Through a survey (Hsing et al. 2023a) and interviews (Hsing et al. 2023b), we previously conducted a baseline evaluation of research culture across different disciplines, including obtaining researchers' views on what may motivate or hinder sharing research more openly.
In this second stage, we will continue the evaluation, but focus on feedback about the Octopus platform itself. To obtain this feedback, we will ask participants in the study:
How is the Octopus user interface/user experience (UI/UX) received by researchers? Specifically:
How effectively is the website communicating the goals of Octopus to different types of researchers, and how it works?
How discoverable, understandable, and usable are the features of Octopus? What are the facilitators and barriers to their use?
How well does Octopus fit into existing research culture and infrastructure? We would like the perspectives of:
Individual researchers
Institutional research infrastructure managers
Methods
The methodology of this evaluation is primarily a focus group with researchers focused on the user experience of Octopus. In addition, we plan to hold semi-structured interviews with institutional research infrastructure managers which is described here. These infrastructures could be institutional data repositories, library services, or support and training that are provided to researchers. We will focus on whether and how Octopus would fit into their institutional structures for supporting research.
We will conduct 60-minute online interviews using the Zoom video conferencing tool with at least five participants, with audio recordings transcribed into text for analysis. The recordings will be deleted once the transcripts are complete with personally-identifiable information removed.
The methods described here have received ethical approval from the University of Bristol School of Psychological Science Research Ethics Committee with reference number 12335.
Participants and recruitment
Participant characteristics
We would like to obtain feedback from institutional research infrastructure managers. An example of such a manager could be those in charge of supporting researchers at the University of Bristol through the use of the data.bris institutional data-sharing platform (this is an example from our institution, we will not interview this specific individual). We will strive to reach those in equivalent roles at other institutions. Depending on the institution, they could be librarians, research support staff, or heads of research. For these infrastructure managers, because they typically operate on the institution level, we believe their experiences and views would cut across many of the criteria we defined for our focus group participants. To be clear, this means we will not be targeting those maintaining the technical infrastructure, such as technicians.
Participant recruitment
Similar to the previous evaluation, we have a diverse and international network of professional contacts, and participant recruitment could begin with a snowball approach from a convenient sample from this network. In addition, we can recruit participants through professional organisations. Other potential ways to reach participants include:
Contacts of Octopus within universities (mainly in Europe, including the United Kingdom)
Contacts in private companies
National laboratories/research institutions in the United Kingdom and United States.
We anticipate that, time-wise, participant recruitment and scheduling the study will probably be the least predictable step. Each participant will be offered an incentive worth GBP 25 in the form of an online shopping voucher or donation to a non-profit organisation.
Materials and measures
The following is the interview guide we will use:
Introduction (5 mins) | |
|---|---|
Question | Prompts |
Housekeeping | Welcome participant and thank for their time Check if there are any issues with consent form Sound check (no need to do explicitly) Explain how long interview will take and that they can stop/take a break at any time Establish procedure in case of connectivity issues (i.e. try to rejoin ASAP and resume interview when ready) Any questions? |
Ask consent to record | |
**start recording** | |
Introduce the aims of the study | To find out more about participant’s: a. Role in supporting research infrastructure b. Immediate reactions after being introduced to Octopus c. Views on if and how Octopus could be a part of their service offering to researchers in their institutions d. Views on what their counterparts at other institutions might think |
Part 1: Participant’s role (10 mins) | |
To start off with, could you tell me a bit about the nature of your work in supporting researchers? | Try to keep it under 2 minutes - don’t let them get carried away! |
For the research you support, what kinds of output do they produce? | Methods: Quantitative, qualitative, field, etc. What kinds of output do these forms of research produce? |
I’d like to zoom out to your institution, what other ways does it support researchers to share research outputs? | Does it work well or poorly? In what ways? What, if anything, would you change about it? |
If there is one thing you can change to help you support researchers in sharing more of their research, what might it be? | To identify key barriers to research sharing. |
Part 2: Introduction & reactions to Octopus (15-20 mins) | |
Interviewer gives a 10 minute introduction to Octopus via shared screen | It will cover:
Participants can interrupt and ask clarifying questions throughout this introduction. This means that this part might last longer than 10 minutes, and the interviewer will carefully watch the time, leaving enough for the next part. |
Part 3: How might Octopus fit into research support infrastructure? (10 mins) | |
What do you think of Octopus? | What are your initial reactions? |
How might Octopus fit into research support infrastructure? | |
What are some barriers that might prevent your institution from including Octopus as part of its offering of support for researchers? | |
In contrast, what have you seen today that would help/facilitate your institution to include Octopus in its offering? | |
How do you think those providing research support infrastructure at other institutions might think about Octopus? | |
Closing (5 mins) | |
Is there anything that we haven’t discussed that you’d like to talk about before the end of the interview? | |
**stop recording** | |
Thank the participant for their time. Explain next steps (debrief, final consent etc) Explain data management procedures (i.e. when will interview recordings be deleted, how will transcripts be anonymised etc) Ask if they would like to be acknowledged Any questions? Contact details for questions/concerns | |