Community engagement in developing a sustainable Open Access data infrastructure for physical sciences

As in many academic disciplines, challenges exist for researchers and research enablers in the physical sciences in ensuring that data and associated attributes are FAIR and published for re-use. Whilst the field is diverse and encapsulates many practices, the identified challenges include: data interoperability, loss of data when converting between different scientific data formats, heavy reliance on data generation through facilities, heterogeneity in naming, lack of uptake on tools to support best practice such as Electronic Lab Notebooks, and lack of training to support the required change in research culture. 

The Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI) initiative is creating a data infrastructure that connects existing experimental and computational facilities within Physical Sciences and beyond to enhance research efficiency. PSDI looks to improve data handling across the research data lifecycle through the creation of tools and services that can be deployed within the researcher’s workflow, developed from community requirements, incorporating strategies for the skills & training, best practices and standardization activities needed alongside. 

Following an initial pilot and development phase, focusing on connecting existing infrastructures, data stewardship practices, and best use of people technology, PSDI has recently launched an initial set of resources for the physical sciences community in the form of services, software tools, data sources and guidance. PSDI enables researchers to use reference quality data from commercial and open sources; share resources within the community; make use of technologies such as AI to explore data; and learn how to make their research open and FAIR.  Much of these services are available Open Access, however some are only Members-Only Open Access.

In this session, we will talk about how PSDI developed workflows to promote community engagement and the activities undertaken in the initiative and discuss the process and challenges in making an Open Access Infrastructure.