Research data and software in the new statutes of the university for Safeguarding Good Research Practice
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On July 14, 2023, the President of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena approved the new statutes for Safeguarding Good Research Practice, which the Senate had passed on July 11, 2023. The DFG had already approved the amended statutes in advance.
The DFG Code of Conduct "Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice" had entered into force on August 1, 2019. In order to receive funding through the German Research Foundation (DFG), all universities and non-university research institutions must implement the 19 guidelines and their explanations in a legally binding manner. The University of Jena has complied with this on time by adopting its new statutes for Safeguarding Good Research Practice de (German).
The DFG Code of Conduct, and thus also the statutes of the university, contain also statements on the handling of research data and software, which must be observed when applying for funding from the DFG and also constitute good research practice in general. In "Section I: Standards of Good Research Practice" of the statutes, the following statements can be found, for example:
The information is reproduced here in a highly abbreviated form and limited to research data and software. For the full context, please read the original text of the statute. The English text is just a simple translation of the paragraphs and no official version.
§ 6 Quality assurance, methods and standards
Quality assurance takes place with regard to the collection, processing, analysis and documentation of research data, the selection and use of research software, its development and programming, the securing of research data and the keeping of laboratory records. The origin of the data and software used in the research process is indicated and re-use is documented. The type and extend of research data generated in the research process are described. The source code of publicly available software is documented in a persistent and citable manner.
§ 10 Rights of use
Scientists reach documented agreements at the earliest possible time about the rights of use of data and whether and, if so, how third parties are to be granted access. The use of research data is granted in particular to the scientists who collected the data. They should continue to be granted access in the event of a change of location or institution.
§ 11 Methods and standards
The establishment of standards for the application of software, the collection of research data, and the description of research results is an essential prerequisite for the comparability and transferability of research results.
§ 13 Establishing public access to research results
Scientists decide on their own responsibility whether, how and where to make their results publicly available. In individual cases, there may be reasons not to make results publicly available. This also includes making the research data on which the results are based as well as the software used available and providing a comprehensive description of the work processes. Self-programmed software will be made publicly available including the source code. Whenever possible, the scientists deposit the research data and central materials on which the publication is based in recognized archives and repositories – in accordance with the FAIR principlesExternal link ("Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-Usable"). If self-developed research software to be made available to third parties, it will be provided with an appropriate license.
§ 14 Authorship
An author is someone who has made a genuine, traceable contribution to the content of a scientific text, data or software publication. This includes, for example, scientists who are involved in a scientifically relevant way in the independent acquisition and processing of data, development of sources or programming of software or the independent analysis, evaluation or interpretation of data, sources or results.
§ 15 Publication organ
The scientific quality of a contribution does not depend on the publication organ. In particular, technical, data and software repositories as well as blogs can be considered.
§ 17 Archiving
Researchers adequately secure publicly accessible research data or research results, as well as the underlying central materials and, if applicable, the research software used, and generally preserve them for a period of ten years. In justified cases, shortened or no archiving periods may be appropriate. For archiving and publication of research data for which no suitable subject-specific repository has been found, a repository and long-term archiving solution is maintained or developed in Thuringia.