• Open Access Publishing
• Preregistration & Registered Reports
• Data Management Plans
  • • What is a Data Management Plan (DMP)?
    • When is a DMP mandatory?
    • What template can I use?
    • Resources to fill in a DMP
• Data Sharing Agreement
• Software Management Plan
• Data Storage
• Working with personal & sensitive data- practical advice
• RDM requirements by funder
• Ethics
  • • Medical research

Open Access Publishing

Publishing Open Access increases the visibility of research and thus its impact, making knowledge accessible to a much wider audience. Open Access publishing is a cornerstone of Open Science, and nowadays also a requirement of most funding organizations. 

There are two pathways to OA at Leiden University. The first is publishing Open Access, where the researcher selects a journal that guarantees publication directly in Open Access. Most journals charge an Article Processing Charge (APC) or an Open Access fee to facilitate this service; a list of journals that Leiden University has OA agreements with can be found here.  

The second is publishing under a subscription and then making the publication OA after an embargo period. Dutch law has recently clarified the criteria for the embargo period, depending on the origin of the research funds. Based on Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act (the so-called Taverne amendment), short-form publications resulting from research funded in whole or in part by public funds can be made Open Access after an embargo of six months, irrespective of the publisher's terms and conditions. 

To know how to publish Open Access, please consult the Open Access checklist from the Center of Digital Scholarship (especially the flowchart explaining how to publish OA). 

Preregistration & Registered Reports

Preregistration is a common practice in behavioural sciences. It is aimed at increasing the quality, controllability and credibility of research. It is considered as one solution to combat some of the issues that may underlie the replication crisis. 

Preregistration works particularly well for confirmatory research, for instance when clear hypotheses are formulated and/or when the goal is to replicate studies. With preregistration, a research plan of the study is specified in advance and submitted to a registry, which can include decisions about the hypothesis, methods, and/or statistical approach. Thus, this approach can make explicit which decisions were made prior to the study and which were made post hoc. Preregistration may reduce problematic research practices such as p-hacking, publication bias, and HARKing, primarily through creating awareness and stimulating better plans.  

For more details, please refer to the Open Science Practices and Guidelines from the institute of Psychology or to the Open Science Policy and Guidelines from the institute of Education and Child Studies. 

Data Management Plans

What is a Data Management Plan (DMP)?

DMPs are documents that “describe the data that is used and produced during the course of research activities, where the data will be archived, which licenses and constraints apply, and to whom credit should be given” (Miksa et al., 2019). A DMP should clearly describe all decisions and measures taken to guarantee responsible handling of research data and, if applicable, long-term availability of the research data. 

When is a DMP mandatory?

What template can I use?

The researchers of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences can use the University DMP  template (found here). The Leiden University DMP template is accepted by: 

• NWO, 
• ERC and Marie Curie projects, 
• ZonMw, 
• Most funders will accept the Leiden template as long as it respects the categories of their own template. In case of doubt please contact institute’s data steward. 

In the case of larger collaborations, the researcher may have to work with a template from a project partner and in the case of large consortia, agreements should be made regarding which research partner will be in charge of the DMP. 

On a practical note, a template with fewer questions is not necessarily easier to fill in than a more detailed one. The lighter template will provide less guidance, but the same level of detail can in some cases be expected by the reviewing committees. 

Resources to fill in a DMP

• The data stewards of the institutes can be contacted for help; 
• Annotated templates from the Institutes of the Faculty with discipline-specific comments / suggestions exist for
  • Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology in their data management policy,;  
  • Child and Educational Studies and Psychology have an annotated Leiden University DMP template on Zenodo; 
• Tips & Tricks document from the Center of Digital Scholarship and the general annotated Leiden University DMP template on Zenodo

Data Sharing Agreement

In the case of collaboration both nationally and internationally with third parties (with other public, private and / or private non-governmental entities), clear agreements need to be made on how research data will be collected, processed, accessed, used, and stored, as well as on copyrights and rights of use.  

For individual cases, help is available as first line through FSW Research desk. As second line support, please contact the data managers and data stewards. Further documentation is also available in the individual Institutes’ policies and on the LURIS website.  

Software Management Plan

At a national level, the e-science center and NWO have released in September 2022 the first version of a Software Management Plan (SMP) and related guidelines. The Center of Digital Scholarship is presently in the process of developing a Leiden University SMP template and we expect to have as well University guidelines. 

In the meantime, a main concern is that research software often lacks appropriate documentation which leads to a lack of recognition of the researcher’s work, please see 'research software discoverability' for more details. 

Data Storage

Data storage refers to the storage of data during research.  

Data storage has a cost which can be significant if the dataset exceeds 1TB. It thus sometimes needs to be budgeted when applying for a grant.  

A guide summarizing the preferred data storage options in function of the discipline-specific requirements of the researchers is presently being developed at the University level. In the meantime, as a temporary solution, FSW’s information manager and data manager have drafted a data storage decision matrix, found here. To summarize, it is preferred  that researchers:  

• Store their data on J:/ drive research data if possible. In a first instance, it will allow for the faculty to make an inventory of the data needs of its researchers and to develop more tailored advices and solutions in the future.  
• Avoid devices that cannot be wiped out from a distance in case of loss. This creates security risks, especially if the researcher deals with sensitive data. 
• Avoid Tools / solutions where data will be stored outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) as the data are then subjected to the local legislation which is not always compatible with the European / Dutch legislations. If possible, research data should ideally be stored within the Netherlands. 
• Avoid personal accounts of university-provided resources such as P:/ drive, OneDrive or SURFdrive as it can create problems of access to the data at the end of the research project.  

It has to be noted that P:/ drive is presently being phased out as storage for research data within the faculty. We expect researchers to not store new research projects on P:/ drive during the transition period. This transition has started already for Education and Child Studies and Psychology and will start in the coming year for the social sciences institutes.

Working with personal & sensitive data- practical advice

• Data minimization: determine the purpose of data collection and make sure to collect as little personal data as possible; 
• Legal ground: determine if you can request permission of the test subjects through an informed consent form: 
  • If yes, please do so. In practice, do not forget that participants are usually given a period within which consent can be withdrawn without giving reasons. 
  • If not, please contact the privacy officer for advice.  
• DPIA: fill in a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) form. Data stewards and the privacy officer can help in this process; 
• Ethics committee: submit your project to the relevant ethics committee for approval. 
• Advice: do not hesitate to contact your data steward and / or privacy officer for advice.  
• Gold standards: choose your storage and analysis platforms carefully. If the selected platforms are not based in Europe, their policy may conflict with GDPR requirements.  
• Data sharing: in case of sharing personal data with third parties, contact the privacy officer to draft a data sharing agreement; 
• Data lifecycle end: destroy or anonymise personal data once your research has finished. Please contact the data steward of your institute for more details. It has to be noted that Psychology and Education and Child Studies have specific policies on the destruction of conversion keys. 

RDM requirements by funder

For research funded by grants, a DMP should be written in accordance with the funder’s requirements. In the case of large consortia, agreements should be made regarding which research partner will be in charge of the DMP. 

The researchers of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences are encouraged but are not required to use the University DMP template. Most funders (NWO, ERC and Marie Curie projects, ZonMw) will accept the Leiden template as long as it respects the categories of their own template. In case of doubt please contact your Institute’s data steward. 

When filling out the DMP, it is important to adhere to the requirements of the funder: This can include obligations regarding the long-term preservation of the data, etc. In the case a funder requests a stamp of approval for a DMP, the data stewards of the Institute can provide it. 

Ethics

The faculty has three ethics committees that review research proposals on criteria concerning ethically-responsible scientific conduct:  

1. CEP: Psychology Research Ethics Committee – contact ethicpsychologie@fsw.leidenuniv.nl. The procedure to apply for the Psychology Research Ethics Committee is described online, please see reference. Please note that the procedure are regularly updated.  
2. Review committee for Education and Child Studies – contact ethiekcie.ipw@fsw.leidenunniv; 
3. CEM: Review committee for the Institutes of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Political Sciences and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies – contact ethiekmaatschappijwetenschappen@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.   

Medical research

The Medical research involving human subjects' law WMO (Dutch: Wet medisch-wetenschappelijk onderzoek) is applicable to research that imports a medical component. Such research must additionally be submitted to the METC-LDD of the LUMC or another Medical Ethics Committee. 

If it is unclear what constitutes a ‘medical component’, assume it is the case and contact the privacy officer.