Category: Data Curation, Open Data, and Research Data Management

"Cultural Obstacles to Research Data Management and Sharing at TU Delft"

Esther Plomp et al. have published "Cultural Obstacles to Research Data Management and Sharing at TU Delft" in Insights.

Here's an excerpt:

Research data management (RDM) is increasingly important in scholarship. Many researchers are, however, unaware of the benefits of good RDM and unsure about the practical steps they can take to improve their RDM practices. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) addresses this cultural barrier by appointing Data Stewards at every faculty. By providing expert advice and increasing awareness, the Data Stewardship project focuses on incremental improvements in current data and software management and sharing practices. This cultural change is accelerated by the Data Champions who share best practices in data management with their peers. The Data Stewards and Data Champions build a community that allows a discipline-specific approach to RDM. Nevertheless, cultural change also requires appropriate rewards and incentives. While local initiatives are important, and we discuss several examples in this paper, systemic changes to the academic rewards system are needed. This will require collaborative efforts of a broad coalition of stakeholders and we will mention several such initiatives. This article demonstrates that community building is essential in changing the code and data management culture at TU Delft.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Engaging Researchers with Data Management: The Cookbook

Connie Clare, et al. have published "Engaging Researchers with Data Management: The Cookbook".

Here's an excerpt:

Engaging Researchers with Data Management is an invaluable collection of 24 case studies, drawn from institutions across the globe, that demonstrate clearly and practically how to engage the research community with RDM. These case studies together illustrate the variety of innovative strategies research institutions have developed to engage with their researchers about managing research data.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Evaluating Fair Maturity Through a Scalable, Automated, Community-Governed Framework"

Mark D. Wilkinson et al. have published "Evaluating Fair Maturity Through a Scalable, Automated, Community-Governed Framework" in Scientific Data.

Here's an excerpt:

We propose a scalable, automatable framework to evaluate digital resources that encompasses measurable indicators, open source tools, and participation guidelines, which come together to accommodate domain relevant community-defined FAIR assessments. The components of the framework are: (1) Maturity Indicators—community-authored specifications that delimit a specific automatically-measurable FAIR behavior; (2) Compliance Tests—small Web apps that test digital resources against individual Maturity Indicators; and (3) the Evaluator, a Web application that registers, assembles, and applies community-relevant sets of Compliance Tests against a digital resource, and provides a detailed report about what a machine "sees" when it visits that resource. We discuss the technical and social considerations of FAIR assessments, and how this translates to our community-driven infrastructure. We then illustrate how the output of the Evaluator tool can serve as a roadmap to assist data stewards to incrementally and realistically improve the FAIRness of their resources.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Research Data Rights Management Guide

The Australian Data Research Commons has released the "Research Data Rights Management Guide."

Here's an excerpt:

When taken together, data management, copyright and licensing issues relating to data can be complicated. Data is complicated and can take many forms. It can be a seemingly random compilation of numbers, or it could be a complex dataset containing recorded interviews or creative works. Combined data is often unable to be separated into component parts, unlike chapters in a book, so, unlike a book, it is difficult to separate different copyright conditions that might apply to certain sections of a dataset. Apart from legal ownership, other factors such as policy and business requirements, and relationships and norms can impact on data licensing decisions. For example, grant funding agreements may require a certain licence to be applied to research data outputs, or, in some cases, expectations or norms in a particular field of study will impact on licensing decisions.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"From Persistent Identifiers to Digital Objects to Make Data Science More Efficient "

Peter Wittenburg has published "From Persistent Identifiers to Digital Objects to Make Data Science More Efficient" in Data Intelligence.

Here's an excerpt:

In fact after 20 years of experience we can claim that there are trustworthy PID systems already in broad use. It is argued, however, that assigning PIDs is just the first step. If we agree to assign PIDs and also use the PID to store important relationships such as pointing to locations where the bit sequences or different metadata can be accessed, we are close to defining Digital Objects (DO) which could indeed indicate a solution to solve some of the basic problems in data management and processing. In addition to standardizing the way we assign PIDs, metadata and other state information we could also define a Digital Object Access Protocol as a universal exchange protocol for DOs stored in repositories using different data models and data organizations. We could also associate a type with each DO and a set of operations allowed working on its content which would facilitate the way to automatic processing which has been identified as the major step for scalability in data science and data industry. A globally connected group of experts is now working on establishing testbeds for a DO-based data infrastructure.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Research Data Platform: "New Dryad Is Here"

Dryad has released "New Dryad Is Here."

Here's an excerpt:

Dryad’s newest features are centered around making data publishing as easy as possible for researchers:

  • In addition to supporting datasets as part of a journal submission, Dryad now also supports datasets being submitted independently
  • Data can be uploaded from cloud storage or lab servers
  • Datasets can be as large as 300GB
  • Datasets can easily be updated or versioned at any time in our process
  • Standardized data usage and citation statistics are updated and displayed for each published dataset
  • Data can be submitted and downloaded through our new REST APIs

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Teaching Practical Research Data Management Skills through Online Training and Data Management Plan Creation"

Beth Montague-Hellen and Holly Ranger have self-archived "Teaching Practical Research Data Management Skills through Online Training and Data Management Plan Creation."

Here's an excerpt:

Introduction: Research Data Management is growing in importance as a field as the amount of data which researchers must manage increases. It is important to ensure that postgraduate researchers are trained through engaging courses which practically prepare them to fulfil the data management requirements of funders and Universities, and to carry out their research in a transparent and effective manner. Description of program: We present a case study of the development and delivery of a new Research Data Management (RDM) online course for postgraduates and early career researchers. The course implements pedagogical theory and a reverse design paradigm in the development of library training provision enabling the creation of a course vastly more relevant to academic research practice than our previous offering. The course uses a simplified Data Management Plan to introduce students to Research Data Management Concepts, and by asking them to apply this knowledge, lifts the course from one which simply asks students to remember knowledge to one which shows them how to apply this knowledge in a way that is applicable to their own research. The course has been evaluated for effectiveness and student engagement at 3 months. Next steps: Although some analysis of the effectiveness of the new course has been undertaken, the course will continue to be evaluated. Although the course was developed for PGRs it has been popular with ECRs and Professional support staff and we will investigate how we can further meet the needs of these groups. The platform used will allow for the topics most often accessed to be identified and the course, and the University’s training provision will be adjusted based on this evidence. We hope that other institutions will be able to learn from our experience and implement similar courses.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Policy Needs to Go Hand in Hand with Practice: The Learning and Listening Approach to Data Management"

Maria Cruz et al. have published "Policy Needs to Go Hand in Hand with Practice: The Learning and Listening Approach to Data Management" in Data Science Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

In this paper, we explain our strategy for developing research data management policies at TU Delft. Policies can be important drivers for research institutions in the implementation of good data management practices. As Rans and Jones note (Rans and Jones 2013), "Policies provide clarity of purpose and may help in the framing of roles, responsibilities and requisite actions. They also legitimise making the case for investment". However, policy development often tends to place the researchers in a passive position, while they are the ones managing research data on a daily basis. Therefore, at TU Delft, we have taken an alternative approach: a policy needs to go hand in hand with practice. The policy development was initiated by the Research Data Services at TU Delft Library, but as the process continued, other stakeholders, such as legal and IT departments, got involved. Finally, the faculty-based Data Stewards have played a key role in leading the consultations with the research community that led to the development of the faculty-specific policies. This allows for disciplinary differences to be reflected in the policies and to create a closer connection between policies and day-to-day research practice. Our primary intention was to keep researchers and research practices at the centre of our strategy for data management. We did not want to introduce and mandate requirements before adequate infrastructure and professional support were available to our research community and before our researchers were themselves willing to discuss formalisation of data management practices.

This paper describes the key steps taken and the most important decisions made during the development of RDM policies at TU Delft.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Decommissioning a Large Data Archive: Lessons Learned from Cleaning out the Attic"

Richard L. Moore et al. have self-archived "Decommissioning a Large Data Archive: Lessons Learned from Cleaning out the Attic"

Here's an excerpt:

This paper describes key elements of the decommissioning of a large tape-based data archive that the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) operated for its users from the center's inception in 1985 until ~2010. . . . Over the archive's last decade, data volume grew exponentially with a doubling period of ~16 months to a maximum size of ~10 PB. In ~2010, the National Science Foundation terminated funding for SDSC's tape archive and SDSC proceeded with decommissioning the archive over a ~2-year period. This paper briefly describes the principles and process by which we decommissioned this large archive, key issues that arose during this process, and implications for institutions that operate data archival systems and suggestions for operating archival systems in the FAIR data environment.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Virtuous and Vicious Circles in the Data Life-Cycle"

Elizabeth Yakel, et al. have published "Virtuous and Vicious Circles in the Data Life-Cycle" in Information Research.

Here's an excerpt:

We present an in-depth case study that follows collaborative data sharing, curation and reuse practices among eleven zooarchaeologists and two curators during a large data reuse project. A data life-cycle model highlights how factors in one life-cycle phase impacted other phases forming virtuous (positive) and vicious (negative) circles.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Developing a Data Management Consultation Service for Faculty Researchers: A Case Study from a Large Midwestern Public University "

Virginia A Dressler et al. have published "Developing a Data Management Consultation Service for Faculty Researchers: A Case Study from a Large Midwestern Public University" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

To inform the development of data management services, a library research team at Kent State University conducted a survey of all tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty about their data management practices and perceptions. The methodology and results will be presented in the article, as well as how this information was used to inform future work in the library's internal working group. Recommendations will be presented that other academic libraries could model in order to develop similar services at their institutions. Personal anecdotes are included that help ascertain current practices and sentiments around research data from the perspective of the researcher. The article addresses the particular needs of a large Midwestern U.S. academic campus, which are not currently reflected in literature on the topic.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Progress in Research Data Services: An International Survey of University Libraries"

Andrew M Cox et al. have published "Progress in Research Data Services: An International Survey of University Libraries" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

University libraries have played an important role in constructing an infrastructure of support for Research Data Management at an institutional level. This paper presents a comparative analysis of two international surveys of libraries about their involvement in Research Data Services conducted in 2014 and 2018. The aim was to explore how services had developed over this time period, and to explore the drivers and barriers to change. In particular, there was an interest in how far the FAIR data principles had been adopted.

Services in nearly every area were more developed in 2018 than before, but technical services remained less developed than advisory. Progress on institutional policy was also evident. However, priorities did not seem to have shifted significantly. Open ended answers suggested that funder policy, rather than researcher demand, remained the main driver of service development and that resources and skills gaps remained issues. While widely understood as an important reference point and standard, because of their relatively recent publication date, FAIR principles had not been widely adopted explicitly in policy.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Updating the Data Curation Continuum: Not Just Data, Still Focussed on Curation, More Domain-Oriented"

Andrew Treloar and Jens Klump have published "Updating the Data Curation Continuum: Not Just Data, Still Focussed on Curation, More Domain-Oriented" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

The Data Curation Continuum was developed as a way of thinking about data repository infrastructure. Since its original development over a decade ago, a number of things have changed in the data infrastructure domain. This paper revisits the thinking behind the original data curation continuum and updates it to respond to changes in research objects, storage models, and the repository landscape in general.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Research Data Management and the Evolutions of Scholarship: Policy, Infrastructure and Data Literacy at KU Leuven"

Tom Willaert et al. have published "Research Data Management and the Evolutions of Scholarship: Policy, Infrastructure and Data Literacy at KU Leuven" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

This case study critically examines ongoing developments in contemporary scholarship through the lens of research data management support at KU Leuven, and KU Leuven Libraries in particular. By means of case-based examples, current initiatives for fostering sound scientific work and scholarship are considered in three associated domains: support for policy-making, the development of research infrastructures, and digital literacy training for students, scientists and scholars. It is outlined how KU Leuven Libraries collaborates with partner services in order to contribute to KU Leuven's research data management support network. Particular attention is devoted to the innovations that facilitate such collaborations. These accounts of initial experiences form the basis for a reflection on best practices and pitfalls, and foreground a number of pertinent challenges facing the domain of research data management, including matters of scalability, technology acceptance and adoption, and methods for effectively gauging and communicating the manifold transformations of science and scholarship.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Lost or Found? Discovering Data Needed for Research"

have self-archived "Lost or Found? Discovering Data Needed for Research."

Here's an excerpt:

Finding or discovering data is a necessary precursor to being able to reuse data, although relatively little large-scale empirical evidence exists about how researchers discover, make sense of and (re)use data for research. This study presents evidence from the largest known survey investigating how researchers discover and use data that they do not create themselves. We examine the data needs and discovery strategies of respondents, propose a typology for data (re)use and probe the role of social interactions and other research practices in data discovery, with the aim of informing the design of community-centric solutions and policies.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Impact of Targeted Data Management Training for Field Research Projects—A Case Study"

Jonathan L. Petters et al. have published "The Impact of Targeted Data Management Training for Field Research Projects—A Case Study" in Data Science Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

We present a joint effort at Virginia Tech between a research group in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Data Services in the University Libraries to improve data management for long-term ecological field research projects in the Florida Panhandle. Consultative research data management support from Data Services in the University Libraries played an integral role in the development of the training curriculum. Emphasizing the importance of data quality to the field workers at the beginning of this training curriculum was a vital part of its success. Also critical for success was the research group’s investment of time and effort to work with field workers and improve data management systems. We compare this case study to three others in the literature to compare and contrast data management processes and procedures. This case study serves as one example of how targeted training and efforts in data and project management for a research project can lead to substantial improvements in research data quality.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 10 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap