Research libraries at the forefront: empowering Open Science decision making with the OpenAIRE Graph
Creators: name: Malaguarnera, Giulia
name: Amodeo, Stefania
name: Papadopoulou, Athina
name: Di Giambattista, Chiara
name: Dimitropoulos, Harry
name: Pispiringas, Leonidas
name: Grypari, Ioanna
name: Koncic, Ivana
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Scientific Knowledge Graphs
Knowledge Discovery
Open Science Monitoring
Interoperability

description: Research Libraries are at the forefront of scholarly research communication by tracking the resources, services and tools that can support responsible research assessment and facilitate decision-making by providing concrete argumentation for investing in Open Science. Upholding the values of openness and transparency, Research Performing and Funding Organisations (RPOs and RFOs) have been seeking non-commercial alternatives to research databases that will help them perform their analysis by providing valuable resources and arguments that eventually will lead to effective and efficient decision-making on the institutional level.

The OpenAIRE Graph is an open resource that can support this effort as it is shaped by the research community and currently counts over 242 Mi, of which 81 Mi open access, research products (publications, data, software) from repositories, CRIS systems, and trusted resources.

In this presentation, we will examine the vital role that research librarians can play in enhancing these resources by looking closely at the OpenAIRE Graph case. We explore their contributions in defining a common metadata schema, reporting missing information, providing resources, and linking persistent identifiers (PIDs) such as affiliations, projects, and research products. We will also demonstrate how research librarians can use the OpenAIRE Graph and guide their research communities towards trusted resources and strengthen their networks by verifying data.

We also demonstrate how the OpenAIRE Graph provides the backbone for the OpenAIRE ecosystem and portfolio of services, all designed to support the work of RPOs and RFOs:



The OpenAIRE Provide Community enforces the OpenAIRE Guidelines, designed to provide a public space to share the research community work on interoperability. This community regularly validates the entries and their updates in the OpenAIRE Graph, and can track visualisations, downloads and data usage via the Usage Count.

Initiatives like OpenCitations and OpenAPC are an integral part of the OpenAIRE Catalogue. They utilise the OpenAIRE Graph data and, in particular, OpenCitations enriches it with bibliometric information (by interconnecting and integrating open bibliographic and citation data with the OpenAIRE Graph and the EOSC Resource Catalogue) and Open APC with publication costs (APC and BPC).

The OpenAIRE MONITOR service provides analysis and statistics from the OpenAIRE Graph and is curated by researchers and developers. It showcases dashboards with dynamic visualisations of Open Science activities, research outputs and performance, including Research Impact, funding and collaborations indicators on demand. This service facilitates the data elaboration at Institutions, University Alliances or Networks, Research Initiatives, and at RFOs. It can also be used for creating National Monitors for Countries that want to track progress towards open access. OpenAIRE is currently developing a National Open Access Monitor for Ireland.

The active OpenAIRE curator community, fixes affiliation duplicates in OpenOrgs, collaborating closely with ROR, the registry for research organisations.


This presentation ultimately aims to illustrate how the services and tools in the OpenAIRE catalogue can be utilised by research librarians to support informed decisions on Open Science policies and practices on the institutional level as well as showcase the power of community in curating, sustaining and powering open tools.