Open AccessRadical collaboration during a global health emergency: development of the RDA COVID-19 data sharing recommendations and guidelines
Author(s) -
J. Brian Pickering,
Timea Biro,
Claire C. Austin,
Alexander Bernier,
Louise Bezuidenhout,
Carlos Casorrán,
Francis P. Crawley,
Romain David,
Claudia Engelhardt,
Geta Mitrea,
Ingvill Constanze Mochmann,
Rajini Nagrani,
Mary Uhlmansiek,
Simon C. Parker,
Minglu Wang,
Leyla Jael Castro,
Zoe Cournia,
K. G. Dharmawardena,
Gayo Diallo,
Ingrid Dillo,
Alejandra González-Beltrán,
Anupama E. Gururaj,
Sridhar Gutam,
Natalie Harrower,
Jitendra Jonnagaddala,
K. Mills McNeill,
Daniel Mietchen,
Amy Pienta,
Panayiota Polydoratou,
Marcos Roberto TovaniPalone
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
open research europe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2732-5121
DOI - 10.12688/openreseurope.13369.1
Subject(s) - data sharing , covid-19 , alliance , work (physics) , qualitative property , survey data collection , knowledge management , data collection , pandemic , european commission , public relations , psychology , business , political science , computer science , medicine , engineering , sociology , disease , european union , infectious disease (medical specialty) , mechanical engineering , social science , alternative medicine , mathematics , law , economic policy , machine learning , statistics , pathology
Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic required a rapid and effective response. This included ethical and legally appropriate sharing of data. The European Commission (EC) called upon the Research Data Alliance (RDA) to recruit experts worldwide to quickly develop recommendations and guidelines for COVID-related data sharing. Purpose: The purpose of the present work was to explore how the RDA succeeded in engaging the participation of its community of scientists in a rapid response to the EC request. Methods: A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed among RDA COVID-19 work group members. A mixed-methods approach was used for analysis of the survey data. Results: The three constructs of radical collaboration (inclusiveness, distributed digital practices, productive and sustainable collaboration) were found to be well supported in both the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the survey data. Other social factors, such as motivation and group identity were also found to be important to the success of this extreme collaborative effort. Conclusions: Recommendations and suggestions for future work were formulated for consideration by the RDA to strengthen effective expert collaboration and interdisciplinary efforts.