document that describes the "life cycle" of data throughout the entire project. It specifies how the data will be collected, processed, analysed, described, preserved, shared and, where appropriate, reused. The DMP also specifies the metadata and all ethical and legal aspects, as well as the data storage and back-up facilities and, finally, all the responsible parties and resources.

The following illustration shows the data lifecycle management:

© ELIXIR RDMkit

1. Plan: Not only a plan for working with data, but a plan of the whole project. We determine what data we will work with; if it is external, what kind of license it is under, whether it is sensitive data, how and for how long it will be archived and – last but not least – how the data work will be funded.
2. Collect: Collecting the data, for example through questionnaire surveys, outputs from own measuring instruments and computers, etc.
3. Process: This can be merging of the data, converting it into a consistent format and/or cleansing it.
4. Analyse: The research work with data itself. At this stage, the scientific output suitable for publication is created. More often, the datasets on which the published article is based are also a part of the output.
5. Preserve: Because of sharing and reusing the data are stored in a reliable repository. Data are given a persistent identifier (for example DOI) so that they can be uniquely linked to.
6. Share: The identifiers allow other users to access the data, for example to check their published results or compare the data with their own outputs.
7. Reuse: The stored data can be used for further research by the original author and/or by other scientists in the discipline.

More about working with the data lifecycle can be found HERE. This is not a one-time activity, but a long-term process that needs to be continuously monitored and maintained throughout the data lifecycle.

Planning data work

At the beginning of the project there starts a process of planning the procedures and communication of the data lifecycle. It is necessary to plan all activities related to the handling of data during scientific research. And the result is a living document: Data Management Plan.

The plan is primarily a tool for all scientists involved in research. It can be used whenever there is a need to track down any data or the exact procedure of obtaining it. It is useful when a new member joins the research team or when the circumstances of a research project change in any way.

DMP may be an obligation and condition of some funders who require to store, share and publish data (e.g. OP JAK, Horizon Europe or other fund providers). Such a plan is also a reliable way how to how to verify the progress and conclusions of the research at the end of the project.  Therefore, some funders make it a mandatory requirement to submit a DMP at the beginning, during and at the end of the project.

The plan does not have to be project-specific but can describe the handling of research data at the level of the whole organisation.

Data Management Plan development tools

Data Stewardship Wizard

An excellent and sophisticated online tool for creating DMPs, the web page can be visited HERE. The program will help with the formal creation of the plan, but in addition it will make sure that the data is FAIR and will take care of its machine workability. DSW will allow sharing within the team and highlight any conflicts. It is also well prepared for possible changes during the course of the project.

A detailed user manual in English can be found HERE.

DMPonline

Probably the oldest tool for creating a DMP. This online application has a web page HERE and the DMP creation is based on replying form questions. HERE are also publicly available examples of plans from various previous projects and HERE are some requirements of different grant agencies. These are considered unofficial so they should be always checked directly with the funders.

Argos

Web application with a homepage HERE also helps to create a DMP using your answers to questions. However, Argos separates the project plan and the description of the dataset, so it can be used in other projects, too. In addition, Argos is linked to OpenAIRE and EOSC and allows the DMP to be stored in the Zenodo repository (more on the repository can be found HERE). Examples of completed plans can be viewed HERE and dataset samples are shown HERE.

DMP Format

Data Management Plan does not have a fixed mandatory form. There are different free templates available, for example DMP Horizon (bilingual text in Czech and English in MS Word / PDF format) HERE.

Metadata is a description of a dataset, and it is therefore an essential part of research data as well as any publication results. There are common recommendations how to describe research procedures and data, you can use documents from this web page. Users can find and utilize other schemes, for example, here. We use metadata to accurately describe the particular file so that it conforms to FAIR principles (see the Open Data tab). Metascience is then its own scientific discipline. In 2023, it was the subject of a global conference in Washington, D.C. (https://metascience.info/).

Metadata can be subdivided into:

• administrative,
• descriptive,
• structural.

Practical examples of this division from different disciplines (political science, physics, or medicine) can be found on the page "How to make your data FAIR": https://howtofair.dk/how-to-fair/metadata/. How to find out and verify that our data is really "FAIR"? For example, using this document as a checklist. Platform https://www.fairsfair.eu/ is available to support FAIR principles and data “fairification.”

If you would like to get a quick introduction to metadata, we recommend watching a short four-minute video at this link: https://youtu.be/fZWg0ClQkYQ.

The issue of metadata is dynamic and rapidly evolving. That is why we will keep you informed about various metadata standards and update this page regularly.