The User Facilities and Publications Working Group was active until November 1, 2018. The following information provides historical reference and context of the now inactive group.
Summary
Our goal in calling together this ad hoc community working group was to ascertain what data would help agencies and scientific user facilities to map impact and to determine whether and how ORCID could enable its collection in a manner that increased data capture and reduced reporting burden for stakeholders. The group had three objectives: to bring together publishers and facilities to better understand research, publication, and reporting workflows; to define terms to enable conversation; and to identify opportunities for working together to streamline and, where possible, automate impact reporting.
Background
User facilities are specialized government-sponsored research infrastructure available for external use to advance scientific or technical knowledge. Researchers compete for access to these facilities and specialized equipment. However, these awards for facility access are not regularly captured within the scholarly research workflow. This deficiency makes it difficult for the sponsor agencies and host institutions (typically government laboratories) to report on what papers and products result from their use. Collection of these research outputs is central to assessing the scientific impact from these public investments. In addition, sponsor agencies and scientific professional societies persistently seek means to lessen the administrative burdens on researchers. Several user facilities have begun to explore innovative approaches to these challenges, including adoption of ORCID.
Membership
The User Facilities and Publications Working Group was convened by ORCID in May 2017 after a number of community conversations with the US Department of Energy (DOE), Society for Science at User Facilities (SSURF, formerly National User Facility Organization), CHORUS, and user facilities including Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). The Working Group initially focused on Department of Energy National Laboratories in an effort to start from shared experience and thereby facilitate conversation and consensus. Our intention from the start was to share a summary of the group findings with the broader community to gather feedback, ascertain relevance of findings to other facilities, and to translate the discussions into practical solutions.
- Erin Arndt, Wiley (US)
- Ben Brown, Office of Science, US Department of Energy (US)
- Josh Brown, ORCID (UK)
- Mark Doyle, American Physical Society (US)
- Mariam Elsayed, Office of Science, US Department of Energy (US)
- Laure Haak, ORCID, Chair (US)
- Stephanie Harley, ORCID, Project Manager (US)
- Ted Hatcher, American Chemical Society (US)
- Matthew Hawkins, National Science Foundation (US)
- Terry Law, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (US)
- Mark Martin, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, US Department of Energy (US)
- Kathy Nasta, Brookhaven National Laboratory (US)
- Dan O’Brien, American Chemical Society (US)
- Rob Peters, ORCID (US)
- Howard Ratner, CHORUS (US)
- Crystal Schrof, Oak Ridge National Laboratory(US)
- Steve Watson, Elsevier (Netherlands)
- Susan White dePace, Argonne National Laboratory (US)
Structure and Process
The Working Group met monthly via webinar. Its discussions were supported by ORCID staff, who provided venue, scheduling, note-taking, and documentation support. Together, the group analyzed workflows, technologies, and standards in use by user facilities and publishers, and identified key points at which information could be shared or made available for actors downstream to use and embed in their work. It produced a summary report in November 2017.