Women in science

Interview with Dr. Stella d’Ambrumenil on Open Data

We interviewed Dr. Stella d’Ambrumenil, contributor in PaNOSC WP8 for staff & user training. Stella shared her views on the benefits of Open Data, and on the steps to be taken to make research data more FAIR.

WATCH THE VIDEO

Content unavailable
To see this content you need to accept cookies in the pop up box at the bottom of your screen

Stella, with a PhD in Chemistry, and currently post-doc at the Data Management and Software Centre at ESS in Copenhagen, has been collaborating with PaNOSC sister project, ExPaNDS, to set up an online catalogue of training material that is hosted externally, and to further develop pan-learning.org, a Moodle-based e-learning platform where academics and beamline scientists can upload and create tutorials, for users and students to learn about photon and neutron science, or to learn how to use certain software to practice data reduction and data analysis of the experiments they will do at PaN facilities.

In the interview, Stella shares her views on open data and the benefits they would bring to both researchers and the society at large, and highlights what in her opinion are the main bottlenecks that prevent the adoption of more FAIR open data practices among the PaN research community. To face the reluctance of scientists to make their data publicly available before they publish an article based on that data, she suggests that “a short embargo period might encourage people to analyse their data faster, and if they don’t publish it straight away and then someone else has a go, then at least with a DOI they still get the citation and the credit that they deserve for having done a very good experiment“.

When asked which are the actions that are most urgently needed to make research data more FAIR, she mentions Findability and Accessibility as the most urgent aspects to be tackled at the moment, by providing a single place for data to be searched for, and a simple method for accessing it, and highlights the necessity to provide very clear instructions to know where to find the data.

Share this content