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The Table of Contents: Accessing Sections and Chapters

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Glossary

At the end of the book is a glossary of terms for your reference. Where applicable, glossary definitions have also been embedded directly within the chapters and appear as underlined in the text. When clicked, the glossary definition will appear as a tooltip window.

Why an Open Textbook?

With the recent release of the Tri-Agency Research Data Management (RDM) Policy, RDM has become crucially important. All researchers who apply for grants to fund data-related research must now meet requirements including writing Data Management Plans and preparing data for archiving. Given the heightened attention to RDM, the need for greater education and the number of courses related to RDM is likely to increase.

In summer 2021, a number of Canadian academics and librarians, including faculty who teach existing RDM courses, formed a group to discuss creating a bilingual, made-in-Canada textbook. The group recognized that at the time, there were no resources suited to the unique Canadian regulatory context and appropriate for use in classrooms. Together, it was decided that an open educational resource (OER) in the form of a textbook would be of the most value to Canadian practitioners and learners, and would capture the spirit of RDM which is meant to encourage openness.

What is an Open Textbook?

An open textbook is a publicly available online resource that is free-of-charge and has an open license that allows others to reuse, retain, remix, redistribute, and revise it. This book has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license, which allows for the adaptation and redistribution of this textbook for non-commercial purposes so long as the original creator is attributed (see “Licensing and Attribution” section). Further to the open license, the authors of this open textbook are committed to making this open textbook available immediately, freely, and permanently to anyone who can access the internet.

Benefits to using open textbooks are many. Besides simply providing freely available quality open scholarship resources to students and instructors as a significant cost savings, open resources also ensures that the intention of education is considered. UNESCO’s SG4 goal to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030 begins with freely accessible open educational resources (OER). The previous view that education is the business of disseminating knowledge has been challenged by OER advocates who are leading the education reform towards the co-creation and sharing of knowledge (Blomgren & Henderson, 2021; Cronin, 2017; Henderson & Ostashewski, 2018). In addition to the free use of an open textbook, open resources used for instruction are directly applicable to curriculum goals and can remain relevant to the field through the adaptation and revision of the resource (Hendricks et al., 2017).

While there are many commercial publishers that offer similar textbook quality, they have limitations that reduce the impact that they could have. Specifically, they are rarely permanent or freely available which limits the accessibility of these resources to many students, educators, and practitioners. This open textbook, Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners, responds to this call for education reform by meeting the gold open access standards of an immediate, free, and permanent open education resource that can be revised, redistributed, retained, remixed, and reused for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.

In the next section, “How to Access and Use this Book,” we will explore the book’s intended uses.

How to Access and Use this Book?

This book is expected to meet the needs of instructors looking for resources to support their teaching in RDM topics as well as supporting the needs of librarians, students, and researchers who are seeking up-to-date materials for guidance on RDM practices. By publishing Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners with a CC BY-NC license, it is our intention that this book be adopted in full as required reading in the classroom, adapted in part as supplemental information, or revised with current or compelling information that the resource may lack. We are excited to offer this open educational resource as a starting point to advance the RDM field with, and for, RDM practitioners and hope to shed light on the need for more resources in this field.

Licensing and Attribution

This book is licensed CC BY-NC (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). This license allows users to reuse, remix, revise, redistribute and retain the resource for non-commercial purposes so long as you attribute it to the original author(s). Each chapter is written by authors who have agreed to release their original works under CC BY-NC and any use must be attributed to the chapter authors in addition to the editors who have curated this collection. The authors of each chapter also retain the copyright to their work.

Examples of attribution language are as follows:

Redistributing the complete book:

Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners created by Kristi Thompson; Elizabeth Hill; Emily Carlisle-Johnston; Danielle Dennie; and Émilie Fortin published with Pressbooks. The original is freely available under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license at https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/canadardm.

Redistributing chapters:

Chapter title, authors, in Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners created by Kristi Thompson; Elizabeth Hill; Emily Carlisle-Johnston; Danielle Dennie; and Émilie Fortin published with Pressbooks. The original is freely available under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license at https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/canadardm.

Revised or adapted versions:

This material has been adapted/revised from Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners created by Kristi Thompson; Elizabeth Hill; Emily Carlisle-Johnston; Danielle Dennie; and Émilie Fortin published with Pressbooks. The original is freely available under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license at https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/canadardm.

For more information, see Creative Commons Attribution FAQ and Creative Commons best practices for attribution.

Get in Touch!

If you like our work and are planning to use it, we would love to know! Please send us a note to let us know how you are using the work by emailing rdmoerteam@gmail.com.

You will find the French edition of the book at this address: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/gdrcanada/. If you are interested in adapting, translating, or otherwise have suggestions for editing and updating this work, we would also love to hear from you and answer any questions you may have.

Reference List

Blomgren, C., & Henderson, S. (2021). Addressing the K-12 open educational resources awareness niche: A virtual conference response. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 67(1), 68-82. https://doi.org/10.11575/ajer.v67i1.56965

Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096

Henderson, S. & Ostashewski, N. (2018). Barriers, incentives, and benefits of the open educational resources (OER) movement: An exploration into instructor perspectives. First Monday, 23(12). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i12.9172

Hendricks, C., Reinsberg, S. A., & Rieger, G. W. (2017). The adoption of an open textbook in a large physics course: An analysis of cost, outcomes, use, and perceptions. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(4), 78-99. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3006

Henderson, S., McGreal, R., & Vladimirschi, V. (2018). Access copyright and fair dealing guidelines in higher educational institutions in Canada: A survey. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 13(2), 1-37. https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v13i2.4147