DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18379
title: 3R information retrieval self-reports by aspiring directors of animal experimentation

description: This dataset (qualitative data) consists in 215 anonymized pdfs of 3R information retrieval self-reports completed by aspiring directors of animal experimentation before 5 educational sessions on information retrieval (2012 to 2015). Visible confidential data, name, address, institution or industry, lab name, email, phone numbers were suppressed with Adobe Pro XI Redaction tool, as well hidden data, such as metadata with sanitization tool. In 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, aspiring directors of animal experimentation were assigned a 3R information retrieval homework prior attending a mandatory 3 hours face-to-face information retrieval seminar. Participants had to send back self-reports to course organizer of the training module (Module-2), the one week mandatory course for aspiring directors of animal experimentation located in Switzerland. In 2015, before performing self-report, aspiring directors made an online test about basics of information retrieval, 3Rs, and open access. They should obtain 60% of right answers and forwarded the automatic generated certificate to course organizer. Researchers could answer the questions with their personal knowledge or find them in commented presentations and screen castings available on 3Rupdate.ch plateform. Homework were not designed originally to analyze information retrieval skills. The original goal for the homework was to draw more attention and retention from the researchers during the 3 hours seminar. It was thought that if researchers faced difficulties in searching 3R information, it would generate additional motivation for the course. Therefore, self-reports were not marked; no direct individual feed-back was given to the participants, but the face-to-face session was a kind of homework correction, a way to give tips about 3R information retrieval in order to improve their searches. The second goal was to allow researchers to think about how they selected and handled search tools, instead of relying on closely related peers and personal knowledge to gather information on the research subject, an approach that is well known and natural: with time, researchers rely much more on their own network of peers rather than on online information resources to follow the latest development in their field. The homework topic was related to study model selection. The choice of a study model is crucial from a 3R point of view, but also for later scientific result validity: it is not an easy task for fundamental researchers to follow new animal models available on market. Neither is the one to follow new in vitro alternatives, such as 3D tissue cultures, stem cells, and <em>in vitro</em> screening techniques for fundamental researchers using animal experimentation. The case study was: Which mice, or non-vertebrate, or in vitro models are used to study Huntington disease? Homework structure consisted of a brief theory on 3R information retrieval, suggested search tools to be used, and 3 assignments. The first assignment was to perform a search on the subject, the second one to report best searches, namely keywords and search strings used in two selected tools with corresponding relevant references and generated bibliography. The third assignment invited researchers to comment freely about their tool choices, tool differences, and report self-criticism on search strategy, submitting better formulation of the initial query for a better information retrieval process.