Hiya,

I've copied in Jennifer from our University Research Ethics Committee (UREC). (For context I think all the emails on this thread can be found via https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind1503&L=RESEARCH-DATAMAN#9)

At the University of Leeds (UoL) we had a successful Pilot Ethical Audit of Research and are rolling out a scheme of ethical audit under the auspices of UREC. This has a primary remit to focus on the ethical conduct of the research and to try to help researchers, research administrators and research funders by providing checks and balances, and metrics.

At UoL we have a subdivision of RECs and I am a member of the AREA one that covers our faculties of: Education, Social Sciences, and Law; Environment; and the Business School. We discussed ESRC policy documents and our ethical audit approach at a recent committee meeting.

It is important that the UoL Research Data Management Service works in harmony with our RECs and indeed the RDMS has always been concieved as a distributed service with a core team in the libraries and other spoke members in organisations like our RECs and Staff and Departmental Development Unit and IT etc. This makes things very interesting especially from developing our Organisational Profile Document to detail what our RDMS is :-)

Metadata is key and I too am a fan of the Fairport convention.

I think Jennifer would be happy for us to share the details of our ethical audit process. Whilst this is not perfect, it is a start and better than nothing and I really think that a large part of the focus on all of what we are doing in research ethics is to do with data management. I think we are aware of funders expectations in terms of research audit. I don't think we need to police as much as we need a culture change and integrating ethical review and research data risk assessment and research data management both in terms of systems and praxis is key.

HTH

Andy
 
________________________________________
From: Research Data Management discussion list [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angus Whyte [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 March 2015 18:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ESRC publishes new research data policy

Hi Louise,

On 27/03/2015 15:58, Corti, Louise wrote:
> The responsibility for all the things set out is with multiple actors in the data management and sharing landscape. It is not just small RDM teams that need to bear the 'burden' but Research Group leaders, PIs and the teams themselves, nominated in-house data managers, and also, department heads. These people are the ones who are in charge of the research, careers and reputations and are perfectly capable for monitoring their own research and data.
For the most part I'd agree with you. But it's your policy that says
institutions must "ensure ESRC grant holders comply fully with this
research data policy". I don't detect any panic, only some curiosity
about what ESRC means by some of its policy contents.
> The UK Data service, along with all the great services emerging out there in the institutional arena, still provide one-on-one advice and training, and part of that is suggesting appropriate metadata standards.
Thanks for the clarification that the metadata standards in your policy
are 'suggestions'.

> Tools like DMP can help of course, but often it is not purely about auditing process, but about ensuring check points within projects to make sure all is on track.
I believe 'ensuring check points' is what is intended for DMPonline,
rather than audit. It would be very unfortunate if the ESRC policy was
interpreted as a requirement for institutions to check that researchers
are following to the letter whatever they said in a pre-award DMP. That
would risk damaging research, and the credibility of any support service
stupid enough to try it.
> No one at the Research Council is checking or policing every step - that is really not the idea. It's about encouraging best practice. So relax a bit and continue your great work in upskilling the nations' academics!
For what it's worth, in my opinion the new policy is a step forward.
Spelling out responsibilities for institutions is helpful I believe,
because the compliance 'stick' begs questions about benefits, risks and
value and that (at least in some institutions) encourages a change to
viewing data as an asset.  But is it really any surprise that, in
response to such a policy, institutions ask for some clarity about the
implications before they spend their money doing anything?

That "best practice" principle also applies to policy consultation I
believe. EPSRC carried out some post-hoc consultation on its research
data policy, and issued clarification. Perhaps ESRC did some
consultation already and that's not needed, but I suspect at least some
FAQs could be helpful.

Best wishes,

Angus


--
Dr Angus Whyte
Senior Institutional Support Officer
Digital Curation Centre
University of Edinburgh
Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9LE
+44-131-650-9980

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.