Summary and Setup

This is a new lesson built with The Carpentries Workbench. This workshop is currently (Summer 2024) under construction. The first editions of the workshop will be held on 12 and 21 November 2024 (see registration options).

Welcome

Welcome to the online materials for the Prepare your publication package workshop! This course is offered at the Erasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Humanities (EGSH) at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. But these online materials are free to use for anyone who wants to learn more about publication packages, research data management, and reproducible research. The materials are also shared under a CC-BY license, for others who want to re-use, share or adapt part of the materials in their own courses.

Overview

Questions

What is a publication package?
What is needed to prepare a publication package for my research project?

Objectives

After completion of this workshop, you will be able to:

Explain the components of a publication package
Apply best practices to document, organize, share, and archive your research data
Produce a publication package for your own research project
Determine which parts of the package need to be published and which parts need to be archived internally
Find available information and support for completing a publication package

About the course

Researchers that disseminate their research results in publications such as journal articles, should ensure that it is clear to others what data the research was based on, how the data were obtained, how results were achieved, and that the steps in the research process are verifiable.

The Guideline for the archiving of academic research for Faculties of Behavioural and Social Sciences in the Netherlands describes how this should be achieved by creating a so-called publication package for each publication. Such a publication package must contain all information needed to validate the results presented in a publication, such as the raw and processed data, the documentation of qualitative data production processes, and the computer codes used to process and analyze the data. In other words, a publication package consists of all data, materials and information that are needed to replicate, reproduce, and assess the published research results.

Publication packages are mandatory for all research produced at the faculties of behavioural and social sciences in the Netherlands (including the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences). But the structured way of documenting and archiving research data and materials in a publication package is arguably beneficial for all researchers. Publication packages will help you keeping access to your data and to know exactly which important steps were taken during the research, also after the project has ended. Increasingly, researchers are expected to make their research data and materials available, in such a way that it is as open as possible and as closed as necessary. Publishing (parts of the) publication package itself allows others to verify and replicate your research and re-use your materials.

Working method

In this workshop, we will dive into the different components of a publication package by looking at an example package. But most importantly, you are expected to bring your own data and materials and get started with creating a publication package for your own project. By working together with your peers during the workshop, you will receive immediate feedback on the usability and clarity of the your package components for others. There will also be ample opportunity to ask questions to the instructors of the course, who are experts in research data management.

After completing this course, you will have created a first version of a publication package for your own research project and you will be equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to finish the package independently.

Data Sets

Instructions

Download the eur-publication-package.zip file from the EUR publication package example repository on Zenodo and unzip it to your Desktop or Home directory. This is an example publication package that we will use throughout the workshop
Create a new directory for a research project that you need to create a publication package for. This can be a recent publication or manuscript that you have sent out to a journal. If possible, use a project for which you have already collected, processed and analyzed the data and drafted a manuscript.
1. Create a similar folder structure for your own project as in the example publication package downloaded at step 1: create folders called data, data_output, documentation, materials, and scripts.
2. Try to copy as much elements of the publication package from your own project into the folders. For example, raw data in the data folder, processed data in the data_output folder, data management plan and ethics documentation in the documentation folder, blank questionnaires and other stimulus materials as well as codebooks in the materials folders, and computer code or syntax in the scripts folder. This will get you started with your own publication package. Don’t worry if it is not yet complete or tidy. You will work on improving your package during and after the workshop.

Software Setup

Details

Currently this course can be followed using your browser, no specific software is needed. For creating your own publication package, it will be helpful to have access to the software that you used in the project for which you will create your publication package.