TUBITAK Open Science Policy

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Policy Title:

The management, storage, archiving, compilation and digital protection of the publications and research data originated from the projects which have been carried out or supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) constitute the framework of TUBITAK’s Open Science Policy.

Purpose:

The concept of Open Access was first introduced in 2002 as "free availability of scientific literature on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, index them, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself" at the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which was created by leading research institutes, science and research libraries and researchers in the world. The stimulating role of open access in scientific developments subsequently emerged with the studies and findings of international organizations. 

The European Commission supports open access as a standard method for disseminating the outputs of public-funded research in the European Union and embraces the free movement of information as one of the five priorities of the European Research Area. Open access to all peer reviewed publications produced within the scope of projects supported by the European Union (EU) funds was first enabled by the 7th EU Framework Programme and it was made mandatory within the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme, which is the largest civil R&D programme in the world, ¬of which Turkey is a participant and supporter.
                                                                                             
Open Data is defined as data that is freely available, reusable and redistributable that is not subject to any copyright, patent or other control mechanisms. By sharing data, it will be possible to conduct scientific studies in a much more effective and efficient way, avoiding data redundancy, providing data consistency and accessing data much faster. 

Open Science provides benefits in many areas such as sharing research results and research data free of charge and transparently with the research community and public by taking advantage of information and communication technologies, improving productivity of scientific research systems and promoting impact, dissemination, visibility and traceability of publicly funded research, reducing any redundancy in the field of research, and strengthening the existing links to international research. 

TUBITAK, in line with the global developments in the field of Open Science, has identified the principles specified in this policy document for publications and research data of TUBITAK researchers and any research or researcher funded by TUBITAK.   

Scope:

This Policy covers publications (peer reviewed articles, etc.) and research data that has been produced by researchers who were fully or partially supported by TUBITAK during the course of their scientific studies, in addition to those produced by researchers directly affiliated to TUBITAK.

Definitions:

Open Science: It is the practice of science in such a way that others can collaborate and contribute, where research data, lab notes and other research processes are freely available, under terms that enable reuse, redistribution and reproduction of the research. 

Open Access: Availability of scientific literature on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers. 

  • Gold Road Open Access: Open access to the work published of the researchers in an academic journal, through the journal as of the time of publication. 
  • Green Road Open Access: Open access to a copy of the accepted manuscript of research published in open archives in an academic journal.  

Open Data: Open data is defined as free of charge and freely available, reusable and distributable data that is not subject to any copyright, patent or other control mechanisms.

Research Data: Material records such as digital outputs, textual records, visuals or audio that are the primary source of scientific studies and are used to validate research results. 

Institutional Repositories and Subject Repositories: Systems that collect, organize and archive publications, data and other intellectual products (theses, course materials, study reports, etc.) produced via scientific research supported by public resources. 

Copyright: All the financial and moral rights that a person legally has over the products s/he has created with all her/his intellectual efforts. 

TUBITAK Repository: The archive that provides open access to the publications and research data of TUBITAK researchers or, publications and data which have been produced with the support provided, completely or partially, by TUBITAK. The TUBITAK Repository is developed under the name of Aperta.

TUBITAK Researcher: Person(s) working at the TUBITAK Headquarters, Centre and Institutes.

TUBITAK Researchers’ Publications: Publications and research data from the studies carried out at TUBITAK. 

TUBITAK Support: All of the scholarships, awards, incentives, supports and other funds granted to researchers with their purpose, scope, duration, budget and other conditions determined under the legislation specified by TUBITAK’s Board of Directors. 

Metadata: A dataset that describes a resource of information. In other words, data that is structured and descriptive used for finding, identifying, using and managing digital data and data resources.

Data Retention: All actions to be taken to ensure continuous access to digital materials when needed. 

Data Management Plan: The data management plan is a document that is created at the beginning of a new research process. It describes how data that will be used by the researcher will be managed during and after the completion of the study, or how to perform each step in the data lifecycle. 

Principles

1. TUBITAK requires depositing in TUBITAK Repository a copy of the accepted version of peer-reviewed articles prepared, completely or partially, with the support of TUBITAK via Green Road Open Access. (Deposit should be made as soon as the material is accepted for publication and all metadata should be fully scannable and readable by machine as of the time of deposit).

2. TUBITAK requires opening the full text of a publication to access as soon as it is accepted for publication, or if this is not possible, no later than 6 months after publication for life sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics and no later than 12 months after publication for social sciences and humanities. 

3. TUBITAK recommends open-access publication of peer-reviewed articles written, completely or partially, with the support of TUBITAK (Gold Road Open Access) unless there is any conflict of interest regarding the acceptance of publications. TUBITAK encourages researchers to own the copyright and not to transfer any rights unless a transfer to publishers is required for publication. TUBITAK recommends researchers to license their publications in a way that will provide the broadest access to said publications (The open access licensing model accepted across the world can be preferred.)                          

4. TUBITAK recommends establishing a research data management plan for open access to research data regarding those publications produced, completely or partially, with TUBITAK support. 
                                                                   
5. TUBITAK recommends providing open access to publications along with the research data that have been produced, completely or partially, with the support of TUBITAK. 

6. TUBITAK requires documenting and expressly notifying any cases where data cannot be opened to access, permanently or for a certain period of time, due to law, privacy or other concerns (e.g. personal or sensitive data, confidentiality, national security, registration period for industrial property rights, etc.).

7. TUBITAK shall prepare some templates and guidelines for the establishment of Data Management Plans (DMP).

8. It is legal to deposit electronic copies of scientific studies with the permission of the author. TUBITAK requires citing whenever any information contained in the Repository is to be used. 

9. TUBITAK shall take into account whether a researcher has complied with this policy while evaluating the researcher’s future support applications and performance. The researcher, as a beneficiary, will agree to comply with the TUBITAK Open Science Policy and declare compliance with the policy in the project’s final report.

10. TUBITAK encourages cooperation with other stakeholders to promote Open Science.
                                                               
11. TUBITAK shall monitor the implementation of this policy, and, if necessary, review and improve it. This policy is effective as of 14.03.2019. As soon as it is effective, the policy shall be applicable for the programmes determined by TUBITAK in the pilot scheme and will be applicable for all programmes in one years’ time.

26.03.2019