Comments
Comment #180 Peter Pelz @ 2024-10-22 15:23
Dear Authors,
I regret to inform you that your submission is not suitable for publication in the journal ing.grid.
The subject of your paper fits the scope of ing.grid well. However, as indicated by the comprehensive reviews, considerably more work is needed regarding content. The significant linguistic flaws highlighted by the reviewers constitute a further significant shortcoming.
You may leave your preprint and the associated reviews publicly available, or contact the editorial team should you wish to withdraw it.
Kind regards,
Peter Pelz
Invited Review Comment #178 Ute Trautwein-Bruns @ 2024-10-21 12:19
The research article "How to teach good research data management to next generation researchers?" presents teaching material and guiding approaches for good research data management within a collaborative research center (CRC). The article describes the process of creating, improving, and tailoring the materials for specific target groups, with interactive events and communication channels playing a central role. Strategies for enforcing compliance with good RDM practices and overcoming challenges are presented.
Therefore, this research article aligns well with the focus of the ing.grid journal, as it directly addresses the aspect of "education concepts for FAIR data management." By providing training materials and strategies for teaching good research data management practices, the authors contribute valuable insights into how education can effectively support adherence to the FAIR principles.
Unfortunately, the manuscript has some quality and formal issues that need to be addressed before it can be recommended for publication.
Major comments
Discussion part: The article is very descriptive. In my opinion, the scientific discussion of the material / procedure is missing. I am convinced that this took place during the creation and adaptation of the materials and the communication to the researchers, but the challenges and issues that led to the final material and the described "Key Compliance strategy" and "Tactics to enforce compliance" are not described in the paper. For example, the following aspects could be addressed in more detail (suggestions only, not all need to be addressed):
- go into more detail about the lessons learnt from the perspective of the I-Project. Perhaps points can be derived that influenced the development of the materials and measures? What worked well, where did you need to make adjustments?
- challenges faced by researchers (Could conclusions be drawn from the mentioned survey, reviews, evaluation or feedback reports?)
- What specific improvements and target group-specific adjustments were implemented in course of the creation of materials and the development of procedures?
- What aspects make the material subject-specific or project-specific?
Doubling of content (text/table): The text contains numerous listings of content for material, events, etc., which provide little added value compared to the provided tables. In my opinion, the tables present almost the same content in a much more concise form.
Suggestion: either shorten the text and refer to the tables or address the individual points in more detail (full sentences, more context) Examples: L210-213, L219-225, L357-368, etc.
Improve paper structure: The large amount of chapters is confusing. It is not clear to me, what is method, result or conclusion. I recommend reducing the number of chapters at the top level so that the usual structure of a research article is easier to follow: Introduction - Methods - Results - Discussion - Conclusion
Formal issues: The text contains many grammatical and stylistic errors.
- Verbs or articles are missing
- the structure of sentences is unclear (for example L 48-50 "These RDM functions and systems relieve users from technically difficult tasks, workflow based functions e.g. security, encryption in transferring, creation of metadata by means of automation etc.")
- There should always be a comma before 'e.g.'
The text should be proofread by a native speaker or another person firm in english language.
Supplementary material: It should be clearer which materials are published and can actually be reused as open educational resources. I looked at the supplementary materials under the given DOI. There I found the videos with storyboards, the platform-specific materials (user guide, quickstart guide, cookbook) and a data management plan example. The content of the "presentation-slides" folder is not clear to me. It seems to be just a selection of presentations, as there should be more given the large number of events described. In particular, I miss the materials on "Research Practices" and the "supplementary guiding materials", e.g. the "Checklist to conclude research work".
If other materials have been published elsewhere, the references would be helpful. If not, it would be helpful in terms of transparency and reusability to publish these materials as well.
More details / minor comments
L21 Usually the plural of "research" is also "research" and the verb is in singular form.
L30 Argumentation does not fit. CRCs exist since 1968 (https://www.dfg.de/en/about-us/about-the-dfg/history/funding-past-and-present/developing-aims-and-funding-programmes). Perhaps start by describing a CRC as an innovative, multidisciplinary, collaborative institution and then address the resulting specific requirements.
L124-126 "The Information and infrastructure project of AMC was named as I-Project within AMC. In rest of the document Information infrastructure project will be referred as I-Project and AMC as CRC interchangeably. The I-Project was defined..."
recommendation: "The Information and infrastructure project (I-Project) was defined..." Only CRC is used in the rest of the text!
L134 Does this mean data publication via institutional repositories of the home universities? Did external research data repositories also play a role in data publication?
L145-146 Instead of "survived" rather emphasise that the corona measures had an influence on the developments in the I-project.
L166 This is an important role in the strategy. I am surprised that data manages/stewards are not mentioned in the later described communication and implementation strategy!
L176-177 Vaguely worded. Formulate more precisely or skip it. Was there a structured approach to dealing with updates?
L187 Add reference to DFG DFG Guidelines on the Handling of Research Data (2015)
L188 the 2021 document is no guideline. It is a checklist for planning and description of handling of research data in research projects. More expressive and detailed than before is the update of DFG's Good Research Practice in 2019 which could be mentioned here as well (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. (2019). Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice. Code of Conduct. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3923602)
L226 The term "well thought change control agenda" needs more explanation
L235-238 meant are DMP templates instead of DMPs.
recommendation: "Usually DMP templates consist of generic questions and the input fields for the responses. In this case a DMP template was defined specific for the CRC. It includes..."
L250ff "personal learning journey" - How was this realised? Was the material made findable via the categories described below? Where were the materials presented to the researchers? If this was in the "official platform" and only accessible internally, perhaps a screenshot would help?
L272 What are the differences between variants?
L276-278 Sentence not understandable
L330-331 No complete sentence. Recommendation: use a colon after "as follows"
L341-343 I would not refer to the survey as supplementary material, but rather as part of the methodological approach. Is it possible to provide more information on the results? Same with reviews, statistical reports, evaluations and feedbacks. Could the results of thus approaches be part of a discussion part?
L354ff In this chapter, it makes sense to describe the different session formats in more detail (but not all in one sentence!). The intention, target groups, duration and other characteristics of each session format could be described. They are part of the communication and compliance strategy. Later in the text, "Events to improve guidance and understanding" (Chapter 12) are described. Are this the same events? Could the chapters be combined?
L375 describe the "official platform based communication services" in more detail
L387-390 describe the official platform and defined rules in more detail. Maybe a screenshot of the platform could help? Why don't you name the streaming service?
L390 Summarising such a short section is not necessary and has not been done elsewhere.
L402 Isn't that chapter part of the methodology section?
L241ff chapter 12 seems redundat to Chapter 9
L439 What does "non-official" mean? How was compliance checked in these cases?
L444ff "feedback" - What worked well? What were common problems? Could progress be determined on the basis of these measures and thus conclusions drawn about the success of training and guidance?
L449ff This chapter is a good summary of the strategic measure. However, it lacks a description of the challenges that were faced and addressed with these measures. Was it the strategy from the beginning or did you react/adjust based on challenges, feedback or the observed development/progress?
L465-466 How was this recognised?
L479 It would be good to have more concrete details in the paper about the improvements.
L481 Where are the didactic and pedagogical methods described?
L485 "were listed and presented" - What is the difference between verbs? Isn't one enough?
L487 When describing the contents and methods, no distinction was made between in-person and online environments!
L489 Doubling to L483-484?
L494 No learning platform or concepts for implementation seen in the paper!
L495 How is the material relevant to policy makers or infrastructure developers and providers?
L497-499 This should have been mentioned much earlier in the text! Ideally, you should refer to the published material where it is described.
L504 I don't understand that. How was it realised? What do you mean by technical and administrative challenges?
L579 correct citation?
Invited Review Comment #176 Jan-Michael Haugwitz @ 2024-10-14 14:38
Hi, i like the topic, and if i see 23 pages this is a lot of work that i value. On the other hand if i think about other readers and myself, i have to value their interest and recommend to reject this article, because of a lot of language issues that make this article hard to read and understand. From my own experience i suggest taking a course for scientific writing to the authors.
This article is suffering from style issues and language understanding, including grammatical issues / mistakes. This distracts from the content, which though can not always be understood either. The impact is that high, that i had to decide to not spend more on giving detailed feedback for the whole article. Overall the article is not following the requirement of beeing "accessible" because of the language issues. If you have problems and read something that is hard to understand because of mistakes, this will confuse.
Fixing the issues will take a complete revision of the article as there are patterns and many occasions of repeating issues, which i like to name now before getting into examples line by line:
Problem Patterns:
- The use of referencing words like this, these, it which a) makes it hard to guess what is meant b) which is even harder if the target, it refers to, is multiple sentences away. Solution: Be specific and name "it".
- Grammar issues: Cases, missing (grammatical) articles. Lots of sentences that are hard to understand.
- Repetition of words in multiple sentences, maybe because of a limited pool of words? This does cause occasionally a lack of precision, as the difference in notions is not understood or transported.
- Information is often mentioned for end in itself, but not used to do anything with it, like forming premises and getting to conclusions.
Example comments - Line by Line:
I will add not all but a few example comments with lines for more information:
Line 2:
Add a comma to make sure it is clear you mean that "data" is considered and the "it" in the next sentence is not targeting something undefined.
Line 3:
Using replacements instead of what you mean does increase the chance of misunderstanding. Especially if the word is short, avoid that.
Line 4:
grammar? Looks wrong if you write ..."x influences in determining about y".
I would have guessed you mean either: "knowledge influences data" or "knowledge influences the process of determining data".
Line 5:
For me this whole sentence is to unclear. What is the "considered" one?
add a conjunction to highlight the difference via structure e.g.:"wisdom, but instead"
Line 10:
1) The article is difficult to understand, because wrong cases are used. This sentence is not gramatical correct. A) "the use" would imply that "the creation" follows, instead of "the use, create ..." B) Looks like a verb is missing. C) The sentence is to complicated "broadly considered relating to the use" what? Write more simple please for non-native readers.
2) Writing style issues, as the word "considered" is used four time in 9 lines.
3) if you used "the use" then it is not "using" which is the activity you now mean. 2) style issues: In the following sentences i read 3 times "these activities".
Line 16-19:
1) Lots of words telling little. Too unspecific.
Research is influenced by technology, which forces a modernisation of teaching research practices.
2) "In this case it is data management"? Where does this sentence connect to? I do not see a valid option, so the sentence does not make sense.
3) remaining parts? Or better write the "following part" or "next".
Line 21-25:
1) Bad style. Multiple times "these".
2) Plural mistake continues. "research" does not have plural. This word is only valid if you would say, "he/she/it researches x" ... but thats not how the word is used here.
Line 33:
Missing articles. "Within (the) centre" "have (an) understanding of"
Line 81:
1) Very unspecific. What is meant with pedagogical methodology specifically? I mean. You would not say "mathematics" has been effective at calculating in economy right?
2) For me with educational background especially i see here a n error, this looks wrong content wise.
Experience is something you get by doing. Pedagogical methodology does not give you experience at all, it just is a set of methods how you can do so. I would say, you do not reduce time to get experience, you improve the gains or support the professionalisation, e.g. through analysing and feedback methods.
Line 113:
Symptomatic for this whole article. Lots of information are mentioned but the reader is not told why it is relevant for him/her or for whomever or whatever.
For me the content of the sentence is a normal thing in many projects. So either tell us why this is special in this case or skip the unnecessary info.
Invited Review Comment #173 Anonymous @ 2024-10-06 17:04
Shah and Petzold have provided an article about the RDM activities in and for the TRR277 AMC (as part of the infrastructure project).
First of all, the article needs thorough language revision. In many instances, it is hard to read and to understand.
Phrases like this can be found all over (line 58) "Such digitalisation has eased the difficult tasks on one hand on the other hand it raised the importance of information and digital literacy among researchers regardless of their domain of research. Also the push of technical roles more towards IT professionals from librarians seems eminent or the technical education of librarians deemed necessary."
In general, the word "deem" appears quite often and in rather strange contexts.
Positive aspects: the authors try to summarise their activities in the TRR project: RDM workshops for the TRR participants, quick start guides, FAQs, tutorials, self-learning materials, feedback loops etc. The concept is useful for a TRR, but the whole article should be rewritten for more clarity. Many sections are unclear.
Sometimes, the logic of the article is strange: line 23 "In the case of such developments and progresses new genre of research organisations are being
formed by the state, continental or other funding sources". -> What do the authors want to say? What is a new genre of research organisation? what is a continental source?
Next example (line 183): "It was further hypothesised that it should not be considered enough in the face of evolving landscape of possibilities of research work and technological development. The rapidly changing and evolving phenomena could also cause unprecedented changes in the requirements and expectations of stakeholders and communities. Thus, it should also not be overlooked. For example, it was experienced that DFG released guidelines for research data in 2015" -> What do the authors try to say here?
In some cases, the linguistic flaws stand in the way of understanding entire subsections, e.g. 5.1. It is not clear to me what the authors are trying to say with this section.
"As fundamentals, data management was considered that, name the entities consistently, do versioning, identify components and their organisation. Do the documentation e.g. in log, and README type of files. All that should be bundled or packaged in a specific manner so that those are uniquely identifiable within the system and/ or setup. And, since the digital means are also available, one could employ digital tools and systems e.g. to create and to store the data on need basis."
While pages 1-7 of this contribution are quite wordy, the message of the authors does not come across to the reader. Hence, the contribution of the submission to the field of teaching RDM is not apparent. Correcting the linguistic flaws and sharpening the points the authors wish to make would make it easier for readers to comprehend the contribution.
Pages 8-18 contain more real content but should also be rewritten in a clearer and more compact way. In the current state, the manuscript is not suitable for publication in the journal ing.grid.