Presentations from the Institutional and National Services for Research Data Management Workshop at the Oxford Said Business School are now available.

Here's a selection:

• The Archaeology Data Service, A Subject Specific Digital Repository
• A Grand Challenge for the Information Age
• Legal Issues Relevant to Digital Repositories
• Tools for Managing Research Data: the Data Audit Framework (DAF) and DRAMBORA
• The UK Research Data Service (UKRDS) Feasibility Study

Presentations (usually digital audio and PowerPoint slides) about data curation, e-science, virtual organizations and other topics from the ARL/CNI Fall Forum on Reinventing Science Librarianship: Models for the Future are now available.

Speakers included Sayeed Choudhury, Ron Larsen, Liz Lyon, Richard Luce, and others.

Presentations from the eResearch Australasia 2008 conference are available.

Here's a brief selection:

• Australian Women’s Archives Project 2.0—Next Generation Infrastructure for Women's Studies
• Data Grid Storage for Digital Libraries and Archives Based on iRODS
• Lessons from the Institute for Data Intensive Science and Engineering
• A Summary of the Outputs of the ARCHER Project
• Transforming the Study of Australian Literature through a Collaborative eResearch Environment

Cornell University has launched its DISCOVER Research Service Group to support its data-driven science efforts.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Cornell University announced today the establishment of the DISCOVER Research Service Group (DRSG) to facilitate data-driven science at Cornell by developing cross-disciplinary data archival and discovery tools. DISCOVER will conduct pilot projects in selected strategic areas such as the development of data discovery portals using access-layer protocols now under development at Fedora Commons and the Virtual Observatory. . . .

Cornell's Department of Astronomy and the University Library, in partnership with the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing, will work closely with DISCOVER, which is comprised of research groups from multiple disciplines and core data management and curation staff. . . .

The overarching goal of the DISCOVER Research Service Group is to provide accessible paths for the curation, preservation, and mining of scientific data. Systems are needed to make data sets accessible physically over both space (over a wide network) and time (for the indefinite future) and also transparently, using modern Web-based tools that are expected to evolve.

The Worldwide Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid consortium’s grid is ready to process an anticipated 15 million gigabytes per year of data from the collider. It’s composed of 100,000 processors distributed among 140 scientific institutions.

Read more about it at “CERN Officially Unveils Its Grid: 100,000 Processors, 15 Petabytes a Year” and “The Grid Powers Up to Save Lives and Seek the God Particle.”

NISO (the National Information Standards Organization) has held its final Thought Leader meeting on the topic of research data. A short summary of the meeting is available at “NISO Brings Together Data Thought Leaders.”

Earlier this year, NISO held Thought Leader meetings on institutional repositories, digital library and collections, and e-learning and course management systems. Final reports are available for the institutional repositories and digital library and collections meetings.

The Finnish Social Science Data Archive has published Open Access to and Reuse of Research Data—The State of the Art in Finland.

Here's an excerpt:

In 2006, the Ministry of Education in Finland allocated resources to the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) to chart national and international practices related to open access to research data. Consequently, the FSD carried out an online survey targeting professors of human sciences, social sciences and behavioural sciences in Finnish universities. Some respondents were senior staff at research institutes. The respondents were asked about the state and use of data collected in their department/institute. Almost half of the respondents considered the preservation and use of digital research data to be relevant to their department. The number of respondents (150) is large enough to warrant statistical analysis even though response rate was low at 28%.

The UK Research Data Service has released the UKRDS Interim Report.

The report recommends adopting a "Hybrid/Umbrella" model for managing research data in the UK. Here's an excerpt:

In this model ["Hybrid/Umbrella"], UKRDS acts as an umbrella organisation, representing the interests of many UK data repositories, both those based around single institutions and those based on storage for a single discipline. Such an organisation would be well-placed to act as a mediator, as a standards-setting body and as source of information about data archiving and repositories, perhaps in a similar fashion to the Digital Curation Centre (DCC). In time it might become a data repository in its own right or take on other functions as required. This approach brings the Shared Services model into the current environment of grid computing and cloud-based data storage, with an emphasis on distributed shared services, rather than centralised shared services. Although there are still risks associated with this model, they are lower than the previous two and more manageable. The exact structure of such an organisation would be dependent on circumstance and would need to take into account the requirements of the member organisations.

The Oxford University Office of the Director of IT has released Findings of the Scoping Study Interviews and the Research Data Management Workshop: Scoping Digital Repository Services for Research Data Management.

Here's an excerpt from the report's Web page:

The scoping study interviews aimed to document data management practices from Oxford researchers as well as to capture their requirements for services to help them manage their data more effectively. In order to do this, 37 face-to-face interviews were conducted between May and June with researchers from 27 colleges, departments and faculties. In addition to this, the Research Data Management Workshop was organised to complement the findings of the scoping study interviews.

The Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories has released Investigating Data Management Practices in Australian Universities.

Here an excerpt from the report's Web page:

In late 2007, The University of Queensland undertook a survey of data management practices among the university’s researchers. This was done in response to the increasing realisation that repositories need to include research data, in addition to the research outputs in print form already included, and to provide information which would enhance the support provided for those engaged in eResearch.

The survey was carried out using the Apollo software developed at The Australian National University and adapted by APSR. Two other universities, The University of Melbourne and the Queensland University of Technology, have now replicated the survey among their own communities, while adding some questions of local interest.

The survey covers questions such as the types of digital data being created (spreadsheets, documents, experimental data, images, fieldwork data, etc), the size of the data collection, software used for data analysis, data storage and backup, application of a data management plan, roles and responsibilities around data management, copyright frameworks, usage of high capacity computing, and much more.

Live blogging reports are available from the "Research Data—Whose Problem Is It?" session at the JISC Innovation Forum 2008.

Digital Preservation Europe has released several new briefing papers:

• The Challenge of Appraising Science Records
• Persistent Identifiers for Cultural Heritage
• Preservation of Digital Audiovisual Content
• Preservation of Earth System Model Data