Taylor & Francis – one of the world's largest research publishers – and DataSeer – an AI solution provider for open science – are excited to announce two parallel pilot projects to address the practical challenges of open research implementation:
- A joint proof-of-concept pilot project aimed at improving the accuracy and speed of editorial data-sharing checks across a broad range of journals with varying policies.
- An initial analysis of Open Science Metrics across a sample of 5,000 Taylor & Francis published articles.
Together, the two pilots have the potential to increase data-sharing policy compliance, reduce the editorial workload, and provide business intelligence to help drive openness forward.
Automating editorial data-sharing checks
Taylor & Francis introduced data sharing policies for its journals in 2018, to promote greater openness throughout the research cycle. With more than 2,700 journals spanning all research areas, its data requirements are tiered, tailored to different editorial models, legal and ethical requirements, and disciplinary norms. DataSeer's tool is uniquely capable of assessing data sharing compliance according to customized standards, and at scale. Compliance Checks analyze individual articles, returning an in-depth compliance report complete with personalized guidance to help researchers fulfill requirements—saving staff time and providing much-needed author support.
The proof-of-concept pilot will assess a broad sample of articles against three different data sharing policies from the Taylor & Francis and F1000 portfolios, to determine how well the automation functions as compared to existing manual editorial checklists. Checks range from the relatively simple tasks such as confirming a data availability statement is present and accounts for all the datasets contained within the article, to more detailed items such as data licensing and file formats, repository use, accurate links, and persistent identifiers.
"This is what Compliance Checks are designed for," said DataSeer founder and CEO Tim Vines. "We first came up with the idea while performing editorial checks for data policy compliance for the journal Molecular Ecology. It's exciting to now see it reaching its full potential for broad, large-scale application. This could have a major impact on policy compliance and research reproducibility, while at the same time reducing the administrative burden publishers face."
"Taylor & Francis is committed to encouraging and supporting authors to adopt open research practices, which have a key role in promoting the integrity, reproducibility and reusability of research," said Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives at Taylor & Francis. "We're excited by the potential of DataSeer's tools to help authors follow open research requirements more consistently and to give us valuable insights into open research practices across our portfolio."
Measuring Open Science across the portfolio
The two organizations will also work together to measure open science practices across 5,000 published Taylor & Francis articles using DataSeer's Open Science Metrics identify and quantify indicators of open science behavior including data sharing, code sharing, protocol sharing, preprint posting, repository use, and more—providing both top-level stats and individual article-level breakdowns. In addition, Taylor & Francis will also be able to view data by journal, funder, county, and institution.
This open science business intelligence will illuminate trends, identifying areas of strength and opportunities for growth. Armed with accurate data, the publisher can establish meaningful benchmarks, develop strategies, and direct resources where they are needed most, as it works to advance the cause of open scholarship.
About DataSeer
DataSeer is a leading provider of AI solutions for scholarly communications, empowering funders, institutions and publishers to advance open science practice among affiliated researchers. Through products like Compliance Checks, Open Science Metrics, and SnapShot, we fill the urgent need for low-cost, scalable solutions to measure open science, show researchers how to comply with policy, and deploy just-in-time interventions, bridging the gap between policy and application.
About Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis supports diverse communities of experts, researchers and knowledge makers around the world to accelerate and maximize the impact of their work. We are a leader in our field, publish across all disciplines and have one of the largest Humanities and Social Sciences portfolios. Our expertise, built on an academic publishing heritage of over 200 years, advances trusted knowledge that fosters human progress.
Our 2,500+ people, based in a global network of offices in more than 15 countries, use their skills and the latest technology to curate, validate and share impactful advanced, emergent and applied knowledge. Under the Taylor & Francis, Routledge and F1000 imprints, we publish 2,700 journals, 8,000 new books each year and partner with more than 700 scholarly societies.
Taylor & Francis is proud to be a Global Certified Accessible publisher and to have achieved CarbonNeutral certification for our operations and print publications in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol.