TTW response to UKRI data policy

[RichardJActon]

Note: Deadline for submitting a response is Friday 1st August 23:59 UTC+1

Context: UKRI (United Kingdom Research & Innovation) the UK's primary government research funding body made up of more specialised research councils has put out a draft data policy & is seeking responses to & comments on this draft. I've been drafting a response to this and have discussed it in the last few collab cafe sessions, along with some exchanges of notes in the turing way slack.

This is what I've settled on for my response:
https://mypads2.framapad.org/p/ttw-ukri-research-data-policy-feedback-9w3wfy998
(feel free to edit if you'd like to make revisions I've got a copy of this version)

Unfortunately I wasn't organised enough to get this done in time to put it on the agenda of a steering committee meeting & time is now somewhat limited, so I was wondering if people still think it is a good idea to submit something on behalf of the TTW community, & if so how we could go about do so? @KirstieJane, @Arielle-Bennett, @JimMadge & @BatoolMM as the steering committee members do you have an thoughts on this?

Thanks in particular to @Arielle-Bennett, @penyuan, @LelleDi, & @KirstieJane for their helpful discussions and comments on this.

[penyuan]

Thanks @RichardJActon! I think it would certainly be ideal to put the weight of TTW behind this, and am also curious what the steering committee members think.

I had a quick look at your super amazing and comprehensive responses (thank you! ❤️).

I particularly appreciate your point that the whole "first use"/"exclusivity" stuff are NOT necessarily reasonable. I agree, but don't think UKRI will necessarily understand why. Could you elaborate?

Your other points are so thoughtful as well!

My only other suggestion is that rather than only sending this to UKRI via their response form, we could consider publishing your comments somewhere? At least as a blog post somewhere, or maybe even incorporated into the TTW eventually???? I just think what you've written is so valuable and warrant more public dissemination. 😄

[RichardJActon]

Thanks @penyuan,

I particularly appreciate your point that the whole "first use"/"exclusivity" stuff are NOT necessarily reasonable. I agree, but don't think UKRI will necessarily understand why. Could you elaborate?

I agree this could do with a bit more explanation, I had a bit more elaboration on this point but cut it because I'd gone over the character limit for that section. I'll take a look and see if I can move anything around to see if I can expand on the explanation.

I was thinking about posting this response on my rarely updated and in need of some cleaning up blog, If I find the motivation I might turn in into a proper post / short series of posts elaborating some of the points that could do with expanding on more than the form allows.

[penyuan]

Ah yes, sorry I forgot about the tight character limit! Happy for you to adjust or not as you see fit. :)

I agree with @BatoolMM's comment for at least archiving this to Zenodo, perhaps in the TTW group there.

[EstherPlomp]

Thanks @RichardJActon!

This is already very extensive so I don't necessarily want to add more, but perhaps a couple of sentences or examples could do with a bit more elaboration/explanation (see below). Some of the writing could also be a bit more formal (instead of using & or bullet points) - or at least, that is probably the response writing style that they are expecting.

• Wide range of scenarios from whether or not to video an event to imaging blots still produced on film.
• Maybe rewrite ' Public money public code, public money public data, public money public papers.' slightly
• Rewrite or further clarify: Quality control, review of metadata, annotation for consistency, completeness and conformance to metadata schemas as well as assistance to 'uplift' data lacking optimal annotations in collaboration with data submitter. (157)

Also: we now have an SMP section on The Turing Way to which you could link: https://book.the-turing-way.org/reproducible-research/rdm/rdm-smp#introduction

[RichardJActon]

Thanks @EstherPlomp, Yeah there are a couple of sections where I didn't turn my notes into more elaborated prose because I was at the character limit, I'll give it another pass and see if I can improve the sections you highlighted.

[RichardJActon]

• Wide range of scenarios from whether or not to video an event to imaging blots still produced on film.

reworded to:

This question can arise in a wide range of scenarios, from whether or not to video an event or exhibition, to whether or not to digitise blots in biological experiments some of which are still produced on film.

---

• Maybe rewrite ' Public money public code, public money public data, public money public papers.' slightly

I was a little under the character limit here so, reworded to:

Public money should give rise to public code, public data, & public papers"

---

• Quality control, review of metadata, annotation for consistency, completeness and conformance to metadata schemas as well as assistance to 'uplift' data lacking optimal annotations in collaboration with data submitter.

I was a little under the character limit here so, reworded to:

• The value of, quality control, review of metadata & annotation for consistency, completeness, & conformance to metadata schemas; as well as assistance to 'uplift' data lacking optimal annotations in collaboration with the data submitter, is difficult to understate for its impact on the quality of deposited records.
  • Both staff to perform this function & resources to develop improved software for data submission portals to increase efficiency of operations for both submitters & curators are needed.

---

(plus a number of spelling fixes)

Thanks @EstherPlomp - your comments always improve my writing ❤️

[EstherPlomp]

No worries at all - thanks for doing all of the hard work! <3

[BatoolMM]

Thank you @RichardJActon for putting all of this together — it’s very thoughtful and comprehensive. I can imagine it must have taken quite a bit of time to get it all within the word count!

I agree with @penyuan — it would be very useful to have this archived in Zenodo at least, similar to our past responses to the UNESCO Open Science consultation.

[JimMadge]

Is the question, can you send this on behalf of The Turing Way? I'm not sure if there is a process for that.

I think we just need to a be a bit careful about how we phrase this,

• this was written by a subset of The Turing Way community
• this is the view of a working group/the steering committee
• this is synthesised from the view of the entire community

all of those are quite different.

[BatoolMM]

It might be worth discussing this in the steering committee — whether we need a process in place, what kind of empowerment is involved in such actions, what limitations might exist, and if there is precedent.

In this case, I do see clear precedent where a few people have submitted inputs on behalf of The Turing Way community or while using their affiliation with the project. Usually, these submissions include the names of contributors as well as their Turing Way affiliation.

Here’s an example led by Emma - The Turing Way response to UNESCO Draft Principles for Open Science Monitoring

And another one led by Malvika - The Turing Way response to UNESCO's Global Call for Best Practices in Open Science

[penyuan]

Good point by @BatoolMM. I'm not in the steering committee, but just wearing my hat as a community member, I think it's probably fine to follow those two examples in this case!

[Arielle-Bennett]

I'm going to ping @LizHareDogs @EKaroune @LelleDi @malvikasharan as the other steering committee members so they're aware of the discussion :)

From my perspective, based on what we've discussed as a steering committee to date (noting we haven't explicitly talked about policy submissions on behalf of the organisation), this would be a good candidate for a quick asynchronous vote of endorsement from the SC, given the time sensitivity. This is a model of decision making we've discussed in the meetings recently.

Also worth noting that several SC participants have been involved in the discussions or reviewed drafts of the document already (including me), so I would consider this a symbolic thumbs up that empowers Richard to "submit on behalf of The Turing Way, having developed the response with members of the community".

[EKaroune]

Just adding my 'Yes!' please to this as steering committee member. Thanks so much @RichardJActon for doing this

[EKaroune]

And UKRI have said in meetings about this that they will accept responses after 1st August, so still worth submitting form or emailing the response to them if you miss the date.

[RichardJActon]

And UKRI have said in meetings about this that they will accept responses after 1st August, so still worth submitting form or emailing the response to them if you miss the date.

Thanks @EKaroune this is good to know.

[Arielle-Bennett]

Vote Comment for Steering Committee members

@the-turing-way/steering-committee

This is a voting comment for Steering Committee members - other community members please avoid reacting to this comment! Continuation of discussions are encouraged through other threads.
Steering Committee members - please either emoji react this comment or reply directly to this comment using the suggested text below to indicate your stance.

This is a trial of governance decision making in action - feedback is welcome!

Deadline

End of day 31 July 2025 (consultation technically closes 1 August 2025)

Proposal

to endorse Richard submitting the text in the original post to UKRI as the Turing Way's response to it's draft data policy which is currently open for review.

Richard can acknowledge this as "submitted on behalf of The Turing Way project, having developed the response with members of the community" or similar wording.

We will also upload this response as part of the Turing Way Zenodo community, with community authors listed, in line with other policy responses.

Voting guide

👍🏻 (thumbs up) or "endorse" - support the proposal
👎🏻 (thumbs down) or "reject" - do not support the proposal
😕 (confused) or "more information please" - I need more information to make a decision (please elaborate!)
👀 (eyes) or "abstain" - I'm not voting on this for a specific reason (e.g. conflict of interest)

[RichardJActon]

Thank you all for trying out a new process on this and for the endorsements formal and informal of it.

Process note: We should probably have some indication of how many committee members can vote, what constitutes a quorum, and a passing vote so the outcome can be interpreted by someone without knowledge of how the steering committee is constituted.

[KirstieJane]

Yes - you're across the line @RichardJActon!

I'm personally so delighted that we were able to trial run the process even though it isn't formally merged yet!

[RichardJActon]

Done & here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16649841 is a Zenodo record of the submission - let me know if there is anything in the metadata you think I should change, & are OK with who/how I've credited it.

[JimMadge]

There is a Turing Way community on Zenodo. You should be able to submit the record to be part of that collection.

[penyuan]

Echoing @JimMadge's suggestion, and to say again thanks for submitting this! Love that you included multiple formats in the Zenodo record. ❤️ 🙇🏼

[RichardJActon]

There is a Turing Way community on Zenodo. You should be able to submit the record to be part of that collection.

oops thought I'd already dine that - I have now

[Arielle-Bennett]

This has been approved on the community on Zenodo so I think we're all set!

For anyone who would like to continue the discussion on async voting/process for endorsing policy responses, I've set up a discussion in the governance section #4333

Thanks all!