because good research needs good data funded by: digital curation for researchers, 28th february...

Because good research needs good data

Funded by:

Digital Curation for Researchers, 28th February 2013

The Shifting Research Data Management Policy Landscape

Joy Davidson and Sarah JonesDigital Curation Centre, Glasgow

[email protected] [email protected]


Funded by:


Digital Curation CentreJisc-funded consortium comprising units from the

• Universities of Bath (UKOLN)

• Edinburgh (DCC Centre)

• Glasgow (HATII)

Launched 1st March 2004 as a national centre for solving challenges in digital curation that could not be tackled by any single institution or discipline



“the active management and appraisal of data over the lifecycle of scholarly and scientific interest”

Data have importance as the evidential base of scholarly conclusions

Curation is part of good research practice

What is data curation?



Take a minute and jot down something that you think qualifies as ‘data’.

But, what is data?



Research data can be anything! • models and visualisations

• Workflows (Taverna, MyExperiment)

• databases

• raw data (captured from instruments)

• cleaned data (anonymised)

• blogs, tweets

• images

• audio

Whatever researchers are producing!



Why does anyone need to curate data?

declarationdata are a public good and should be openly

available

Code of good research conductdata should be preserved and

accessible for 10 years +

Funders’ data policieswww.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-and-legal/funders-data-policies Common principles on data policy

www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/ DataPolicy.aspx



Funders’ data policies

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-and-legal/overview-funders-data-policies



Not just sticks, there are carrots too!

More citations: 69% ↑ (Piwowar, 2007 in PLoS)

Help prevent data loss

Easier to do your work…

Enable validation of results



Who is responsible for RDM?

Research Organisations

Funders

Data centres

Advisory bodies

Support services

Researchers

Publishers



Components of a research data service

RDM policies

Archive

Preserve

& Share

Advocacy (senior mgmt & researcher)

Storage

Back-up

Access

Support staff & services

Research

environment&

systems

Tools

Metadata and documentation




RDM policies



Early research data policies

www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-and-legal/institutional-data-policies

“Statement of commitment” Infrastructure policy

“10 commandments”mutual promises

aspirational

Baseline of RCUK Code+ procedures & support

legal compliance stylea section in uni DM policyuseful guide as appendix

Based on Edin. with a few additions



http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/datamanagement/rdm-at-gu



Key questions:

• what data will be created?

• how much storage is needed?

• where will data be stored in the short and longer term?

• are there ethical issues that require consent?

Most funders expect data management & sharing plans at the grant application stage!

Data Management Planning




Research

environment&

systems

Tools



Data management planning



Storing data

Key questions:

What is available?

What facilities is needed?- remote access to work from home- file sharing with others- high-levels of security for sensitive data

How will the data be backed up?



Active research stage – an ‘academic dropbox’

National level negotiation via Janet brokerage?

www.dataflow.ox.ac.uk Piloted at Lincoln & Edinburgh

http://tiny.cc/owncloud-pilot



Key questions:

What information do users need to understand the data?- descriptions of all variables / fields and their values - code labels, classification schema, abbreviations list- information about the project and data creators- tips on usage e.g. exceptions, quirks, questionable results

How will this capture this and who will capture/record it?

Are there standards that need to be followed?

Metadata & documentation



Guidance:

Create metadata at the time – it’s hard to do later

Use standards for interoperability

Develop processes so everyone does the same

Record contextual information in a text file (such as a‘read me’ file) in the same directory as the data

Think about how to name, structure & version your fileswww.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/crossmedia/advice/choosing-a-file-name




Archive

Preserve

& Share



Key questions:

• What data must be kept? (for validation, etc)

• What must not be kept? (e.g. personal data)

• Is it worth keeping the data? – cost/benefits

• Where will the data be kept?

Selecting what to keep



Archiving – institutional data repositories

Not intended to replace national, subject or other established data

collections

Acknowledge hybrid environment

http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk

www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/https://databank.ora.ox.ac.uk

Essex-RDR and DataPool at Southampton



Archiving – external data centres

Research funders’ data centres…

List of data centres: http://databib.org

Structured databases

Disciplinary& community initiatives



Data catalogues (finding data)

Develop a research dataextension to the cerif standard

JISC & DCC planning National coordination

http://cerif4datasets.wordpress.com



GU research data catalogue



Guidance and training

http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/datamanagement/



Disciplinary training (RDMTrain)

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/training/train-trainer/disciplinary-rdm-training/disciplinary-rdm-training



Good data management is about

making informed decisions



Any questions?

For DCC guidance, tools and case studies see:www.dcc.ac.uk/resources

Follow us on twitter @digitalcuration and #ukdcc

because good research needs good data funded by: digital curation for researchers, 28th february...

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