Open access to research materials

Discussions about open access to science have increasingly begun to encompass research materials, especially materials produced in publicly funded research projects. Over 30 countries have signed the OECD Declaration on Access to Research Data From Public Funding. The declaration, adopted in 2004, has been expanded with the OECD Principles and Guidelines for Access to research Data from Public Funding.

Open access to research data does not necessarily mean the same kind of openness as that referred to when talking about Open Access publications. The openness of research data is often limited to the academic community. Users often have fully open access only to the metadata. Gaining access to the data itself usually calls for permission and a contract. This is called reuse of materials to differentiate it from direct open access.

A number of big international research funders have required for quite some time that research projects funded by them have a plan for storing the data collected for reuse purposes. The Academy of Finland, for example, now requires applicants to describe how they plan to acquire, use and store research materials for their projects, and how they will enable the later use of materials. Such a data management plan is presented as a part of the research plan.

The possibilities of implementing the OECD recommendations concerning open access to research data have also been studied to some extent in Finland. The Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) has published a preparatory report called The Life Cycle of and Open Access to Research Data from Public Funding. It has also arranged seminars related to the archiving of a variety of social science materials.

Related discussions are expanding (see, for example, the seminar on research, materials and limits to openness, 21 April 2008). The topic has also been discussed at the University of Helsinki (see, for example, Modeling seminar for research data projects, 27 November 2008).