A Study On Developing Biomedical Research Data Services Based On Journal Data Policies

In the age of e-Research,the advancement of scientific research depends on shaing and reuse of research data.At the same time,the quality of research data is a key for research success,the use of error and non-standardized data and materials by researchers will result in irreproducibile research,and will cause huge lose in research manpower,time consumption and research fundings.Generally,researchers are tend to focus on the research results and do not have enough attention to the data and materials used and generated during the research,and research data are always lack of recording and management.As a result,due to the lack of background information of the data and materials,other researchers may be unable to reproduce the same research result.In recent years,many biomedical journals found a large number of research findings published in their journals are irreproducible.The irreproducible research are always caused by the use of non-standardized data and materials,misuse of data analysis methods,and the lack of data description.To ensure the reproducibility of research,many prestigious biomedical journals have implemented their journal research data policies which require authors to submit specific types of data in a standardized format and share their research data without unreasonable restrictions.Biomedical journal research data policy always refers to the data management guidelines,instructions,standards and processing procedures established by journals and(or)affiliated publishers,which aims to ensure the reproducibility of research findings through encouraging data sharing and maximizing the reuse of data.In recents years,the research institutions in China have actively engaged in biomedical research and researchers are encouraged to publish their research findings on international prestigious biomedical journals.As many prestigious biomedical journals have rigorous requirements on the format and submission of research data,the publication of research papers will be affected if researchers did not fulfill the requiremets of research data requested by the journals.However,due to the heavy research workload,researchers always do not have time to understand the requirements of biomedical journal data policies.Moreover,since some biomedical journal data policies are not easy to be understood and researchers are difficult to prepare the standardized data in accordance to the requirements of biomedical journal data polices,and finally may affect the publication of the research papers.Academic libraries as the bridge between researchers and academic publishers,it is definitely a responsibility for academic libraries to assist researchers to publish,share and preserve research data.Therefore,it is a meaningful for studying the topic on developing research data services for academic libraries to assist researchers in preparing and submitting data in accordance to the requirements of biomedical journal data policies.To do this,academic libraries have to understand the elements of biomedical journal research data policies,and plan relevant research data services.In China,the development of mandatory biomedical data sharing and submission is at initial stage,and it is necessary for further development on the relevant research data services.Therefore,biomedical journal research data service is one of the the potential library service for the future of academic libraries and is worthy for study.The purpose of this study is to develop biomedical journal research data services for academic libraries based on the elements of biomedical journal data policies.In this study,the data policies from 30 biomedical journals with the highest journal impact factors(JIF)from the Journal Citation Reports(JCR)were selected and investigated.The investigation found that most journal data policies are from the affiliated journal publishers.After review and analysis,the most comprehensive data policies from 5 major biomedical journal publishers including Nature Publishing Group(NPG),Springer Nature,Cell Press,Elsevier and American Physical Society(APS)were selected for further content analysis.Based on the elements of the Journal Research Data Policy Model Framework developed by Journal Research Data Policy Bank(JoRD),this study analyzed the content of selected biomedical journal data policies and concluded the key elements of biomedical journal data policies.The elements include the data submission and sharing,data release and restriction,data privacy and ethic protection,permission for using published data in journals,metadata and data descriptor,data evaluation,data citation,reporting materials and analysis methods,and supplementary information and digital image guidelines.Since all research data have their own lifecycle,academic libraries planning for research data services have to understand the process of data lifecycles.A data lifecycle presents the cyclic activities of data in different life stages(such as creation of data,preservation of data,sharing of data,use and reuse of data...etc.).To facilitate the understanding of the data management activities in lifecycles and the planning of research data management,some institutions engaged in data management and research have developed some featured data lifecycle models for their research fields.Data lifecycle models,always presented with diagram,show the implementation of data management activities at different life stage of a data lifecycle and which are widely used for planning research data services.This study introduced four most used data lifecycle models:DDI Data Lifecycle,UKDA Research Data Lifecycle,DAIS Reference Model and DCC Curation Lifecycle Model.Referring to the concepts of the mentioned data lifecycle models and based on the elements of biomedical data policies,this study has developed the Biomedical Journal Data Lifecycle,which includes six stages:data conceptualization and planning?data discovery,collection and description?data processing and analysis? data review and preservation?data publication and sharing?data repurposing.Finally,according to the different stages of the Biomedical Journal Data Lifecycle,this study has planned 25 biomedical journal research data services as follows for academic libraries.At the stage of data conceptualization and planning,the research data services include:(1)providing legal,privacy protection and research ethics documents for biomedical research,(2)providing guideline documents for planning research data,(3)providing guidelines for Data Management Plans(DMPs),(4)recommending data management tools,(5)creating guarantee mechanism for research data management policies,(6)providing data preparation(or design)guidelines.At the stage of data discovery,collection and description,the research data services include:(1)data retrieval,(2)data acquisition,(3)data files organization,(4)data description,(5)data reporting and laboratory record management.At the stage of data processing and analysis,the research data services include:(1)data processing support,(2)data analysis guidelines.At the stage of data review and preservation,the research data services include:(1)data review,(2)data backup guidelines,(3)data submission,(4)data preservation.At the stage of data publication and sharing,,the research data services include:(1)data publication support,(2)data sharing guidelines,(3)data licensing,(4)data rights protection,(5)data citation guidelines.At the stage of data repurposing,the research data services include:(1)data resources guide,(2)data add-value,(3)data transformation.