This paper explores key issues in the development of open access to research data. The use of digital means for developing, storing and manipulating data is creating a focus on ‘data-driven science’. One aspect of this focus is the development of ‘open access’ to research data. Open access to research data refers to the way in which various types of data are openly available to public and private stakeholders, user communities and citizens. Open access to research data, however, involves more than simply providing easier and wider access to data for potential user groups. The development of open access requires attention to the ways data are considered in different areas of research. We identify how open access is being unevenly developed across the research environment and the consequences this has in terms of generating data gaps. Data gaps refer to the way data becomes detached from published conclusions. To address these issues, we examine four main areas in developing open access to research data: stakeholder roles and values; technological requirements for managing and sharing data; legal and ethical regulations and procedures; institutional roles and policy frameworks. We conclude that problems of variability and consistency across the open access ecosystem need to be addressed within and between these areas to ensure that risks surrounding a data gap are managed in open access.

RECODE will leverage existing networks, communities and projects to address challenges within the open access and data dissemination and preservation sector, and produce policy recommendations for open access to research data based on existing good practice. The open access to research data sector includes several different networks, initiatives, projects and communities that are fragmented by discipline, geography, stakeholder category (publishers, academics, repositories, etc.) as well as other boundaries. Many of these organisations are already addressing key barriers to open access to research data, such as stakeholder fragmentation, technical and infrastructural issues, ethical and legal issues, and state and institutional policy fragmentation. However, these organisations are often working in isolation or with limited contact with one another. RECODE will provide a space for European stakeholders interested in open access to research data to work together to provide common solutions for these issues. RECODE will culminate in a series of over-arching policy recommendations for a policy framework to support open access to European research data targeted at different stakeholders and policy-makers ( http://www.recodeproject.eu ).

In this paper we will address the questions of what and where the value of open access to research data might be and how libraries and related stakeholders can contribute to achieve the benefits of freely sharing data. In particular, the emphasis is on how libraries need to acquire the competence for collaboration to train and encourage researchers and library staff to work with open data. The paper is based on the early results of the RECODE project, an EU FP7 project that addresses the drivers and barriers in developing open access to research data in Europe (http://www.recodeproject.eu).

The main purpose of this project has been to examine the accessibility of refereed conference articles and the OA- and publishing policies of conferences in order to in this way elucidate different aspects concerning self-archiving in Swedish institutional repositories. For this purpose, the project participants have examined a number of conferences and references to conference articles via their institutional repositories during a specific time period and described these from the perspective of a common scheme. The study has showed that the local institutional repositories fill an important role to make conference publications visible. We have found that ca. 50% of the conference papers can be published as postprints in our institutional repositories. We have noticed that ca. 15% or the studied conference articles are not available at all. It is, therefore, of great importance to use local institutional repositories as a publishing channel, not only for primary published material such as dissertations and reports, but also as a source for finding these conference articles “without a home”. Between 20–25% of the examined articles were found in some type of OA archive; ca. half of these were found in one of the project participants' own institutional repositories. This indicates that the publishing database of respective higher education institution is an important factor for open accessibility. Ca. 10% of the conferences in the study had an explicit OA policy or expressed such a policy by openly making conference articles accessible on their conference sites. A big problem when it comes to self-archiving of conference articles is the lack of information about OA policy. The landscape of conference publishing is complex and the self-archiving of documents from conferences is very time-consuming. Above all, we would wish a policy resource for conferences similar to the SHERPA/RoMEO. At present, however, there is no other alternative than scrutinizing the conferences' copyright information to the authors and from this attempt to draw conclusions about possible self-archiving. To facilitate the future handling and classification of conference articles in Swedish institutional repositories a number of recommendations are suggested.