Around the Pillar: survey methodology now online, insights from the survey manager

Around the Pillar is a series of posts with insights and updates coming from the members of our Work Packages. Let's hear from the manager of WP3, as the National Initiatives Survey methodology and questionnaire were made available online.

Lisa Hönegger from the University of Vienna is in charge of Work Package 3 of our project, the national initiatives survey which will provide a snapshot of the current state of open research data and services in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy. As the responses are being evaluated, let us gather some of her thoughts about the surveys, which have seen the keen participation of more than 500 representatives from a wide range of e-infrastructures, research infrastructures, funding bodies, and universities.

As of the moment, the group is creating a dataset for the analysis by curating the data, searching for outliers and logical mistakes. Their next step will be to analyse the data by extracting descriptive results per country and target group. “We are confident that we will be able to present the first results at the beginning of next year,'' stated Hönegger.

The survey methodology has also stirred some interest outside of our project, as there are currently discussions about landscaping activities in other boards or working groups as well. The Work Package 3 has in fact received several requests concerning the methodology, the questionnaire, or the LimeSurvey code, from other regional EOSC projects or European countries and institutions. Having seen that there was so much interest regarding our work, a CC BY version of the questionnaire has been prepared, together with a list of targets addressed by the 5 countries covered in EOSC-Pillar, including information on methodology and legal aspects for the implementation of the survey, and have also shared the programming code of the survey.

The CC BY version of the questionnaire is now available, so anyone interested in reusing the questionnaire can find it on the AUSSDA public dataverse: http://bit.ly/EOSC-Pillar-questionnaire-AUSSDA.