Responsible Openness: What you need to know to get started today - RDA 10th Plenary Collocated event

Date: 18 September 2017
Time: 13:00 - 16:00
Venue: Centre Mont-Royal 

Research projects handling data come under scrutiny when they seek to obtain funding, with the principal investigator asked to present a responsible data management plan. This inevitably raises a number of questions concerning the privacy, security, property, and integrity of data. These concerns lie in the realm of law and ethics, and the most brilliant PIs find themselves ill equipped when confronted to them. 

With the objective to promote Open Data sharing, with a particular focus on Open Research Data, the event aims to accomplish three objectives:

1. Inform about issues related to data privacy, security, and intellectual property.
2. Promote responsible Open Data sharing through legal and ethical considerations.
3. Propose a framework for a responsible data management plan (DMP) for research.

A panel of four legal scholars will use knowledge mobilization strategies to provide an overview of the legal considerations surrounding data use, focusing on how heeding to privacy, security, intellectual property, and ethical concerns can promote Open Data sharing.

The panel will be animated by a data science expert who will elaborate on strategies to construct a robust data management plan and summarily expose a number of existing technologies that can be utilized by researchers to ensure adherence to the normativity of Open Research Data.

Throughout the seminar, participants will become familiar with the legal and ethical landscape of research data, understand the advantages of leveraging constraints into responsible open data streams, and develop a toolset to assist them in handling data collected, generated, used or shared in their own endeavors, in compliance with the principles and values of Open Research Data.

Panel on Security, Intellectual Property, Privacy, and Integrity of Open Research Data

Pr. Nicolas Vermeys (PhD), IT Law and Security Securing Open Research Data in the Cloud
Pr. Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse (PhD), Intellectual Property Licensing Open Research Data
Éloïse Gratton (PhD), Privacy and Data Protection; Handling Sensitive Data and Managing Privacy Issues
Michèle Stanton-Jean (PhD), Research Data Integrity Ethical Considerations and Integrity of Open Research Data
Panel Chair: Paul F. Uhlir, Information Policy and Management Data Management Plans and Technologies

Securing Open Research Data in the Cloud

The ready availability of cloud storage and compute services provides a potentially attractive option for curation and preservation of research information. In contrast to deploying infrastructure within an organisation, which normally requires long lead times and upfront capital investment, cloud infrastructure is available on demand and is highly scalable. However, use of commercial cloud services in particular raises issues of governance, cost-effectiveness, trust and quality of service.

•    Information security’s CIA triad – Confidentiality, Integrity, Accessibility
•    Private, Public and Hybrid Clouds
•    The Cloud, the Patriot Act, and National Data Protection
•    The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) experiment

This segment will explore the advantages and shortcomings of securing open research data in the cloud while identifying some of the tools, procedures, and best practices for open research data stewards.

Licensing Open Research Data

The benefits of data sharing are so well known and documented, a researcher may wish to share their database and/or content with others. Others can only fully utilize external data if they know the terms of use (if any) for that data. This presentation will explore the following questions that will help researchers disseminate their research data in a responsible manner.

•    What is Open Data? (definitions of “open”)
•    Why do I need a license if my data will be open? (ease of sharing)
•    What IP rights for data vs for databases? (CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada)
•    Which type of license should I use? (ODC and CC licenses)
•    What of the research center’s policy? (impact of policy / legislation and attribution stacking)

Handling Sensitive Data and Managing Privacy Issues

There are three principal considerations when collecting, handling and sharing sensitive and confidential research data. They are to be understood in conjunction with existing obligations stemming from federal and provincial privacy legislation as well as from the standards elaborated and published by the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS2).

•    Gaining informed consent – consent forms
•    Safeguarding participant’s identities – anonymization
•    Controlling access to data – data access agreements

These elements must be included in a responsible data management plan and disseminated at all levels of research personnel handling such data – researchers, research assistants, collaborators, etc.

Integrity and Ethical Considerations of Open Research Data

The proper conduct of research is critical to its credibility, the public’s trust in its outcomes, and the integrity of the published record. This presentation will provide a working definition of “integrity” and of “responsible conduct of research”, present some of the current challenges of research data management faced by investigators, and introduce and discuss various guidelines elaborated by federal and provincial agencies:

•    The Council of Canadian Academies Report on Research Integrity 2010;
•    The Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement 2016;
•    The Fonds de recherche du Québec policy for the responsible conduct of research 2015.

These and other guidelines, reports, policies and other frameworks will be used to propel a discussion examples of behaviors that would constitute misconduct or fall under the guise of sloppy research.

Overview of the Development of Responsible Open Data

Governments and research funders across the globe are becoming increasingly aware of the value of digital research data, the importance of fostering reuse of digital research data and the need for policies to enable excellence in data stewardship. There are only a few examples of open data sharing principles and policies prior to the mid-2000, with most of the open data policy development having taken place since about 2003.

The first part of this presentation will provide an overview of the key milestones of governmental and community research data policy formation over the past 15 years and the underlying trends and motivations. The overview will conclude at the end of the seminar with a description of some key elements of such a model policy, drawing on the issues and conclusions raised by the other four speakers in the panel.

The seminar is aimed primarily at researchers handling data in the context of their investigations, and any individual with an interest in the legal and ethical considerations surrounding the use of research data. Audience does not require any familiarity with the principles of Open Research Data, nor is any prior knowledge of law or ethics a prerequisite.

This RDA 10th Plenary meeting collocated event is presented by Montreal Cyberjustice Laboratory and the Université de Montréal Lexum Chair.

REGISTRATION

There will be no registration fee for this event, however, participants will be required to register in advance.

To register, please select between option 1 and option 2:

1. Complete registration on RDA Plenary registration page if you attend RDA Plenary meeting on Sept 19 to 21; or,
2. Register using EventBrite and select this collocated event (at no fee) if you do not attend RDA Plenary meeting.