Lecture 26, As-Salamu Alaikum. Welcome to the virtual university's course on business and technical communication. In today's lecture, we will be looking at empirical research reports. In this lecture, you will learn about the typical writing situations in which an empirical research report will be written. We will also look at the typical questions that readers ask most often, like we looked at typical questions when writing a general report. We will also look at the superstructure for empirical research reports, which will include the introduction, the objectives of the research, method, discussion, conclusion and recommendations. We will talk about headings. We will have a look at a planning guide and we will briefly review some sample research reports as well. Now, what are the typical writing situations in which an empirical research report would be written? You will be able to use the superstructure for empirical research reports most successfully if you understand the purpose of research discussed in these reports. When you are writing about empirical research, you will be writing to people who will make decisions based on the results of your report or a smaller amount of empirical research has a different purpose and that could be to extend general human knowledge. So, the two different types of purposes, one could be where people are making decisions based on your research and the other where your research is being used to extend human knowledge. The researchers set out to learn how fish remember, for example, in extending human knowledge, what the molten core of earth is like, etc. This research is carried out for the sake of humanity and is published in science journals, etc. In some situations, the two aims of research which aims to help in decision making and research which aims to extend human knowledge, in some situations these two aims overlap. Some organizations sponsor basic research usually in the hope that what is learnt can later be turned into practical use. So, a lot of the times people want a sponsor research or are interested in some kind of research to learn something, to extend their knowledge and then later it may also be converted into practical use and decisions may be made on the basis of what has been learnt. Likewise, some practical research turns up results that are of interest to those who desire to learn more about the world in general. So, it could also be the other way around that the main purpose of the research is practical, but as a result of that there are some conclusions, some findings that would be of interest to people who are not going to take any action, but they will be reading the report basically to extend their horizons to expand their knowledge. The readers are most likely to ask certain questions when they are setting out to read a report. We looked at some questions that readers ask when we looked at general reports and in the same way when they are reading empirical reports even then the readers will have some preconceived notions, some preconceived questions that will come up in their minds and that they are likely to ask of the material that they are faced with and of themselves as well and of you as a writer. Whether it aims to support practical decisions, extend human knowledge or achieve some combination of the two purposes, almost all empirical research is customarily reported in the same superstructure. All report will follow the same type of superstructure that we will be looking at regardless of what the purpose of that report is and this is because the readers of all types, regardless of what they are hoping to get out of the report, all types of readers will have seven general questions about the report. So as we saw in the previous lecture, there were six general questions and there were six sections of the report. In this, when we look at empirical reports, there are seven general questions that students, that sorry, readers tend to ask and they are correspondingly seven sections to a report as well that answer to those questions. The first question that readers are likely to ask is why is the research important to us? Readers concerned with solving specific practical problems want to know what problems your research will help address. What is it that your research will talk about? Readers concerned with extending human knowledge want to know how you think your research contributes to what humans already know. So whatever aim is to read the readers, they want to know how important this research is for them. If the readers want to do practical research, they want to know how your research will help solve their problems. If the readers are reading your research, your reports are reading that they want to extend their knowledge, then they want to know what you are telling them, which they don't know before. What you are adding to what people know before. Obviously, if you are talking about what thousands of people have already said, then you are not contributing anything new. So people want to know what new are you contributing to existing knowledge. The second important question that readers are likely to ask is what were you trying to find out? What are you looking for? A key part of an empirical research project is the careful formulation of the research questions that the project will try to answer. What is it that you are trying to find out and you need to formulate your questions very carefully so that the corresponding answers then become clear to you and it becomes clear to the reader what you are trying to find out. The readers want to know what those questions are so that they can determine whether they are significant questions or not. If the questions that you are asking in your research say, if they are not important for the reader, if they are not significant, then there is no point in reading the report for the reader. If the questions that you are exploring are not of their interest or if they think that these questions do not mean anything. Another question is, was your research method sound or not? What method were you using? Was it reliable? Was it valid or not? Your method has to be appropriate to your research and it has to be intellectually sound. If the research method is not appropriate or intellectually sound, if it is not according to what you are trying to find out, if it is not appropriate to the needs of what you need to know or if there are flaws in it which are logical flaws or intellectual flaws, then your readers will not place any faith in your results. You will not have any credibility. Your conclusions will not have any credibility nor will your recommendations. So, if your methods are not so clear, sound, not reliable, then your results, your conclusions, your recommendations will also have a suspicion on your audience and they will think that the information collected by them was not correct. So, their results, recommendations and conclusions can be as correct as they are. Also, your readers will want to know what results did your research produce? What results did you research and what results did you relay? And that is obviously very natural that they would want to know that because if they are going through the research, they are going through the methods that you use, then obviously the natural conclusion of that is that they want to know what you found. Also, they will want to know how you interpreted those results. Your readers will want to interpret these results in a way that is meaningful to them. So, you need the interpretation that you put upon the results should be meaningful to the reader. They will also ask what is the significance of the results? As you see, there is a natural progression to the questions and there is a natural connection between all the questions. So, once they have questioned the methods, they have questioned what results were achieved, the interpretation, then they say what is the significance of what you found? What answers do these results imply for your research questions? When you asked the research questions in the beginning, we said what are you trying to find out? For those research questions, what are the answers to your research questions? And also, how do your results relate to the problems that the research was to help solve or to the area of knowledge that your research set out to expand? Whatever your results were, your objective in the beginning of the research, if your objective was that you are solving some problems and you are taking some decision on the basis, then how does your result relate to that? If your objective was that there is an expansion in knowledge, then how do you expand that area of knowledge and how do you relate to it? Also, then the readers also want to know as a consequence, what do you as a writer think we, the readers, should do? The readers concerned with practical problems want to know what you advise them? What are you advising them? What are your recommendations? When the readers want to solve some problems, they want you to advise them. Now tell them that we have done this research and this result. That is how we interpreted them. Now we should do this. Readers concerned with extending human knowledge, on the other hand, want to know what you think and what you think your results imply for future research. The results you have found and the results you have found, now on their basis, what is their role in the future research and in the expansion of knowledge? Now, after having looked at these seven questions that readers are most likely to ask, questions that readers ask most often, you need to look at the superstructure of a general report because this will answer the questions that readers ask most often. And this superstructure has the following elements. It has an introduction. There is a section which talks of the objectives of the research. Then there is a discussion of the methods, the results. Then there is a discussion of the results, a conclusion and a recommendation. So, introduction, objectives, method, results, discussion, conclusion, recommendations. These are the seven sections which relate your seven questions. As you can see on this slide. Now let us have a look at each of these sections separately. In the introduction to an empirical report, you should seek to answer the question why is the research important to us as we just saw. Typically, writers answer this question in two steps. They announce the topic of their research and then they explain the importance of the topic to the readers. When it comes to announcing the topic, you can apply the topic of your research simply by including the topic as the key phrase in the opening sentence of your report. For example, consider the first sentence of a report on the satellite communication system as shown on your screen. For the past 18 months, the satellite products laboratory has been developing a system that will permit companies with large nationwide fleets of trucks to communicate directly with their drivers at any time through a satellite link. A big part of this research is that it is the topic of this report that a system will develop in this way that will make it easier for companies to communicate through a satellite link. Let us have a look at another one. This is a first sentence from a report on the way people develop friendly research through a satellite link. Let us have a look at another one. This is a first sentence from a report on the way people develop friendly research and develop friendly relations. It says, social psychologists know very little about the way rail friendships develop in their natural settings. Now this phrase, the way rail friendships occur in their natural settings is the topic of the report. Now explaining the importance of the research. Why is the research important? To explain the importance of the research to your readers you can use either one or both of these methods. You can state the relevance of your research to your organization's goals. You can review the previously published literature on the subject. You can review the previously published literature on the subject. When it comes to talking about the relevance to organizational goals, in reports which are written in organizations, whether you own or a client's organization, you can explain the relevance of your research by relating it to a goal or a problem that that organization is facing. Sometimes the importance of the research will be so obvious to your readers that merely naming your topic will be sufficient. Sometimes the importance of the research will be so obvious to your readers that merely naming your topic will be sufficient. Many times you will have to mention the topic in the beginning of your report and the importance of your research will be known because it will be stated directly in the topic. Why is it important? However, at other times you will need to discuss at length the relevance of your research to your organization. In the first paragraph of the satellite report, for instance, the writer mentions the potential market for the satellite communication system that they are developing. Now, the second way was to give an extended discussion of work that has been done previously, a literature review. This is where you review the existing knowledge on your research. Thereby, you establish the importance of your research. You talk about what has been done in this area and because of that you show why this area is important. Generally, you can arrange a literature review in two parts. You can first present the main pieces of knowledge communicated in the literature. What were the main topics that are generally covered and about which research has been done and then you identify some significant gap in this knowledge. The knowledge that people already know and research has been done but what is not yet research that people do not know about? This is the very gap that your own research will fill. You have to talk about it. In this way, you establish this special contribution that your research will make. You are actually showing why your research is important. Because it has been discussed before and it has been researched in this area but there was one particular aspect that was not seen and now you will see the importance of your research. Let's have a look at an example where initially the writer talks about what is known on his topic. This is the beginning of the literature review. He says a great deal of research in social psychology has focused on variables influencing an individual's attraction to another at an initial encounter usually in laboratory settings and then in brackets he gives the names and years of who conducted the research and when. And then he continues to identify the gap in knowledge and by saying yet very little data exists on the processes by which individuals in the real world move beyond initial attraction to develop a friendship. Even less is known about the way developing friendships are maintained and how they evolve over time and then he gives a reference of who says that very little is known about them and about the evolution. Now as you saw initially in this example we talked about the importance by showing that a lot of research has been done. And then he says by using the word yet he lets the reader know that there is something missing. So he qualifies the sentence and then he continues to say that very little data exists on a particular area which is on the relationships in the real world. It was in the laboratory settings and now we are talking about the real world and there is very little information in it. The writer continues this discussion of the previous research then over three paragraphs. Each paragraph follows the same pattern it identifies an area of research tells what is known about it about that area and then identify gaps in the knowledge. That this writer has conducted. Obviously when you are highlighting the gaps you are doing it because your aim is to fill those gaps otherwise there is no need to highlight those gaps. Now these paragraphs that the writer writes then serve an important additional function also performed by many literature reviews. They introduce established facts and theories that are relevant to the writer's work and necessary to the understanding of the report. Writers almost always include literature reviews in the reports that they write for professional journals. The reports written for professional journals are bi and large literature reviews included. In contrast if the reports are made for readers within an organization then literature reviews may be omitted. That is because such reviews are often unnecessary when addressing organizational readers. Many times when you are writing a report within an organization then you do not need to give a background review. This is because many times organizational readers judge the importance of a report in terms of its relevance to the organization's not in terms of its relation to the general pool of human knowledge. They do not need to know what generally is known about that problem. They are concerned with how it relates to their organization. For example the typical reader of the truck and satellite communication report that we looked at was interested in the report because he or she or they wanted to learn how well their company system would work. To them a general survey of the literature on satellite communications would have seemed irrelevant perhaps even annoying. They do not want to know what are the general communication systems and what are the reasons for their work. They have a connection with their own company and they are interested in the relevance of their company. A second reason that writers often omit literature reviews when addressing readers in organizations is that such reviews rarely help such readers understand the report. They do not really aid understanding. A lot of the times they end up confusing the reader as well. That is because the research projects undertaken by within organizations usually focus so sharply on a particular local question that published literature on the subject in general is besides the point. The scope of the literature is so focused that the general topic of the literature is irrelevant in organizations that is why literature reviews are omitted. For example a review of previously published literature on satellite communications would not have helped readers understand the truck and satellite report either. Sometimes of course literature reviews do appear in reports written to organizational readers and often they say if they do appear then they say something like this. In a published article one of our competitors claims to have saved large amounts of money by trying a new technique. The purpose of the research described in this report is to determine whether or not we could enjoy similar results. As you have seen the writer has referred to the claim of the competitor and this is the background which is sufficient for this report. He did not write the whole what was written in the report and he told the key findings and this is a reference point on which the report was based. Of course the final standard for judging whether you should include a literature review in your report is your understanding of your purpose and your readers. In some way or another however the introduction to all your empirical research reports should answer your readers question why is this research important to us. Now coming to the objectives of the research. Every empirical research project has carefully constructed objectives. Every project has objectives of why the project is being done and what are the aims and objectives. These objectives define the focus of your project they influence the choice of research methods that are used and they shape the way in which you interpret your result. Thus readers of empirical research reports want and need to know what the objectives are. Obviously when your objectives define which method you are using and what is the scope of your research and how it will be then these are very important things that you should know about your objectives. The following example from the satellite report shows one way you can tell your readers about your objectives. It says in particular we wanted to test whether we could achieve accurate data transmissions and good quality voice transmissions in the variety of terrains typically and the second objective says we wanted also to see what factors might affect the quality of transmissions. Now here the first objective is that they wanted to see whether they can achieve accurate data transmission and the second objective is which factors affect the quality of the transmission. Now with these two they will decide what method to use and how to interpret the data and what are the objectives. When reporting on research that involves the use of statistics you can usually state your objectives by stating the hypotheses you tested. Where appropriate you can explain these hypotheses in terms of theory. Again citing previous publications on the subject. If you have already worked on the subject then you will hand them over to them. The following passage shows how the writer who studied friendship explains some of his hypotheses. Notice how the author begins with a statement of the overall goal of the research. The goal of the study was to identify characteristic behavioural and attitudinal changes that occurred within interpersonal relationships as they progress from initial acquaintance to close friendship. With regard to relationships benefit and costs it was predicted that both benefits and costs would increase as the friendship developed. The ratings of both the costs and benefits would be positively correlated with the ratings of friendship intensity. In addition the types of benefits listed by the subjects were expected to change as the friendships developed. Now let us have a look at the method. These were the objectives. We looked at objectives and obviously we said that based on what the objectives were the method of achieving the method of obtaining data would be determined. When reading the reports of your empirical research for precise details concerning your method you know that your objectives are based on a particular method that we will collect our data in this way. But the readers want to know the precise details of that method to know what things are included in this method and how you collected the data. These details serve three purposes. They let the reader assess the soundness of your research design and appropriateness for problems that you are investigating. Secondly, the details of your method enable you readers to determine the limitations that your method might place upon the conclusions that you are drawing. Due to which what are the limitations in your conclusions and what things you can conclude and what things you cannot conclude. Thirdly, the description of your method provides information that will help your readers repeat your experiment if they wish to verify your results or conduct similar research of their own. So the kind of information you should provide about your method depends upon the nature of your research. So the kind of information you should provide about your method depends upon the nature of your research. For example, the writer studying friendship began his description of his research method in this way. At the beginning of their first term at the university, college freshmen selected two individuals whom they had just met and completed a series of questionnaires regarding their relationships with those two individuals at three-week intervals through the school terms. Now, let's see what they have said in this description that when they were researching what kind of research they had done. As you may remember at the beginning of their research they had said that during the first research in laboratory settings human relationships were not seen in real-life situations. Now, they are telling how they interacted with people in college and monitored them. At the beginning of their first term students selected two individuals whom they had just met and together they filled a series of questions regarding their relationships and after three-week intervals they answered these questions so that consistency came and on the basis of these answers all the research they found were done. In the remaining of the paragraph the writers explain the questionnaires that asked the freshman to tell about such things as their attitudes towards each of the two individuals. However, the paragraph that we saw and the remainder of the paragraph that you have not seen is a small amount but actual research is a document of about 1200 words but the research methods have been discussed in just a few words. The writers of the satellite report likewise provided detailed information about their procedures. He provides three paragraphs and two slides explaining their equipment that was used and then also uses two paragraphs and one map of the region covered by the trucks The trucks that go in the 11 regions what were their stages how they used to explain two paragraphs and one map and the equipment used for research to describe three paragraphs and two tables this is a special link of the research method but because the research was more complicated there were more methods and their description is longer. Now you as a writer need to decide which method to include the most obvious way in which to decide is to follow the general reporting practices in your field what are the general practices the easiest way to know is to look at the reports written in your field and see how the section of the method is long and detailed if generally in your area in a very short concise way the section of the method is not given a detailed description then you do not need to give but if in your area and really the articles or reports there is a lot of detail of the methodology then you have to evaluate the details of the method used you can check the scope of your research in the ways described in what you see on your screen now you need to list every aspect of your procedure that you made a decision about what are the different aspects of your procedure that you made a decision about then identify every aspect of your research that your readers might ask about what are the aspects of your procedure that you might ask ask yourself what aspects of your procedure might limit the conclusions you draw from your results take some time and ask yourself what are the aspects of your procedure that might limit the conclusions of your procedure your results identify every procedure that other researchers would need to understand in order to design a similar study what are the steps in your procedure that you have to write that without them other researchers cannot follow this procedure if you feel that they are necessary in order to use this procedure again then you need to list those features as well now that was the methods some a checklist a few things you needed to list you needed to put down in your method section and why you needed to put them down that affected your understanding of what you were doing and how that affected your readers' understanding of the reliability of the methods used and of how you did things the next section will deal with the results that you actually got by using those methods if you have used the methods then of course there were experiments or questionnaires or interviews that you gave your description you also need to tell them what results were the results of empirical research are the data that you obtain although your results are the heart of your empirical research project they may take up a very small portion of it generally results are placed in one of two ways they either presented through tables and graphs the satellite report uses two tables the report and friendship uses four tables and eleven graphs or results can be placed in sentences when placed in sentences results are often woven into a discussion that combines data and interpretation sometimes let us briefly present all the results in one section and then discuss them in a separate section sometimes they combine the two in a single integrated section and then in this integrated section it is often interwoven the results can also be interwoven with the data whichever method you use your discussion must link your interpretative comments with the specific results that you are interpreting whatever your comments your interpretation should have a connection with the results which you are giving interpretation on you will not have any connection with your results let us have a look at an example where we have a discussion section and we are going to look at the different sections or the different elements of a discussion section the first section is the emphasis on the key results that are shown in the table it says as table 3 shows 91% of the data transmissions were successful now this next then in the next centers the writers draw attention to other important results by saying the most important difference to note is the one between the rate of successful transmissions in the southern Piedmont region and the rates in all the other regions then in the last section the writers interpret these results they say in the southern Piedmont area we had the truck drive slightly outside the ATS-6 footprint so that we could see if successful transmissions could be made there when the truck left the footprint the percentage of successful data transmissions dropped abruptly to 43% so in the end there were their interpretations that when this was done then how much was dropped what was seen let us have a look at the other example where we were talking about friendship and relationships and let us see the discussion section of that report in this the writers for interpretation they say inter-correlations among the subject's friendship intensity ratings at the various assessment points showed that friendship attitudes became increasingly stable over time then this next section talks about the specific results presented as support for the interpretation for example the correlation between friendship intensity ratings and friendship intensity ratings at 3 weeks and 6 weeks was 0.55 between 6 weeks and 9 weeks 0.78 between 9 weeks and 12 weeks 0.88 so in this way you can present your discussions interpretation and results or you can tell them separately first you will decide the order and nature of your report now let us come to the conclusions besides interpreting the results of your search you need to explain what your results mean in terms of original research questions that you had at the beginning and the general problem that you set out to investigate your explanation of these matters are the conclusions the readers of some empirical research reports want to know what based on the research the writers think should be done the research you have done what you think should be done and the readers want to know this is especially true in cases where the research is directly solving a practical problem consequently then research reports include a section on recommendations so basically these were all the sections of an empirical research report in this lecture we have looked at typical writing situations where the typical situations in which empirical research reports are written we have looked at the questions that readers are most likely to ask we have looked at the superstructure for empirical research reports which included the introduction the objectives of research method, discussion conclusion, recommendation we also looked at a planning guide at the end and we in this lecture we have also seen some samples of research reports with this we come to the end of today's lesson on empirical research writing I will see you next time until then, Allah Hafiz


Urinary bladder has two main functions, storage of urine and elimination of urine. Since kidneys continuously form urine, the urinary bladder should have the characteristic to store the urine and when it is filled it should have the ability to empty itself. So, maturation is the process by which urinary bladder empties itself when it becomes filled. This function of the bladder of storage of urine and elimination of the urine is best understood by seeing a relationship between the intravacycle pressure and the intravacycle volume what we is known as systematogram. So, here in this graph x axis shows intravacycle volume in ML and the y axis shows intravacycle pressure in centimeters of water. So, you see as the urine starts filling in the urinary bladder which is depicted by increase in this volume what happens the pressure in the bladder rises a bit but afterwards the pressure is almost constant and then again after a certain value in this case 400 ml again the pressure starts rising. So, there are different components of this graph this initial rise in pressure with increase in the volume is the 1a this is the 1b and again the rise is part 2. For voiding to occur there should be increase in the intravacycle pressure and you see when is the intravacycle pressure rising here after 150 ml and here after 400 ml. So, first urge of voiding occurs at 150 ml and maturation reflex starts at around 400 ml but here this flat portion depicts the storage ability of the urinary bladder. So, first let's see what makes this storage of urine possible in the urinary bladder. Well, it is explained by Laplace law. See urinary bladder doesn't act like an elastic material rather it is a plastic material that means it can change in the shape so as urine starts filling in the bladder initially there is a rise but then it stretches it relaxes causing increase in the radius of the bladder. To understand this let's consider Laplace law. See Laplace law says pressure in a spherical organ is equal to 2 times the tension on the wall divided by the radius of the spherical organ. So, whenever filling is occurring inside a spherical organ we expect that it would stretch the wall if it is elastic it will tend to stretch the wall and this will create tension in the wall. And the wall by its tendency to come back to its normal shape it will cause increase in the pressure inside the spherical organ. But in case of bladder what happens that with filling of the urine because of the relaxation of the bladder wall there is increase in the radius also. So, increase in tension is counterbalanced by increase in the radius which is the denominator hence pressure does not change. So, this can happen up to a certain extent until that critical level of 400 ml 450 ml is reached. So, this makes the bladder apt for a storage of urine. Okay, but there is one more thing you see the neck of the bladder it is very narrow that means radius is very small and it is little bit lengthy also. So, whenever we are considering a narrow lengthy tube this Laplace law also considers the length of the tube. So, here it becomes as into L as well. So, what we are saying is that because of more length and less radius here in the neck region of the bladder pressure is quite high. So, lesser pressure in the urinary bladder per se and higher pressure in the neck region of the bladder will prevent the elimination of the urine. Isn't it? The bladder pressure should become more than that of the neck for flow to start. So, it is because of this Laplace law only that this neck region of the urinary bladder acts as a internal urethral sphincter. There is no separate urethral sphincter anatomical urethral sphincter per se in urinary bladder. Okay, now let's see how the mixturation will occur. See, when the bladder filling of approximately 400 ml of urine has happened, there is a stretching of the wall of the urinary bladder and this bladder wall has a stretch receptors. These stretch receptors become activated because of the stretch. Now, the affluent from these stretch receptors reach to the sacral cord at the level of S2, S3, S4 from where the efferents arise and supply the smooth muscle of the urinary bladder which we call as tetrusor muscle. So, this is the basic mixturation reflex. There is a receptor, there are afferents, there is a center which is at the level of the spinal cord and there are efferents supplying the tetrusor muscle. The nerve which is responsible for this is the pelvic nerve. So, the afferents also go via pelvic nerve and the efferents which is basically the parasympathetic nerves, they are also coming via the pelvic nerves. Also, pudental nerve arise from the sacral part of the spinal cord and supply the external urethral sphincter and keep it contracted. So, whenever there is initiation of the reflex, the activity in the parasympathetic nerve increases causing contraction of the tetrusor muscle while the activity in this pudental nerve decreases causing relaxation of the external urethral sphincter which facilitates this stretch reflex. Okay, so this is the simplest mixturation reflex but you should remember that this mixturation reflex is okay in infants but later on in life after three years of age we develop a control over this mixturation reflex. That means the voiding of the urine as well as the stopping of the mixturation can be voluntarily controlled. This is done by some higher centers which are present at the level of midbrain and ponds. So, this ponds has a mixturation center which we call as pontine mixturation center while midbrain has an inhibitory center. So, this reflex which we were talking about is under inhibitory control of this midbrain center which is which we can say as a storage center as well. So, whenever we get the urge of mixturation this storage center inhibits the reflex because the mixturation should start only when a suitable place is available for mixturation isn't it? So, it is kept inhibited by this storage center but there is another center which we spoke of that is the ponds mixturation center. So, this center actually facilitates this reflex and these centers in turn are under the inhibitory influence of the cortex. So, whenever there is a desire to mixturate the inhibitory influence on the mixturation center is removed and that on the storage center is increased. So, obviously it will increase the facilitation of the reflex and lead to voiding of the urine. On the other hand if there is a desire to delay the mixturation or stop the mixturation in that case the inhibitory influence over the midbrain storage center is removed thus increasing the storage of the urine or inhibiting the reflex. There is also a cortical influence on this pudendol which is supplying the external urethra sphincter. So, that even if the bladder pressure increases too much due to excessive filling of the urine maybe 800 ml 1 liter then voluntarily we can keep the external urethra sphincter contracted. So, that's how bladder maintains its function of storage as well as elimination of the urine. Well, thanks for watching the video. If you liked it do press the like button, share the video with others and don't forget to subscribe to the channel Physiology Open. Thank you.


Hello and welcome everyone. We're just going to allow a couple of minutes for everyone to join and then we will start with the presentations. Okay, so welcome everyone to this open air webinar on our eyes on Europe open size requirements in practice. Thanks for joining us today. We have two members of the open air team, Jonathan England, our open science training specialist and Julia Malaguernera, our outreach and engagement officer with us. There will be speaking about all aspects of the horizon Europe open science requirements and share some tips and tools with you. So this webinar will be recorded and we will make the recording publicly available afterwards as well as the slides. If you can use the Q&A to post any questions you might have for our speakers and we will be addressing all questions at the end of the webinar. The time that this will take will be approximately one hour to one hour and a half, depending on how many questions you have. So without further ado, I'd like to pass the floor to Jonathan to begin the presentation. Thank you. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning for me. I don't know if you're from a different place where it's afternoon or evening. So as I said, we are going to give an overview of the horizon Europe open science requirements during the project and at the end of the project. We will also talk about the open research Europe platform, which is European Commission's public publication platform. And I will also talk about the horizon Europe ground proposal the open science parts towards the end of the presentation. So the slides are already online on the bottom of the slides you can see the link to it. On the slides you will find a lot more information than I'm going to cover with all the different guides to the direct links to the European Commission's links to the documents, as well as the guides that we've created for you. So if you're watching this online because it is recorded and will be on YouTube. The next webinar will be on Monday the third of July at 12th CT. So it will be basically the same presentation but you can ask your questions then. Just to give an overview of open science in terms of what the European Commission consider that open science. Obviously we have the usual open access to publication, the management of good practices in terms of data management. The principles as I'll go back to this but the motor of the European Commission which is our open access to data as open as possible as close as necessary. But there are two more elements that the European Commission does insist on is, and you will see it throughout the presentation that I do add it quite often is the fact that you need to add any information or that output tools instruments to validate and reuse the results on the data so they do insist a lot on that. And obviously you need to have both access of results both digitally and physically if that's relevant for your type of research. So I first start in terms of publications because usually that's the topic that most people know about it is slightly different from the age 2020 requirements. In this horizon Europe grants, you do have to deposit your all your manuscripts, your peer reviewed version of the manuscript on what they call a trusted repository. I will go back to the different version of the manuscript and what trusted repository is, but I'm just giving you another view right now. So you have to deposit those publication on a repository. The biggest difference is that it has to be made available in open access immediately upon publication so the embargo period that was authorized of between six to 12 months depending on the fields before is not valid anymore so it has to be immediately. The other biggest difference is that you as often needs to retain your rights, at least on what we call the author accepted manuscript the AM and again I will go back to this in a second. And you have to apply a creative commons CC by license. Again, as I said before, you need to add any type of information about the research outputs to tools instruments that you need to validate the conclusions of the publication. And as a reminder, this is in for any type of funder but people do tend to forget it sometimes to add it on the publications to add the acronym, the code of the project within the publications. There are a few specificities, especially if you're funded by other funders that might differ from the way that European Commission deals with article processing charges so when you pay the publisher for publishing in open access. Some funders will not allow what we call hybrid journal where it's a subscription type of journal, but that also allows you to pay for open access. Some funders don't allow you to to publish in those anymore. The European Commission does so there's no restrictions on where you can publish is just what is reimbursed. If the venue is a full open access, meaning that the only way of publishing in the general is by paying open access fees, then that's reimbursable under the European Commission under the horizon Europe grants. But if it's a hybrid journal, you can publish in it, but you will have to find the money to pay the APCs in a different way you cannot use the grant for for that. Just a side note for people that in their field publish as monographs or long text formats. You are allowed to use a creative comments, non commercial or non derivatives license. So the different versions. Once you've happy with your draft and you send it to the to the journal, it is what we call the pre print version so it's before peer review. It goes through the process of peer reviewing and then the final version, which is has been peer reviewed approved becomes the author accepted manuscript. Before it was also called the post print.  Once the publisher goes through copy editing it becomes the what we call the version of records previously was also called the publishers version. This is the nice looking version of your of your paper. So if I go back to those requirements, you have to deposit on the repository, either the author accepted manuscript. So this ugly version or the final version of the version of the the author, depending on which rights you you gain. It might be that you gain, you retain your rights only on the author accepted manuscript, but the version of records you do transfer your rights to to the publisher. So it's something to bear in mind in which version you can deposit or not. In terms of depositing on a repository we are on the concept of self archiving so it's you as an author are going to deposit on on a repository. It is not about. So the, there's a lot of confusion sometimes about what open accesses you don't necessarily have to pay for open access so it's not where you publish it's how you make it available. There are different ways of making it open access. And you can now check with the general eligibility in terms of the European Commission by going to this website the general check it will where you put the name of the journal, the fund the European Commission and your institution and you will see if it's compatible or not. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the rights retention strategy just so you know you have some not all publishers but some publishers will allow you to put on on the previous or when you submit to the general to add this sentence is for the purpose of open access. The author has applied the creative commons attribution license to any author accepted manuscript version rising from this submission. If this is accepted by the publisher this means that when it becomes an author accepted manuscript so when the peer review has been accepted. This, this version automatically becomes publishable under creative commons license so you as author we may retain your rights and by definition, because it's under this type of license you can upload it to the journey repository. There is also a different routes that you can use Julia will mention this which is the open research Europe which is the publishing platform of the European Commission but she will go back to that later. Now in terms of research data, it is quite similar in a way to what is required for publications. The only difference is that there are some requirements in terms of how you make data available to others. It is a bit more complicated to make data useful to others for reuse. And there is should this principles are summarized under what we call the fair principles of findable accessible interoperable and reusable. There's a lot of things that we can say about those fair principles so obviously this is a webinar about the requirements so I'm not going to go into details and I would highly recommend that if you don't know about the fair principles to to look more in detail about it because it is basically the way that your, your data will be reusable by by others and useful by others. The data management plan is now required by month six. It is a living document so you need to continuously updated if there's any changes during the project. And it should at least be updated final version before the end of the project during the submission of the project. The biggest difference also with the data is that you need to deposit. The data if possible but at least the metadata so the metadata is all the information that is linked to the data so for instance, if you have an audio file that will be the the author, the name of the track the all these different types the length of the the track all this information about the data would be the metadata, and you need to deposit that as soon as possible after the creation of for the production of the of the data. And then you need to deposit in what they call a trusted repository, I will explain exactly what they mean by that in in the next slides. And you need to make them as open as as open as possible as close as necessary so if there's any issues in terms of personal data for instance you can close part of the data, but the default is always to be as open as possible. Just so the European Commission you will see if you read the the the actual requirements they ask you that the metadata must be fair and under creative common zero license. I can kind of forget about this because if it's a trusted repository by definition, that's what they do so if you selected a good repository it will do that for you automatically so you don't really need to take that into consideration. So using data we for different reasons I won't go over today for for time reasons is better to deposit on the creative common zero license or creative comments attribution. Same thing as I was mentioning at the beginning of the talk detailed information must be added to the data repository about any research outputs tools instruments that are needed to reuse or validate the data. There are three different types of categories that are considered as justified by the European Commission to not opening the data. And one of them is commercially valuable data. If sharing it would undermine its expectation, you can always put an embargo on the data so if they would be a commercially. If it was commercially valuable during the first three years for instance and then it would be not that valuable in terms of commercial reuse. Then you could close the data for those three years until the time that you use it commercially, and then open data data at a later stage that's always a possibility. Data protection, obviously personal data privacy rules, sensitive data, all those are justifications for not opening the data, and obviously if you have any security rules that that in your project that deals with strategic assets or security of the European Union then you would also not be sharing that that data. But the number of project and that specific area is, I would say quite limited so you would know anyway, if you went in that category of projects. So, I mentioned quite a few different aspects which I'm going to go over now trusted repositories. There's a very specific quite technical, which you can see here you can kind of ignore it. There's some specificities of what is trusted repository. Basically what for you you want to be looking at is first disciplinary or domain specific repositories that are used and endorsed by your research community in your area. So if you want to look for one you can go on three data, which is a portal. So the link is on the right side. It's a portal that will allow you to search repositories per domain. If a repository doesn't exist in your domain, you can use a general purpose repository such as the nodo which has been built specifically for that so it is. For instance, by definition a trusted repository so you know that if you're depositing on Zenodo, then you'll find in terms of all those technical aspects to it. I mentioned a lot the creative commons license. If you're not familiar with it, it's an actual license so it's a copyright license, but that specifically tells others that they can reuse under certain conditions, your work. If from more to less opened some might be non commercial reuse non derivatives reuse or you're not allowed to make any modifications in terms of publications. We always talking about the creative commons attribution license where people can do whatever they want with your work, the text words, as long as they cite you which is kind of what is being done anywhere nowadays when you cite papers in in your in your work, but this is a specific licensing, you are allowed to do that for data. It is better to deposit on the creative commons zero license which is quite similar to a public domain license. There are different reasons why that is the case rather than a creative commons attribution license. And I'm happy to answer those questions if you if you have any but if you don't want to go into technical reasons of why just so you know data should be shared onto CC zero. So in the document plan, I think a lot of you have had to write it, or will have to write, because most funders nowadays do ask for one. It's a formal living document so you will be updating it throughout the project is not something that you write once at before month six and then just not look at it again. It should reflect any modifications that you do during the project. Basically what the data management plan is. You know what you're doing, but you're just proving to the funder that you know what you're doing. So, try and be as clear and specific and detailed as possible when you're writing those this document. The biggest difficulty that you as researchers are finding is that there's no absolute right or wrong answers, as long as you justify everything. So I cannot tell you. For instance, you should not be using Dropbox for instance which is a commercial tool because you might want to use Dropbox because you don't have any other tool. If you were to have an institutional type of equivalent tool then you would favor that one but there might be reasons why you might want to use Dropbox. So as long as you justify why you're using a specific tool or why you're using this commercial or if this closed formats of file formats. That's okay as long as you justify it so you really need to just make sure that the the project office is not dig for the information. You should also, as I said before, prove that your data will be following the fair principles, talking about threat principles. There's a lot of things that we can talk about in the different elements. Few key points per letter in terms of findability we want to persistent identifier so that's in the URL that will not change. So the DIY mostly for instance this presentation is uploaded on Zenodo this URL that you will see. When we do give the presentation in July, there will be a new version but you will still be able to click on that DIY and it will go to the latest version of this presentation. So it will be always kept up to date. All kids IDs also you are required to have unique identify for you as researchers. This is also a person's identifier. In terms of accessibility you need to deposit on the on the trust's repository. So you know that it's not because you deposit data or metadata on the repository that it needs to be open you can close it that would still be considered as accessible. It's just accessible under certain specifics conditions. Depending on your manuscript that the data will be available if you email the author that's not accessible because what happens to, you know, if the author dies tomorrow. Who has access to this data so we want it on a platform that automatically can give grant access on through a platform. In terms of interoperability. It's basically a long word to say that you're using open file formats open standards. So that as many people can reuse your data and link to that reusability is that you want well documented you don't want like all with no explanation of what the different acronyms are so you want anyone that I come on open your data I'm able to understand everything that went into into the project. There's a few specific cases that should be mentioned especially after these were included after the COVID-19 pandemic. There might be some restrictions or data that might be closed, but might be required to be given access to specific agreements or to specific people to check for reproducibility of the data. In terms of public emergencies, the European Commission can always activate these public emergency status that will require you to have immediate open access to both publications and data. But again, this will be made more clear if it ever arise in the future. I want to mention about the portal in terms of reporting and monitoring because I think that's something that is a bit confusing sometimes when you actually need to do the reporting. Just so you know the project officer will be reviewing on a periodic periods, the, there will be monitoring basically your, your project. You also need to add specific details about it. Some are structured and some are free text and others are fields that you need to fill in. There are three different sections that interest us on the portal is publications. First of all, where you would add any publications that you that you have, they will automatically. So, it's not very clear, because the screenshots are not very high quality. But you will see that the, the, the portal actually suggests publications that probably are from you. Because it does, it's quite broad in so a lot of those papers might not be yours. So be just be careful what you're adding. Once you're adding, they are here is just for reference you can come back to this presentation and have a better look at it, but it explains what the different fields mean. So the category that we are interested in is data sets. Again, if you deposit on a trusted repository because it has DIY attached to it. It will automatically suggest it for you and you can just automatically add it. And there's also results and other results that I might be a bit confusing. I, I myself am still not fully sure what the differences in some aspects, but results are more focused on the content of the results or any theories, any product services methods that you created based on the project and other results is more reporting about the tools, the software, the workflows, the protocols that you use to during the, during the project. So this is enough of you of the requirements and now Julia is going to talk about the publishing platform of the European Commission. You're muted, Julia. Thank you. I'm going to shimmer screen. Okay, I hope now it's not blinking anymore. So, I will speak about the one of the instrument of that the European Commission is giving for the beneficiaries of horizon Europe and not only because it's also available for other grounds. And this open research Europe, which is a publishing platform. So basically a substitution of a journal and not an archive. And this is as to be clear for all the beneficiaries. So, open research Europe is a publishing platform. It can be considered as diamond open access because the fee is covered entirely by the European Commission. It was launched in March 2021. And now it's also indexed in Scopus. It's a high quality, reliable, efficient and transparent process in the way it's published. There is an X, there is an advice report made by several experts in different scientific domain and different stage of their career. Since the cost is totally paid by the commission, there is no APC faced by authors, neither by reader. One of the nice things of this platform is that beside the fact that you have an immediate publication meaning that in any case when you submit a paper, it will be reviewed by editors at least for language check and also the consistency through the paper. It will be published in pre publication before you pass by the open peer review. All of these processes open so there is no fear because everything is transparent but also you have the assurance that there are editors that are working in reviewing anything behind the paper. You can publish most of all the research output but you can also use a link with other publication, we will speak about this later. You can also look at the different metrics that will be present in the article. All the contents, as I said, are indexed not only Scopus but also in Google Scholar and explore for open air. And everything is archived in Zenodo once it's passed the peer review. So the process is, you submit the article and you have a pre-interversion within 10 days that is enable you already to view and cite the work. There is an invitation process in which you can suggest the peer reviewer that you want or you can choose among a list that is provided by the platform. Then you can revise, you will have the peer review completed at least two and you can revise your article and submit the second version. So here you can see the various types of acceptance. So if it's passed the peer review you will have these two tick box. If it's passed with reservation you will have this question mark. So you draft the paper and in the process of the submission before even the pre-printer you will have this editor check. After the submission there will be the peer reviewing and the revisions. Then it will be accept for publication when the peer review is passed and you copy and type setting everything and you have the record in the final publication. Open Research Europe as I said before is offering the possibility of publishing not only the classical manuscript but also different type of articles. This is the list that it came by searching between different disciplines. So you can publish a case studies, research articles, brief reports, data notes, method articles, open letter, software tool article and also data notes meaning that you can publish your data, your data sets in archives like Zenodo and you can have the possibility to comment in an article all this data in a way that it's not a poorly publishing data code. You can also publish review, case report, registry report, clinical practice, study protocol, systematic review and also essay which is important particularly for social science and humanities because in the first period of the launching of the Open Research Europe it was also considered that different disciplines have different preferential publication. And the good things of Open Research Europe is that you can publish anything. So the pre-publication checks, it's made by the editorial team so you are not just publishing an article without any check. There is a plagiarism check, an ethical approval, language review. If it's adhering to the guidelines, there is a check on the data availability, a check on the analysis and the method and the authorship criteria that are considered. The open peer review process, as I said you will have different kind of approval, if it's totally approved you will have the stick box, if it's approved with the reservation with the question mark or not approved with this X mark. The open peer review process for authors has also the vision that the peer review can be cited and that it increases the collaboration opportunities, it reduced the bias. The author can empower, delete the process so you can have feedback that are openly and constructive and not just to destroy a manuscript or a paper. And the peer reviewers can also state in the open peer review what they are stronger at and what they don't feel to, for instance, measure or provide feedback. The open peer review is an important process also in the required, in the required, because you in the required option that is given by the European Commission in terms of practicing open science. And the good things of the Open Research Europe platform is that you can also candidate yourself to be a peer reviewer. And you can also cite in the future what are your contribution in the open peer review process. This is an example again of the platform, what you will see if the article is revised or not, if it's a waiting for peer review or which version is in the process if it's approved or approved with the reservation. There are open peer review example as well here. You can see in the box that will be on the right side of the platform, you will see at the review status. There are the version who is approved or not if the same peer reviewer being conduct and what was the process of accepting or not. So this is on the left screen, you will see the template when you submit the process, the article. The article type, the title, the abstract, the keywords. You can also publish the abstract in a lay in another in a language that is easy to comprehend from any type of people. Like the layman abstract. You can also state what are what is the contribution based on the credit taxonomy and you can add all the affiliation on the right side that you can also make a screen on the QR code to be informed by the newsletter of the Open Research Europe. Open AIR is a nonprofit organization. So we provide also tools to support Horizon Europe projects. So there is not just Open Research Europe, Open Research Europe is a platform for publishing, but Open AIR offers other tool that are free at the point of user researchers in this case. So as I said before, you can maximize your grant impact by publishing a very different type of articles, as well as for instance data notes. There are several steps to open data. So you can prepare your data sets to share. You can select a repository and you can add the statement of that availability in Open Research Europe for instance or any kind of other publishing platform that you prefer, preferably in open access. So I'm going now for tips and tricks for data management. You can plan your data by the data management plan. The data management plan can be considered as a map of the data sets that you are producing and also how much are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. So much they are compliant with the field principle. The research, it's important because you can write what is the purpose of your research and the several objectives and who are your collaborator. You can also document your research data sets by highlighting the steps that you are following, attaching the ethical approval, the data management activities that you are working on, the language analytics and the licensing. What OpenAir is offering is these tools called ARCOS, but there are several DMP tools present and you can search in the European Open Science Cloud EOSC. ARCOS is providing a template for Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020 if someone of you has still to report and it's offering the type of template in which is forcing somehow to comply with the field principle and then you can publish the DMP. And it's an important tool for you because ARCOS is directly connected with Zenodo, so in a simple button you can publish your DMP and be compliant with all the requirements for Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020. You can prepare your data for sharing, so in the case you have data that has to be anonymized, we have another tool that is called Amnesia. Amnesia is helping to avoid the pseudo anonymization and make it full anonymized in a way that the data that you are providing are not associated with people and this is helping you in sharing the data sets in a fair manner. There are several do and not do in terms of increasing the accessibility and the usability of spreadsheet data. What you should do is to give a description heading, meaning also a description of the data set that you are providing, and make sure that the format is correct and that you are following several of these rules that I'm showing you here. You need also to make sure that the support format is interoperable and that you are not including special characters. So there are several rules that you can access also in the do's and not do's that are present also in Open Research Europe platform or also in the guideline published in OpenAir. As it was mentioned before by Jonathan, you can select a repository. And if you don't know where or how to deposit, you can go to OpenAir Explorer and search the data sources or find a way to deposit by clicking in the right link. Before you can also use the link session that is helping you in linking what you are producing as data sets with the project with the with the publication. Before Jonathan mentioned this, what is a trusted repository, so if you missed that please rewatch our video. In the article you should also be able to add a data availability statement. This statement should be added to the end of the article prior to submission so basically you can have a section in the article manuscript. In the good things again of the Open Research Europe platform is that all this requirement are already checked at the editorial level before you are publishing the preprint. So let's see that let's say that this is like an extra help that the platform is giving to you. Make sure that the links of your research output or product are linked together. The data management plan is a live document and the good things of using a tool like Argos is that you can update directly on the cloud, your data management plan because it's a change from the planning at the beginning. After the six months and you can be able also to publish it at the end of the project in a way that you are showing also what where your different understanding during the project or different tools that you prefer to use or different instrument that you had to use during the process. And during the project in general. Open AIR with the Explorer offer you the possibility to link different source entities. It means that for instance you can you can upload your data sets in any kind of archives. You can see the link here with your publication or your grant agreement, your grant acronym or project. And now I will pass the microphone back to Jonathan. Thank you. So just to finish this presentation and before going to the Q&A, I want to mention some aspects about if you're writing the grant proposals, because you're probably at different stages, some of you might already have a horizon Europe grant, but others might have you might be still writing one. So here are a few pointers about the different parts within the application form and the project proposal that link to open science. This will be in the in the presentation so you can refer back to it. But here are the different parts where you need to really pay attention in mentioning those different aspects of open science. A few things are very important to bear in mind when you are writing your grand proposal. Any publication, any of your publication that you cite during the grand proposal must be in open access. If one of your publication is not on a repository or is under embargo and all that. Well, you shouldn't be mentioning it because it's not in open access all your publication that you cite need to be an open access, and they will be judged on the qualitative aspect of the research, not on the impact factor of the journal in which they are. I don't know if you know that the European Commission does not evaluate the impact of a paper of your work on the impact factor of the journal anymore this is has become irrelevant it's on the actual impact they has on research itself. You can also give insights on where you want to be publishing so if you're looking at two full open access journals, or publishing an open research Europe I would definitely mention that. In terms of data is a similar thing but link to the fair principles. Any data that you use any of your data that you cite in the grand proposal that you would like to build upon for the during the grand proposal needs to follow the fair principles, so meaning that it needs to be on the on the repository. It needs to be well formatted well documented all those aspects that make the the fair principles. So obviously needs to have an PID so person like interfere like a DIY. A DMP an official DMP is not required during the grand proposal but they do ask you to answer a few questions are to me very similar to DMP so even if officially. It's not a DMP it's kind of the same questions so you still do need to do that same exercise of writing a DMP is just less in details. And there's a distinct work package on project management that must include the DMP as a deliverable. There are aspects that need to be included in the budget, and I would emphasize actually that it is actually recommended to be adding this type of budget because it shows the European Commission that you've thought about the open section of your project so asking for more money in this specific area is actually a good thing because you're showing that you've thought about how to make the most impact of your research in terms of those open science practices. If you need data curation costs if you need a data curator for instance if you need a specific storage space because you have big data. All this costs can be included and should be included during the grand proposal engagement with citizens, civil society, all this kind of citizen science and participation perhaps sourcing activities can also be included. And article processing charges can be included for full open access journals but again not for hybrid terms. And I already mentioned that in the previous slides but in terms of writing tips is there's no right or wrong answer as always it's, you know, that's why some one purpose was successful not others are not but be as specific as possible especially in terms of the open science don't let the project officer dig for information because they want, and you'll, it won't be as impactful. One thing that I've seen a lot also in those proposals is people are going to start explaining what open access is what fair data what open science. The project officers the people reviewing your grants know what all those are don't waste time on that really focus on what those open access fair data open science principles are for your, your specific project. And a few special cases. So the ERC and the Marie Curie grant proposals for the RC grants there's no explicit evaluation of the requirement to describe open science practices but it's a bonus. It's a positive bonus if you include it. They don't have a specific work package or deliverable. They do now require a research data management work package with the DMP as one of the deliverables. In terms of the MSC as there's a lot more emphasis on open science. It is really explicitly mentioned. There are some underlying principles of open science responsibility to research and innovation. And there's also an explicit mention about the excellence criteria that will be weighted with the quality of open science practices. Within the grant proposal they must address training activities carry development plan to improve or to teach basically to the people that to the the ground holder, the, the open science principles. So there's a real emphasis on that on the Marie Curie fellowships. There are a few more details, because I'm mentioned about publications and data but there are also other open science recommended practices. They are not mandatory but they will always be have a positive impact on it. They will never have a negative impact if they're not addressed but they will have a positive impact. There's a non exhaustive list that you can find on on their website or other resources. And so these might include per sorry, pre registration where you're basically going to publish the plan of study, the methods, the, the research question hypothesis research design on on a platform before actually doing the research. And doing this will be viewed as a as a positive way of sharing your being as transparent as possible so it will be scored positively. Preprints. There's a possibility of before sending your paper to a journal or publisher, you can put it on the pre prints server. The most famous one is archive bed nowadays there's many more in a lot of different fields. And because you're basically those pre prints servers do have personal identifier do I so meaning that people can already start citing your work even before peer review before being published officially, especially if you know a competitive field it can also give you first exclusivity on a specific research because you actually made it available online before others, even though it's, it hasn't been peer reviewed yet. Once it gets peer reviewed then they the pre print server will link to to the published version public engagement is seen more and more as a really positive thing so any type of public engagement that you do with schools within museums in any type of, you know, social impact on on the, on the on the public. And we'll have, if you include that in the grand proposal will be positively rewarded. And citizen science if your project calls for that. That's obviously something that is becoming more and more well regarded and important for the European Commission, there's a more emphasis on, on, you know, using as many resources as possible including the members of the public that are interested in taking part of research projects. And here you can find some examples to it more resources about it, but it's something to bear in mind when you're writing your proposal. So just to finish a novel few tips about that is, when you're thinking about your proposal your research project already start designing an open science strategy for your project because this will help in the long term of how to not add open science to your research but make it to encompass it completely. So you need to include where your publication and where your data will be this positive, who is responsible for this so be really clear about who's responsible for what in the project. So we'll make sure that this is being done because you know when you're working with different institutions, then they can, you know, communication is key for that. And obviously keep track of any issues and discuss the solution among the consortium. So this is the end for this talk. Now we'll go to the Q&A. I just want to mention a few events that are coming up. So the next webinar, which is basically the same thing as this one will be on the third of July at 12 CET. So the open area is also co-organizing a conference about open science called the Open Science Fair that will be in September. The call for proposals are already out. If you're interested in going further than your field or if you are in the field of open science, you are more than welcome to either send proposals or just attend the conference. If you're an open science trainer, we organize twice a year, what we call the open science trainer bootcamp, which is basically a week of quite intensive presentation, interactions, assignments that we all do together to improve your skills and your abilities to communicate about open science practices to everyone else. So it will be on the week of the 22nd of May and application deadlines are until the end of the month. On this, if you have any questions, oh well, I know that you have questions because I was already answering some of them on the Q&A. But yeah, if you have any questions, you can write them in the Q&A and vote for the ones you would like to be answered. So let's have a look. I answered a few, but I have also made some questions for a few of them because for me it was not clear the question. So you can go also in answered or directly. So if you look at the questions, you can also advert them for the ones you would like to. So I'll go from most advert to first. So first question, is it mandatory to publish the metadata even if the associated data are not yet open? Yes. So you have to basically the reasoning behind this is that you want your research to be findable online immediately upon the creation so that people know that you're researching on this subject that there will be data or there is data available. You don't have to honestly publish the data immediately or you can close it, but the metadata itself has to be present online. Yes. Are you planning to create a DMP catalog with good examples, Libre created one, but it does not seem to maintain any longer. Maybe something really useful. I agree. The difficulty I find is that it will differ greatly between fields, which would require a lot of people to come together to decide on what good DMPs are. Also bear in mind that, as I said, there's no right or wrong answers so it's very depending. So, right now there's no plans of doing that. Even though we, it would be a good thing to do obviously. How will the quality of the cited publication be determined by the evaluators during the proposal evaluation on the actual quality of the publication. That's why the during the grant proposals you have you are allowed to cite the maximum of five publication and all data sets. So they will evaluate based on actually reading your your your paper not on the general impact factor but on the actual content of your of your work. If the impact factor of the general is not going to be taken into account anymore, what other bibliometric indicators are going to be evaluated. As far as I know, the European Commission does not implicitly correct me but I don't think they are using any bibliometric indicators they are really taking the publication that you cite so those five publications or data sets. And then reading them and that's how they're basing their their scores basically but they're not using any bibliometric indicators. Yeah. Okay, so at the moment that the question is a little bit more broad in the sense that what we are trying to work on or to support also the European Commission. The science expert but not only is to change the research assessment in general, meaning that we are not focusing on just the public metric impact. So at the moment is considered more valuable. It's the citation and the lots of the article and their use of the data or publication. But again, there is not at the moment a clear a clear review. What is evaluated at the end of the project for the horizon projects is the different impact that you have to provide, which are the societal, the economical and the scientific impact. To help what we are providing in open a explore. It's also to connect to link the impact with the sustainable development goals of the United Nation.  But again, at the moment that there is not a specific rules. What is more valuable is the narrative curriculum, or what you are explaining for you to be valuable for the others. Thanks.  What is the attack of open research you were Europe is it used a lot. I haven't checked lately so I have not the recent statistic but yes, then it is very. It is increasing the usage. Also because the fact that it doesn't have a specific aim like other journals. It allows people that have a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary projects to publish easier without any barrier. Currently, the biggest use are in the medical field and also social science, because you have no limits in the land or limits in the type of publication, but I can't give you the number at the moment. In the ground proposal we cannot cite old articles which are not open access and many are still not and not all countries care about open access to the same extent. And key documents for us were not published as open access theoretically yes that means that you're you cannot cite those type of articles, I would argue that most articles nowadays are able to be made available in open access and the wording I'm using is important I'm not talking about publishing open access I'm not talking about paying the journal for open access. But make it available which would we we would refer to as green open access, maybe some of you know that. If you check on sharp a Romeo, if then cattle Julia you could write the, the website to sharp a Romeo, you can check basically for each publisher what you are allowed or not. Most of them, after an embargo to maximum 24 months, that's the maximum I think I've seen or 36 months, you are allowed to put the author accepted manuscript on the repository. It doesn't mean that you don't have the rights probably on the author accepted manuscript so you don't retain you didn't retain your rights so it's not under creative comments license. It's not important for this is only for the requirements during the project, but as long as it's made accessible in open access meaning it's on on the repository freely available, then it is considered open access. So those most articles can be actually made available in open access. It's really rare when the journals block you completely from from uploading this author accepted manuscript number repository. So please do check on sharp a Romeo to see what the politics out of each publisher. And if your publication is not in open access then deposited that version on on on the repository to make it available. I am supporting numerous EU project for data management and DMPs and also doing DMP training, but I rarely see real reviewing of DMP by EU experts are the DMP really reviewed with other criteria others from science Europe is a delay for reviewing. Are you aware of any budget impact if a bat DMP is submitted. I actually have no idea. No, at the moment there is no evaluation. In the sense that what the biggest evaluation of the DMP is based on the fair information that you're providing. It's a fair compliant and this is like there are several tools that you can find in, in a way to make it as much as findable accessible interpretable and reusable. Again, my suggestion is to use a machine actionable data management plan, like Argos, because it's guiding you through this. And join our open air Argos community call every Wednesday at the end of the month, in which we can address a little bit in deeper this kind of questions. But there is not an any official evaluation for the moment. Probably the evaluation will be on the fair information that you're writing. I would also say also that, you know understand the, the, why the question was asked. I would also be careful of starting to say well it's not really being reviewed and then starts not caring too much, because at one point, it will, you know, they will increase in in the way that they are reviewing and don't think that because they're not necessarily looking in details right now that they want in the future. And also, as a lot of you might know that the engagement of the project officer of the, of the projects you see varies greatly some of them are really on your back all the time, and others are very relaxed, say, let's say so. It really depends on on your project officer of specific projects also unfortunately. Another question regarding the disclaimer to be included in all publications, funded by the European Union views and opinion express, however those of the authors. Okay. So this is about the space limit. I think I saw something like that also about the space limit of the rights retention strategy. It's difficult to include it due to its length. I actually don't know how to, I would, I don't know if Julia you have an answer to that, I would actually contact the journal directly and tell them about this in. I had a feeling that a lot of journals did not consider the acknowledgement as part of the word counts, but maybe I'm wrong. But I would directly contact them and say we need to include this sentence, it's required by, you know, a funder. I would exclude that from the word counts. I would actually communicate directly with the journal because this is something we. It's on a case by case basis, unfortunately so I can't really give any advice on that apart from asking the journal directly. Eventually you can double check with the project officer and then what is the statement and what is a load, and then you can contact the publisher and they should be good. Similar to the H2020 manual is a DMP template for Horizon Europe. And then I see a lot of, so yes there is, so there is a template. It is on the first, the second side of this presentation there's a link to all the different official documents. There is a template. If you use the Argos DMP creator it's also as a template there. I know that other DMP tools like DMP online also has it so usually it's fine. I just want to mention that even though there is a template, what the European Commission and any other funder really wants. It's for you to address the different fair principles and making sure that your DMP is as detailed as possible. So the template itself is not as important as the content of it. Don't get stuck on the template if you have a good vision of what you want to, on which order you want to present. But usually, except if I'm so fine and I haven't heard any negative feedback about straying away from the templates. But it's really more about the content rather than following the template because if you follow the template but there's just one sentence for each one for each concept then that won't pass. So if you don't follow the template but as all the information required in DMP is there, there shouldn't be any problems because that's at the end what's the is important. Do you have a view on the reviewing process of the MPs by the project offices or externals. How many initial DMPs after six months are accepted rejected what are the reasons for rejection. Yeah, the reason that can be if there are not provided some information, for instance on the ethics or any kind of approval, or you need extra information. For instance, if you are using animals, you may need more information. So these are the kind of possibility in which you can get the rejection but at the moment, as I said before, there are no strong evaluation. I would say it also depends on, again, the project officer how in detail. I know when I used to work for an institution for university. There were some project offices that just were really harsh on on on that evaluation and others just I read the DMP was like, there's a lot of information missing but it went through so it really depends on on that. If you have any doubts I would say contact your local library or research support staff to get training on what exactly needs to be included in a DMP because obviously we can go through all those elements. But there are some training online also there are some webinars that you can look at to have a better understanding of what the other things that you might be missing in it. Yeah, sorry. No, no, I was thinking you finished. Go ahead. I was reading the next. Okay, because there is a pending question that in which I asked more information and here I have. So it's for the longer formats and here for longer formats they mean monographs or book chapters. The CC by NC and the licensing a load, or just non commercial or derivative, but both. They're not allowed. And only the CC by non commercial, or the CC by non derivatives. You have to understand that the CC by non commercial non derivatives derivatives, it's very similar to a full copyright. It doesn't really have any shareable impact. It's basically saying you can't do anything with my work. So it's not really useful. And the European Commission goes for is nice enough I would say to go for that you're allowed to use one or the other. So it's also this question that I'm not fully getting maybe you can answer. And are other historical publication cost. As example, the color charger surface for overland excluded from reimbursement within the European projects. I can't remember. In terms of open access, you're not allowed. This is not remorseable within the concept of open access APC is just for the open access color charges. I want to say that you're not allowed. But I might be mistaking with another funder I would need to check that. Because different funders have completely different opinion about that. But I think you're you cannot include those, those fees, I think. In any case, you should check also the budget plan and see if, if you can add to this information. If you are facing so many difficults, I would also suggest to go for open research Europe in which this kind of things are over time. Like, you can do, you can publish any kind of lens you want. Next one. In many cases, the data has commercial value. How do you define this commercial value means that basically the data will be used for any type of financial gain by either the institution or the offers by them creating an SME or something like that's that will allow them to sell a product sell a service based on the data or the research that was done. A classic example will be if you build a solar cells for solar panels in innovative way, you're going to close the data for a certain time. While you can resell that product to entities or build your own company to resell that. And that would be considered as commercial. If at one point this is no longer. And obviously you can open the data up to an embargo period that you consider is long enough to have made a commercial impact. So the issue with commercial, the definition of commercial aspects in terms of the legal aspect is it's very broad. If I was being paid to give this presentation, for instance, if I was being paid by an external company as an invited speaker, that would be considered as commercial so it's very broad. A lot of things can be considered as a commercial value in this specific context of your project I would ask the project officer basic for advice on that, or if you if you work in an institution and university they are some people within your institution that are technology transfer officers. The copyright officers in intellectual property rights officers, those people's other the people that you need to contact to get more information about about this. Eligible in the budget data creation cost in means that I can't include the data is through it for all the project only means code of all little tasks. No, no, you can definitely, if you need the data is through it in your project you can definitely include those as, as you would for I need a lab technician for for my work, they just do it would also be considered as, as eligible, definitely. Okay, this, I'm, I'm going to read it. I'm not going to answer it. Ultimately the success or failure of open research Europe will depend on whether they are considered high impact. Well young researchers CV showing open research Europe submissions be valued or triage during the selection process. Well the EU can the you influence this. It's a very it's a more philosophical question it will, it's because if those young researchers are applying for EU projects then definitely it will have high impact because we're not evaluating. They're not evaluating on the, the, the, any impact factor. There are issues where they're still highly influenced by the impact factor. Yes that will definitely have an impact on it. Unfortunately, but this is more global issue of reforming the research assessment so it's difficult to. It really depends on your fields and where those people want to be heading. And once you stay in the EU, I would say that's not an issue because most funders are now going for a non a more qualitative assessment of researchers. And I am not sure I can understand what you mean by don't let the project of us a dig for me information could you expand on that. I would say that you have, you know what you're doing you as a researcher you know that you're going to save your files as Excel files and then share them with others you know that you have this common knowledge that if someone answers the project, they might not have. And so basically, imagine that you're it's just a text that you're giving to the project offices. They're not going to come back to you was like, Oh, and this I don't understand did you do this or they're not going to ask you questions you should have all the information for them you. You really want to give them all the information beforehand so they don't need to question basically if I'm reading the project officer I'm reading the DMP and I'm like, I don't know this step what they're doing it just suddenly appears this data. And that means that you missed a step in explaining what the information is. So it's basically be a specific and detail as possible, try and think about all the things that you know, and apply and put them by writing basically it's you just want to prove to to the project you know what you're doing basically. Thank you, I think we have about to conclude our webinar, and we will answer to all the questions that are in the Q&A in the next blog post. So please keep posted with the open air social and you can also write us in the appdesk.openair.eu if you have anything specific or ask our notes to answer so we have a person more or less everywhere in Europe. So, let us know all the best. Thank you so much to everyone and have a great rest of the day. Thank you and goodbye all.