Hi Adil, I agree with you that all researchers in graduate programmes should emerge with the ability to critically assess the work of their peers. However, reviewers are increasingly being expected to assess the quality of the underlying research data as well as the published output. One specific area where additional researcher training is becoming necessary is data management planning.
Funding body requirements are emerging to ensure that research data is adequately managed over the life of the research project and beyond. Indeed many funding bodies now require the inclusion of a data management plan at the bid stage. For a list of the potential benefits associated with managing research data please see the useful information provided by MIT Libraries http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data-management/why.html. The review of data management plans requires additional skills on the part of reviewers. If reviewers are unable to effectively assess aspects of data management as part of the overall bid review there will be little reward for researchers to complete these data management plans as anything other than a box ticking exercise. Some postgraduate courses are starting to cover data management aspects more explicitly which should mean that early career researchers are picking up these skills. The recent JISC MRD Train funded projects http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/mrd/rdmtrain.aspx have developed data management training modules for specific research disciplines. However, we still need to ensure that researchers at all stages in their careers have the opportunity to gain these skills as well. Support services like UKDA and DCC offer data management training (much of it free) but it is not formally accredited. There is potentially a strong leading role for professional bodies here to work with support services to accredit and refine existing courses. Best regards, Joy Joy Davidson DCC Associate Director Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) George Service House, 11 University Gardens, University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QJ Scotland Tel: +44(0)141 330 8592 Fax: +44(0)141 330 3788 http://www.dcc.ac.uk -----Original Message----- From: Adil Hasan [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 03 August 2011 03:05 To: Joy Davidson Cc: '[email protected]'; [email protected]; 'DCC Phase 3' Subject: Re: [dcc-associates] News release: JISC support for MPs' peer-review report Hello, > MPs recently recommended improvements to the way scientific papers are > checked before they are published, calling for the peer review process to be > more transparent. > > Read the BBC article about the > report<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14314501> > > The recommendations came out of a House of Commons Science and Technology > Committee report which also urged that researchers make their scientific data > publicly available, and that reviewers have formal training. > I find the statement about formal training for reviewers to be quite disappointing. Surely, the formal training researchers in all fields obtain in becoming researchers contains an objective and critical assessment of work by ones peers in that area. This is the method that should be used to review papers/conference proceedings. And, I think in a majority of cases it is. So, I cannot see the formal training as being of any use (well it will divert funding from research to training which will reduce the amount of research that can be done). It will also reduce the amount of time researchers can spend on research. Perhaps I am misguided. Sorry for the noise, adil
