"Competencies Required for Digital Curation: An Analysis of Job Advertisements"

Jeonghyun Kim, Edward Warga, and William Moen have published "Competencies Required for Digital Curation: An Analysis of Job Advertisements" in the latest issue of the International Journal of Digital Curation.

Here's an excerpt:

With digital curation's increasingly important role in the fast-paced and data-intensive information environment, there is a need to identify a set of competencies for professionals in this growing field. As part of a curriculum development project funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, a total of 173 job advertisements posted between October 2011 and April 2012 were collected from various sources to take into account varying types of professionals in the field of digital curation across North America. Position title, institution types and location, educational background, experience, knowledge and skills, and duties were examined and analyzed. The results of the analysis show that digital curation jobs are characterized by a complex interplay of various skills and knowledge. The findings of this study present emerging requirements for a qualified workforce in the field of digital curation.

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Research Data Management Training for Support Staff: A DaMaRO Project Survey

The DaMaRO Project has released Research Data Management Training for Support Staff: A DaMaRO Project Survey.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

A few weeks ago, in collaboration with our colleagues from the DataPool Project in Southampton, we ran a survey for staff involved in supporting researchers at the University of Oxford. . . .

The survey asked support staff about a range of different research data management tasks. For each task, we asked them how confident they personally felt to advise researchers on this. As it's clearly unrealistic to expect all support staff to advise on all topics, we also asked how confident they felt of their ability to refer researchers to the appropriate person, organization, or resources for advice.

The responses revealed that current average confidence levels are low to moderate at best. Respondents did in general seem slightly more confident about referring researchers elsewhere for advice, but there's still a lot of room for improvement here.

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Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 3

Digital Scholarship has released version 3 of the Research Data Curation Bibliography. This selective bibliography includes over 230 English-language articles and technical reports that are useful in understanding the curation of digital research data in academic and other research institutions.

The "digital curation" concept is still evolving. In "Digital Curation and Trusted Repositories: Steps toward Success," Christopher A. Lee and Helen R. Tibbo define digital curation as follows:

Digital curation involves selection and appraisal by creators and archivists; evolving provision of intellectual access; redundant storage; data transformations; and, for some materials, a commitment to long-term preservation. Digital curation is stewardship that provides for the reproducibility and re-use of authentic digital data and other digital assets. Development of trustworthy and durable digital repositories; principles of sound metadata creation and capture; use of open standards for file formats and data encoding; and the promotion of information management literacy are all essential to the longevity of digital resources and the success of curation efforts.

Most sources have been published from January 2000 through June 2012; however, a limited number of earlier key sources are also included.

The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works. If such versions are unavailable, italicized links to the publishers' descriptions are provided.

It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

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2013 NDSA Innovation Award Winners

The National Digital Stewardship Alliance Innovation Working Group has announced the 2013 NDSA Innovation Award winners.

Here's an excerpt:

Please join us in congratulating the 2013 Innovation Award winners:

Future Steward: Martin Gengenbach, Gates Archive. Martin is recognized for his work documenting digital forensics tools and workflows, especially his paper,"The Way We Do it Here: Mapping Digital Forensics Workflows in Collecting Institutions" and his work cataloging the DFXML schema.

Individual: Kim Schroeder, Wayne State University. Kim is recognized for her work as a mentor to future digital stewards in her role as a lecturer in Digital Preservation at Wayne State University, where she helped establish the first NDSA Student Group, supported the student-lead colloquium on digital preservation, and worked to facilitate collaboration between students in digital stewardship and local cultural heritage organizations.

Project: DataUp, California Digital Library. DataUp is recognized for creating an open-source tool uniquely built to assist individuals aiming to preserve research datasets by guiding them through the digital stewardship workflow process from dataset creation and description to the deposit of their datasets into public repositories.

Organization: Archive Team. The Archive Team , a self-described "loose collective of rogue archivists, programmers, writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage," is recognized for both for its aggressive, vital work in preserving websites and digital content slated for deletion and for its work advocating for the preservation of digital culture within the technology and computing sectors.

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"First Aid Training for Those on the Front Lines: Digital Preservation Needs Survey Results 2012"

Jody L. DeRidder has published "First Aid Training for Those on the Front Lines: Digital Preservation Needs Survey Results 2012" in the latest issue of Information Technology and Libraries.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Every day history is being made and recorded in digital form. Every day, more and more digitally-captured history disappears completely or becomes inaccessible due to obsolescence of hardware, software, and formats. Although it has long been the focus of libraries and archives to retain, organize, and preserve information, these communities face a critical skills gap. Until we have in place the infrastructure, expertise and resources to distil critical information from the digital deluge and preserve it appropriately, what steps can those in the field take to help mitigate the loss of our cultural heritage? This article argues for the need for practical, accessible free or low-cost digital preservation training webinars, and reports on the results of a survey to identify the most important topics and types of materials on which to focus.

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"Making Research Data Repositories Visible: The re3data.org Registry"

Heinz Pampel et al. have self-archived "Making Research Data Repositories Visible: The re3data.org Registry" in PeerJ PrePrints.

Here's an excerpt:

Researchers require infrastructures that ensure a maximum of accessibility, stability and reliability to facilitate working with and sharing of research data. Such infrastructures are being increasingly summarized under the term Research Data Repositories (RDR). The project re3data.org—Registry of Research Rata Repositories has begun to index research data repositories in 2012 and offers researchers, funding organizations, libraries and publishers an overview of the heterogeneous research data repository landscape. Information icons help researchers to easily identify an adequate repository for the storage and reuse of their data. This article describes the RDR landscape, outlines the practicality of re3data.org as a service, and shows how this service helps to find research data.

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Research Data Management in Practice

The Australian National Data Service has released Research Data Management in Practice.

Here's an excerpt:

ANDS has commissioned this "Research Data Management Practice Guide" as a practical starting point that focuses on the 'Why' and 'How' of good data and risk management, with plenty of references for further reading for readers who need more detail. . . .

The Practice Guide is aimed at research administrators in the e-research space, providing them with an overview for the planning and operations of sharing research data, thereby creating better opportunities for data re-use. It is acknowledged that no single person or even business unit is responsible for all aspects of research data management and that a collaborative approach is required. In all cases this will involve the researcher/data creator.

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"The Role of the Library in the Research Enterprise"

Christopher J. Shaffer has published "The Role of the Library in the Research Enterprise" in the latest issue of the Journal of eScience Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Libraries have provided services to researchers for many years. Changes in technology and new publishing models provide opportunities for libraries to be more involved in the research enterprise. Within this article, the author reviews traditional library services, briefly describes the eScience and publishing landscape as it relates to libraries, and explores possible library programs in support of research. Many of the new opportunities require new partnerships, both within the institution and externally.

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"Developing Researcher Skills in Research Data Management: Training for the Future—A DataPool Project Report"

Dorothy Byatt, Mark Scott, F. Gareth Beale, Simon J. Cox, and Wendy White have self-archived "Developing Researcher Skills in Research Data Management: Training for the Future—A DataPool Project Report" in ePrints Soton.

Here's an excerpt:

This report will look at the multi-level approach to developing researcher skills in research data management in the University of Southampton, developed as part of the training strand of the JISC DataPool project, and embedded into the University engagement with research data management.

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"Research Object for Scholarly Communication (ROSC) Community Group Charter"

Jun Zhao of the University of Oxford has released the "Research Object for Scholarly Communication (ROSC) Community Group Charter." ROSC is a W3C group.

Here's an excerpt:

The primary goal of the Community Group is to provide a platform for scholars, librarians, publishers, archivists and policy makers to exchange requirements and expectations for supporting a new form of scholarly communication, i.e. making the actual research assets available as first-class objects to enable better reuse and reproduce of research results and knowledge. These research assets, including data used and generated in an investigation, methods used for producing the data, as well as people and organisations involved in the study, are what we call Research Objects.

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"Academic Librarians and Research Data Services: Preparation and Attitudes"

Carol Tenopir, Robert J. Sandusky, Suzie Allard, and Ben Birch have published "Academic Librarians and Research Data Services: Preparation and Attitudes" in the latest issue of IFLA Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

Research funding bodies recognize the importance of infrastructure and services to organize and preserve research data, and academic research libraries have been identified as locations in which to base these research data services (RDS). Research data services include data management planning, digital curation (selection, preservation, maintenance, and archiving), and metadata creation and conversion. We report the results of an empirical investigation into the RDS practices of librarians in US and Canadian academic research libraries, establishing a baseline of the engagement of librarians at this early stage of widespread service development. Specifically, this paper examines the opinions of the surveyed librarians regarding their preparedness to provide RDS (background, skills, and education), their attitudes regarding the importance of RDS for their libraries and institutions, and the factors that contribute to or inhibit librarian engagement in RDS.

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"Drowning in Research Data: Addressing Data Management Literacy of Graduate Students"

ACRL has released "Drowning in Research Data: Addressing Data Management Literacy of Graduate Students" as part of the ACRL 2013 Proceedings..

Here's an excerpt:

In this paper we will discuss findings from our research study of social sciences and science graduate students' levels of research data management literacy, which include attitudes and behaviours, and formal and informal education experiences. Using an online survey of Canadian graduate students in the social sciences and science, we were able to reach a large number of students across the country and to gather sufficient responses to allow us to offer some insights on the overall graduate student research data management landscape.

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"Dealing with Data: Science Librarians’ Participation in Data Management at Association of Research Libraries Institutions"

College & Research Libraries has released an e-print of "Dealing with Data: Science Librarians' Participation in Data Management at Association of Research Libraries Institutions"

Here's an excerpt:

This study, a survey of science librarians at institutions affiliated with the Association of Research Libraries, investigates science librarians' awareness of and involvement in institutional repositories, data repositories, and data management support services at their institutions. The study also explores the roles and responsibilities, both new and traditional, that science librarians have assumed related to data management, and the skills that science librarians believe are necessary to meet the demands of data management work. The results reveal themes of both uncertainty and optimism—uncertainty about the roles of librarians, libraries, and other campus entities; uncertainty about the skills that will be required; but also optimism about applying "traditional" librarian skills to this emerging field of academic librarianship.

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How to Develop Research Data Management Services—A Guide for HEIs

The Digital Curation Centre has released How to Develop Research Data Management Services—A Guide for HEIs.

Here's an excerpt:

The purpose of this guide is to help institutions understand the key aims and issues associated with planning and implementing research data management (RDM) services. It explains the components and processes of RDM services and describes the roles and responsibilities of those who will deliver and use them.

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Is the Future of Preservation Cloudy? (Dagstuhl Seminar 12472)

Weitere Beteiligte, Erik Elmroth, Michael Factor, Ethan Miller, and Margo Seltzer have self-archived Is the Future of Preservation Cloudy? (Dagstuhl Seminar 12472) in DROPS.

Here's an excerpt:

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 12472 "Is the Future of Preservation Cloudy?". Our seminar was composed of a series of panels structured as a series of brief presentations followed by an open discussion. The seminar started with a session introducing key concepts and definitions and illuminating the vast array of perspectives from which attendees were addressing issues of cloud and preservation. We them proceeded into a discussion of requirements from different types of communities and a subsequent discussion on how to protect the data and ensure its integrity and reliability. We next considered issues related to cloud infrastructure, in particular related to management of the bits and logical obsolescence. We also considered the economics of preservation and the ability to reuse knowledge. In addition to these pre-planned panels, we had three breakout sessions that were identified by the participants: automated appraisal, design for forgetting, and PaaS/SaaS for data preservation. After the executive summary, we present summaries of the panels and reports on the breakout sessions, followed by brief abstracts from a majority of the seminar participants describing the material they presented in the panels.

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What EDINA Does: A Community Report

EDINA has released What EDINA Does: A Community Report.

Here's an excerpt:

Universities and colleges across the UK making use of our services enjoy high quality online support documentation and helpful case studies. Flagship services include JISC MediaHub, Digimap Collections, and SUNCAT (with respective focus on multimedia, geo-spatial data and mapping for teaching and research, and the scholarly statement made in journals). . . .

What follows in this booklet also acts as a showcase for our current project activities; the key investments for present and future services. These include innovation to support use on the 'mobile Internet', both mobility and multi-platform delivery and interaction, as part of the national and international development of the 'spatial data infrastructure', including leadership in the citizen observatory (COBWEB) project funded by the EU. There is also significant contribution to the wider definition of digital infrastructure, geared to ensure ease and continuity of access, both for discovery and for stewardship (preservation) of the digital resources that research and education require, such as The Keepers Registry (for e-journals) and now the UK RepositoryNet+ initiative and its service components to assist universities and research institutes with the Open Access agenda and research reporting. More about the product of our research and development project activity is found in the project archive pages of our website.

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Implementing an Open Data Policy: A Primer for Research Funders

SPARC has released Implementing an Open Data Policy: A Primer for Research Funders.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This primer addresses key issues that these organizations encounter when considering the adoption and implementation of an open data policy. The guide covers big-picture topics such as how to decide on the range of activities an open data policy should cover. It also delves into areas of very specific concern, such as options for where data can be deposited, and how privacy and other concerns can be managed.

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Digital Curation Bibliography, 2012 Supplement

Digital Scholarship has released the Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works, 2012 Supplement, which presents over 130 English-language articles, books, and technical reports published in 2012 that are useful in understanding digital curation and preservation. This selective bibliography covers digital curation and preservation copyright issues, digital formats (e.g., media, e-journals, and research data), metadata, models and policies, national and international efforts, projects and institutional implementations, research studies, services, strategies, and digital repository concerns.

It is a supplement to the Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works, which covers over 650 works published from 2000 through 2011.

The bibliography includes links to freely available versions of included works. If such versions are unavailable, italicized links to the publishers' descriptions are provided.

The bibliography is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

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New York University Launches Initiative in Data Science and Statistics

New York University has launched its Initiative in Data Science and Statistics.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

New York University officially announced the launch of its Initiative in Data Science and Statistics. The university-wide effort includes the creation of the Center for Data Science, the first such program in the United States.

Taught by faculty from across the university, the Center for Data Science two-year master's graduate degree program will begin accepting applications in February 2013, with classes commencing this fall. NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences will house the Center for Data Science, and Yann LeCun, CIMS Silver Professor of Computer Science, Neural Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, will serve as its inaugural Director.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 2 (XHTML website; over 200 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

Presentations from the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee’s State of the Net Conference

The Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee has released presentations from the State of the Net conference.

Here's a description of the conference:

Attracting over 600 attendees annually, the State of the Net Conference provides unparalleled opportunities to network and engage on key policy issues. The State of the Net Conference is the largest information technology policy conference in the U.S. and the only one with over 50 percent Congressional staff and government policymakers in attendance. The State of the Net Conference is the only tech policy conference routinely recognized for its balanced blend of academics, consumer groups, industry and government.

Here's an example presentation: First Sale and No Resale: Could SCOTUS and the Internet Redefine Content Ownership? .

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

Research Data Management Survey: Report

Thomas Parsons, Shirley Grimshaw, and Laurian Williamson have self-archived Research Data Management Survey: Report in Nottingham ePrints.

Here's an excerpt:

The ADMIRe project is a JISC funded project designed to create a sustainable Research Data Management infrastructure at The University of Nottingham. . . .

As part of the requirements gathering phases, a survey was designed and disseminated to researchers across the University. This served multiple purposes:

  1. To baseline current RDM practices
  2. To gather the researcher's requirements for RDM
  3. Raise awareness for the prospective service and gauge interest levels for the proposed service.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 2 (XHTML website; over 200 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

National Digital Stewardship Alliance Glossary

The National Digital Stewardship Alliance has released the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Glossary.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Glossaries are important. . . .

With that in mind, today we're announcing the release of a National Digital Stewardship Alliance glossary to support the work being done in the NDSA on the Levels of Preservation. The Levels of Preservation activity is working to provide basic digital preservation guidance on how an organization should prioritize its resource allocation. The NDSA glossary strives to provide a common language for NDSA members to communicate about the levels work and should also be useful as a general digital stewardship glossary.

| Digital Curation Resource Guide (XHTML website; over 200 resources) | Digital Scholarship |

Model Language for Research Data Management Policies

The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries and the Southeastern Universities Research Association have released Model Language for Research Data Management Policies.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) and the Southeast Universities Research Association (SURA) have endorsed language to assist their member institutions in drafting sound policies to govern the uses and management of research data generated by university faculty and staff. . . .

Over the past few years, many major research funding agencies have started requiring a comprehensive data management plan as part of all new funding proposals. Additionally, researchers are seeking to re-use existing data sets to determine the replicability of results and reduce duplication of effort. The ASERL-SURA model draws upon the work of a variety of sources, including the University of Cambridge, Monash University, the Council on Government Relations, the National Science Board, and the National Science Foundation.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 2 (XHTML website; over 200 entries) | Digital Scholarship |

2013 Digging into Data Challenge Grants

JISC has announced the 2013 Digging into Data Challenge grant program.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Today, the third round of the Digging into Data Challenge, a grant competition designed to help develop digital research in the humanities and social sciences launches in Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and the United States. . . .

During the first two rounds of the Challenge, held in 2009 and 2011, nearly 150 teams, representing universities from across Canada, the Netherlands, the US, and the UK, competed to demonstrate how innovative research methods could be used to address questions in the humanities and social sciences. Twenty-two of those teams were awarded grants during those earlier rounds, each of them demonstrating new methods for analysing vast digital resources used for humanities and social science research, like digital books, survey data, economic data, newspapers, music, and other scholarly, scientific, and cultural heritage resources that are now being digitised on a huge scale.

Due to the overwhelming popularity of the earlier rounds, two additional funders have joined for round three, enabling this competition to have a world-wide reach into many different scholarly and scientific domains.

| Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 2 (XHTML website; over 200 entries) | Digital Scholarship |