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

"Digital Forensics on A Shoestring: A Case Study from the University of Victoria"

John Durno and Jerry Trofimchuk have published "Digital Forensics on A Shoestring: A Case Study from the University of Victoria" in Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

While much has been written on the increasing importance of digital forensics in archival workflows, most of the literature focuses on theoretical issues or establishing best practices in the abstract. Where case studies exist, most have been written from the perspective of larger organizations with well-resourced digital forensics facilities. However organizations of any size are increasingly likely to receive donations of born-digital material on outdated media, and a need exists for more modest solutions to the problem of acquiring and preserving their contents. This case study outlines the development of a small-scale digital forensics program at the University of Victoria using inexpensive components and open source software, funded by a $2000 research grant from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL).

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Policy Recommendations for Open Access to Research Data

The RECODE project has released Policy Recommendations for Open Access to Research Data.

Here's an excerpt:

These policy recommendations are targeted at key stakeholders in the scholarly communication ecosystem, namely research funders, research institutions, data managers, and publishers. They will assist each of the stakeholders in furthering the goals of open access to research data by providing both over-arching and stakeholder-specific recommendations. These function, as suggestions to address and attend to central issues that RECODE identified through the research work.

The current report thus comprises:

  • summary of project findings
  • overarching recommendations
  • targeted policy recommendations for funders, research institutions, data managers, and publishers
  • practical guides for developing policies for funders, research institutions, data managers, and publishers
  • resources to expedite the process of policy development and implementation among stakeholders

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"Building Data Services from the Ground Up: Strategies and Resources"

Heather L. Coates has published "Building Data Services from the Ground Up: Strategies and Resources" in the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

There is a scarcity of practical guidance for developing data services in an academic library. Data services, like many areas of research, require the expertise and resources of teams spanning many disciplines. While library professionals are embedded into the teaching activities of our institutions, fewer of us are embedded in research activities occurring across the full life cycle. The significant challenges of managing, preserving, and sharing data for reuse demand that we take a more active role. Providing support for funder data management plans is just one option in the data services landscape. Awareness of the institutional and library culture in which we operate places an emphasis on the importance of relationships. Understanding the various cultures in which our researchers operate is crucial for delivering data services that are relevant and utilized. The goal of this article is to guide data specialists through this landscape by providing key resources and strategies for developing locally relevant services and by pointing to active communities of librarians and researchers tackling the challenges associated with digital research data.

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"Research Data Management and Libraries: Relationships, Activities, Drivers and Influences"

Stephen Pinfield, Andrew M. Cox, and Jen Smith have published "Research Data Management and Libraries: Relationships, Activities, Drivers and Influences " in PLOS ONE.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper analyses the contribution of academic libraries to research data management (RDM) in the wider institutional context. In particular it: examines the roles and relationships involved in RDM, identifies the main components of an RDM programme, evaluates the major drivers for RDM activities, and analyses the key factors influencing the shape of RDM developments. The study is written from the perspective of library professionals, analysing data from 26 semi-structured interviews of library staff from different UK institutions. This is an early qualitative contribution to the topic complementing existing quantitative and case study approaches. Results show that although libraries are playing a significant role in RDM, there is uncertainty and variation in the relationship with other stakeholders such as IT services and research support offices. Current emphases in RDM programmes are on developments of policies and guidelines, with some early work on technology infrastructures and support services. Drivers for developments include storage, security, quality, compliance, preservation, and sharing with libraries associated most closely with the last three. The paper also highlights a 'jurisdictional' driver in which libraries are claiming a role in this space. A wide range of factors, including governance, resourcing and skills, are identified as influencing ongoing developments. From the analysis, a model is constructed designed to capture the main aspects of an institutional RDM programme. This model helps to clarify the different issues involved in RDM, identifying layers of activity, multiple stakeholders and drivers, and a large number of factors influencing the implementation of any initiative. Institutions may usefully benchmark their activities against the data and model in order to inform ongoing RDM activity.

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iPres 2014: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Digital Preservation

The International Conference on Digital Preservation has released iPres 2014: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Digital Preservation.

Here's an excerpt:

Papers covered a wide array of preservation topics including migration and emulation, file format management, registries and linked data, funding models, education and training, personal archiving and software-based art, web archiving, metadata and persistent identifiers.

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2014 Open Data Index

Open Knowledge has published the 2014 Open Data Index.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Index ranks countries based on the availability and accessibility of information in ten key areas, including government spending, election results, transport timetables, and pollution levels.

The UK topped the 2014 Index retaining its pole position with an overall score of 96%, closely followed by Denmark and then France at number 3 up from 12th last year. Finland comes in 4th while Australia and New Zealand share the 5th place. Impressive results were seen from India at #10 (up from #27) and Latin American countries like Colombia and Uruguay who came in joint 12th.

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The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model: Introductory Guide (2nd Edition)

The Digital Preservation Coalition has released The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model: Introductory Guide (2nd Edition).

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Emphasising its flexibility and conceptual nature, the report describes the OAIS, its core principles and functional elements, as well as the information model which support long-term preservation, access and understandability of data – highlighting the in-built level of abstraction which makes it such a widely applicable foundation resource for digital preservation.

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Fedora 4 Production Release

The international Fedora repository community and DuraSpace have released the Fedora 4 production release.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This significant release signals the effectiveness of an international and complex community source project in delivering a modern repository platform with features that meet or exceed current use cases in the management of institutional digital assets. Fedora 4 features include vast improvements in scalability, linked data capabilities, research data support, modularity, ease of use and more.

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"Ensuring Research Integrity: The Role of Data Management in Current Crises"

Heather Coates has published Ensuring Research Integrity: The Role of Data Management in Current Crises in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

Acknowledging responsible data management as foundational for research integrity is not sufficient. We need to value the processes and products of research equally by: 1) creating incentives for responsible management of data, 2) developing standards and practices for peer review that balance evaluation of methodological quality and research integrity with potential impact, and 3) carefully considering the resources necessary to responsibly manage and preserve newly created data for five-to-ten years after publication.

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"Nevermind the Data, Where Are the Protocols?"

David Crotty has published "Nevermind the Data, Where Are the Protocols?" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

This is more complicated than you might think. The smallest variations in technique or reagents can lead to major differences in results. The scant information offered by most journals' Materials and Methods sections makes replication fairly impossible. Often when describing a technique, an author will merely cite a previous paper where they used that technique…which also cites a previous paper, which also cites a previous paper and the wild goose chase is on. Methodologies evolve over time, and even if you can track down the original source of the technique, it likely has changed a great deal over the years.

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Open Science Commons

The European Grid Infrastructure has released Open Science Commons.

Here's an excerpt:

With this paper, the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) proposes the Open Science Commons as a new approach to digital research, tackling policy challenges and embracing open science as a new paradigm for knowledge creation and collaboration. EGI invites organisations from the research landscape to join it in this journey to develop these concepts, and through them to advance the implementation of the European Research Area.

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Guideline for Preservation Planning: Procedural Model and Implementation (English Translation)

Nestor has released an English translation of version 2.0 of its Guideline for Preservation Planning: Procedural Model and Implementation.

Here's an excerpt:

The guideline for preservation planning describes a procedural model for the long-term archiving of digital objects and provides information on possible forms of implementation. It serves above all as a theoretical and practical implementation of the "Preservation Planning" functional unit of the OAIS reference model. Other key concepts introduced in the last 15 years have been included and brought together.

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"Building Support for Research Data Management: Biographies of Eight Research Universities"

Katherine G. Akers et al. have published "Building Support for Research Data Management: Biographies of Eight Research Universities" in the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

Academic research libraries are quickly developing support for research data management (RDM), including both new services and infrastructure. Here, we tell the stories of how eight different universities have developed programs of RDM support, focusing on the prominent role of the library in educating and assisting researchers with managing their data throughout the research lifecycle. Based on these stories, we construct timelines for each university depicting key steps in building support for RDM, and we discuss similarities and dissimilarities among universities in motivation to provide RDM support, collaborations among campus units, assessment of needs and services, and changes in staffing.

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Registering Researchers in Authority Files

OCLC Research has released Registering Researchers in Authority Files.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Registering researchers in some type of authority file or identifier system has become more compelling as both institutions and researchers recognize the need to compile their scholarly output. The report presents functional requirements and recommendations for six stakeholders: researchers, funders, university administrators, librarians, identity management systems and aggregators (including publishers). It also provides an overview of the researcher identifier landscape, changes in the field, emerging trends, and opportunities.

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UNC SILS Gets $750,000 Mellon Foundation Grant for BitCurator Access Project

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science has been given a$ 750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its BitCurator Access Project.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The BitCurator Access project will develop open-source software that supports the provision of access to disk images through three exploratory approaches: (1) building tools to support web-based services, (2) enabling the export of file systems and associated metadata, (3) and the use of emulation environments. Also closely associated with these access goals is redaction. BitCurator Access will develop tools to redact files, file system metadata, and targeted bitstreams within disks or directories.

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DataONE Gets $15 Million NSF Grant

DataONE has received a $15 million grant from the NSF.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Founded in 2009 by the National Science Foundation (NSF), DataONE was designed to provide both the tools and infrastructure for organizing and serving up vast amounts of scientific data, in addition to building an engaged community and developing openly available educational resources.

Accomplishments from the last five years include making over 260,000 publicly available data and metadata objects accessible through the DataONE search engine and building a growing network of 22 national and international data repositories. DataONE has published more than 74 papers, reached over 2,000 individuals via direct training events and workshops and connects with over 60,000 visitors annually via the website.

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"Codifying Collegiality: Recent Developments in Data Sharing Policy in the Life Sciences "

Genevieve Pham-Kanter et al. have published "Codifying Collegiality: Recent Developments in Data Sharing Policy in the Life Sciences " in PLOS ONE.

Over the last decade, there have been significant changes in data sharing policies and in the data sharing environment faced by life science researchers. Using data from a 2013 survey of over 1600 life science researchers, we analyze the effects of sharing policies of funding agencies and journals. We also examine the effects of new sharing infrastructure and tools (i.e., third party repositories and online supplements). We find that recently enacted data sharing policies and new sharing infrastructure and tools have had a sizable effect on encouraging data sharing. In particular, third party repositories and online supplements as well as data sharing requirements of funding agencies, particularly the NIH and the National Human Genome Research Institute, were perceived by scientists to have had a large effect on facilitating data sharing. In addition, we found a high degree of compliance with these new policies, although noncompliance resulted in few formal or informal sanctions. Despite the overall effectiveness of data sharing policies, some significant gaps remain: about one third of grant reviewers placed no weight on data sharing plans in their reviews, and a similar percentage ignored the requirements of material transfer agreements. These patterns suggest that although most of these new policies have been effective, there is still room for policy improvement.

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"The Research Data Alliance: Globally Co-Ordinated Action against Barriers to Data Publishing and Sharing"

Andrew Treloar has published "The Research Data Alliance: Globally Co-Ordinated Action against Barriers to Data Publishing and Sharing" in a special issue of Learned Publishing on data publishing.

Here's an excerpt:

This article discusses the drivers behind the formation of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), its current state, the lessons learned from its first full year of operation, and its anticipated impact on data publishing and sharing. One of the pressing challenges in data infrastructure (taken here to include issues relating to hardware, software and content format, as well as human actors) is how best to enable data interoperability across boundaries. This is particularly critical as the world deals with bigger and more complex problems that require data and insights from a range of disciplines. The RDA has been set up to enable more data to be shared across barriers to address these challenges. It does this through focused Working Groups and Interest Groups, formed of experts from around the world, and drawing from the academic, industry, and government sectors.

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"Developing Professional Skills in STEM Students: Data Information Literacy"

Lisa D. Zilinski et al. have published "Developing Professional Skills in STEM Students: Data Information Literacy" in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Undergraduate STEM students are increasingly expected to have some data use skills upon graduation, whether they pursue post-graduate education or move into industry. This project was an initial foray into the application of data information literacy competencies to training undergraduate students to identify markers of data and information quality. The data consumer training appeared within two courses to help students evaluate data objects, including databases and datasets available on the Internet. The application of the Data Credibility Checklist provides a foundation for developing data reuse competencies. Based upon the initial presentation of the content, it became obvious that students need very basic introductions to data concepts, including definitions for database and dataset, and the process of data object discovery.

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"Library of Congress Recommended Format Specifications: Encouraging Preservation Without Discouraging Creation"

Theron Westervelt has published "Library of Congress Recommended Format Specifications: Encouraging Preservation Without Discouraging Creation" in D-Lib Magazine.

Here's an excerpt:

The Library of Congress has a fundamental commitment to acquiring, preserving and making accessible in the long term the creative output of the nation and the world. The Library has devised the Recommended Format Specifications to enable it to identify what formats will most easily lend themselves to preservation and long-term access, especially with regard to digital formats. The Library has done this to provide guidance to its staff in their work of acquiring content for its collection, but also seeks to share this with other stakeholders, from the creative community to vendors to other libraries, each of which has a need and interest in preservation and access. To ensure ongoing accuracy and relevancy, the Library of Congress will be reviewing and revising the specifications on an annual basis and welcomes feedback and input from all interested parties.

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"How Many Citations Are There in the Data Citation Index?"

Daniel Torres-Salinas et al. have self-archived "How Many Citations Are There in the Data Citation Index?."

Here's an excerpt:

Descriptive analysis on the citation distribution of the Thomson Reuters' Data Citation Index by publication type and four broad areas: Science, Engineering & Technology, Humanities & Arts and Social Sciences.

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Current Quality Assurance Practices in Web Archiving

Brenda Reyes Ayala, Mark E. Phillips, and Lauren Ko have self-archived Current Quality Assurance Practices in Web Archiving.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper presents the results of a survey of quality assurance (QA) practices within the field of web archiving. To understand current QA practices, the authors surveyed 54 institutions engaged in web archiving, which included national libraries, colleges and universities, and museums and art libraries.

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"Going Beyond Data Management Planning: Comprehensive Research Data Services"

Katherine G. Akers has published "Going Beyond Data Management Planning: Comprehensive Research Data Services" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

We should keep in mind that DMP requirements impact only a small proportion of academic researchers and, furthermore, that such requirements are only one factor motivating researchers to share their data. Just as many, if not a greater number of, researchers might face expectations from journal publishers to share the data underlying their research articles. Some researchers receive funding from federal agencies that have data sharing policies but that do not require a DMP. Also, many researchers may desire to make their data available to a wide audience for personal or altruistic reasons, such as to permit others to replicate their methods and analysis, to allow others to re-purpose their data in new ways, or to increase the visibility and impact of their work.

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"Steal This Idea: A Library Instructors’ Guide to Educating Students in Data Management Skills"

Lisa Johnston and Jon Jeffryes have published "Steal This Idea: A Library Instructors' Guide to Educating Students in Data Management Skills" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

This article provides a big-picture overview of the work conducted by UM to meet the data literacy needs of our graduate students. We've adapted our instructional approach to data management over the years.

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"Integrating Approaches to Privacy Across the Research Lifecycle: Long-Term Longitudinal Studies"

Alexandra Wood et al. have self-archived "Integrating Approaches to Privacy Across the Research Lifecycle: Long-Term Longitudinal Studies."

Here's an excerpt:

The defining characteristics of a long-term longitudinal study—that such a study follows a large number of individuals over extended periods of time and collects vast quantities of sometimes very sensitive personal information from subjects—create a number of challenges for researchers working with longitudinal data. Over the course of a longitudinal study, data collection, uses of data, privacy expectations, and laws may change, leaving the scope of subjects' consent unclear. The use of contractors for data collection and the need to retain administrative data linked to records to recontact subjects over time may increase the risk of disclosure.

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