The FAIR and CARE way to meeting our commitment to Open Access - Open Access 2020 musing

In celebration of the second decade of Open Access Week, we want to share with you some new developments in ASU Library Research Data services and updates to our institutional repository, first launched in 2011. 

This fall, we are unveiling ASU’s new institutional repository, KEEP, which I cannot tell you how excited we are to share this with you! KEEP provides the ASU Community the ability to self-archive in an open access repository, to promote global discoverability and use of ASU’s scholarly research.  Preserving all the functionality of the legacy digital repository, KEEP has a completely revamped  interface, with enhanced page reading, improved image sharing and citation, and clearer navigation that is specifically designed for scholarly literature.  The improved metadata and presentation capabilities alone make this an enormous leap for your works. KEEP features enhanced descriptions and a more polished presentation, which means more people will be able to find, read, use, and cite your work. Complimenting KEEP, later this month we will unveil our new Research Data Repository powered by Dataverse,* bringing more access and discovery, and more opportunities for integrating scholarly literature (IR) and research data publishing to improve the reach and impact of your work. These services will help meet our obligations with funders, publishers, and our institutional policies including our commitment to the ASU Open Access Policy approved by the University Senate in 2017.

These updates have also challenged us to take a hard look at our practices. We therefore look to two very important principles that inform our collection policies and enhance our sharing practices. We recognize that open is important, but open is also relevant to the communities that we work with in our research. We seek to engage with the rights and interests of Indigenous People by adopting the CARE principles for Indigenous Data Governance and we recognize a greater worldview which will be complemented by the FAIR principles for scientific data management and stewardship: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data. A driving force in the modern library is direct and sustained community engagement. Expanding access to relevant, authentic information is a foundation for us, but so too is respecting the sources of information and how it was intended to be used and by whom in responsible and thoughtful ways.  

Setting these principles front and center drives our collaborations and services from the start, and will become a focal point for innovation in sharing data that is more discoverable and moves us beyond colonialistic practices. This focus on our principles is no accident and comes at as a natural progression of examining our services and recognizing what is important. This summer (2020) the ASU Library issued an Indigenous land acknowledgement statement about the place that the library and the university have inhabited for more than a century in an effort to begin the healing process through the acknowledgement of our occupancy of indigenous land. In September ASU announced sustained funding for the ASU Library’s Community Driven Archives initiative focused on developing and executing a series of strategies to make Arizona’s historical records more accurate and inclusive. As we celebrate Open Access week, we continue highlighting and emphasizing underrepresented voices, making  progress towards increased inclusion and empathy set forth by our university mission. It’s who we are and as our other contributors this week will tell you, we need to take action to make sure everyone is heard - now more than ever. We invite you to the conversation. 

Matthew Harp
Research Data Management Librarian

*Dataverse Dataverse is an open source web application to share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. It facilitates making data available to others, and allows you to replicate others' work more easily. Learn more at dataverse.org