digital curation 101 (university of glamorgan)

… because good research needs good data

DCC 101, University of Glamorgan, 21 January 2013

Funded by:

Digital Curation 101

University of Glamorgan21 January 2013

Michael DayDigital Curation Centre

UKOLN, University of [email protected]

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/



Funded by:

Agenda• Part 1. Introduction to research data management:

activities, roles and requirements• Exercise: Data management quiz• Part 2. Developing data policies and services• Exercise: Developing a roadmap• Part 3: DMP Online tool and guidance

• With thanks to Joy Davidson, Sarah Jones and Kerry Miller (DCC)



Funded by:

Introduction to Research Data Management: activities, roles and

requirements Michael Day and Kerry Miller

Digital Curation Centre

UKOLN, University of Bath

[email protected]




Funded by:

A Quick Introduction• What is research data management? • Who is involved and how? • What skills and support are needed?



Funded by:

What is Research Data Management?• Caring for,• Facilitating access to,• Preserving and • Adding value to digital

research data throughout its lifecycle.



Funded by:

Typical Activities• Creation and sharing of data

• File naming and description

• Dealing appropriately with sensitive data

• Data storage

• Appraisal, selection and disposal

• Data licensing

• Data management planning



Funded by:

What are the main drivers?• National and international policy development

• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development describes data as a public good that should be made available

• Research Councils UK in its Code of Good Research Conduct says data should be preserved and accessible for 10 years +

• The data management policies of funding bodies are increasingly demanding of institutional commitment and provisions ...

• The needs of• Researchers

• Institutions



Funded by:

Benefits to researchers• Scholarly communication/access to data • Re-purposing and re-use of data • Stimulating new networks/collaborations & • new research • Knowledge transfer to industry • Verification of research/research integrity • Re-purposing data for new audiences • Secure storage for data intensive research • Availability of data underpinning journal articles • Increased visibility/citation

Keeping Research Data Safe Factsheet http://www.beagrie.com/KRDS_Factsheet_0910.pdf Keeping Research Data Safe Factsheet http://www.beagrie.com/KRDS_Factsheet_0910.pdf



Funded by:

The researcher perspective• Managing and sharing data is simply part of good

research:• Adhering to disciplinary and/or institutional codes of practice

and policies• Has been practiced since the advent of modern science, but

not always consistently; data intensive research makes it even more critical

• Meeting the specific requirements of funding bodies

• Reputational risks if data management is not handled properly



Funded by:

Institutional drivers• Safeguarding research integrity• Increasing number of FOI requests for data• Adhering to existing codes of research practice and ethics • Developing new institution-wide strategies, policies and services

for data storage and management• Increased institutional focus on research management (e.g., in

response to REF) • Benchmarking – self-assessing infrastructure and planning for

improvement • More demands but less resources to work with



Funded by:

Research codes of practice (1)• UK Research Integrity Office Code of Practice for

Research (2009)Data management planning is an essential part of research design

Organisations should have in place procedures, resources (including physical space) and administrative support to assist researchers in the accurate and efficient collection of data and its storage in a secure and accessible form [3.12.5]



Funded by:

Research codes of practice (2)• RCUK Code of Conduct on the Governance of Good

Research Conduct (2011)Primary data and research evidence [should be made] accessible to others for reasonable periods after the completion of the research: data should normally be preserved and accessible for 10 yrs (in some cases 20 yrs or longer)

Responsibility for proper management and preservation of data and primary materials is shared between the researcher and the research organisation [although deposit within national collections is endorsed]



Funded by:

Research funding bodies• UK Research Councils

• Help fund some data archives, e.g.:• Archaeology Data Service, European Bioinformatics

Institute, the NERC data centres, UK Data Archive• Support for JISC (and DCC)• RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy

• Recognises that data are a critical output of the research process

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



Funded by:

RCUK Principles (in a nutshell)• Publicly funded research data should be made openly available

• Data with acknowledged long-term value should be preserved and remain accessible and usable for future research

• Sufficient metadata should be recorded to enable other researchers to find and understand the research to enable re-use; published results should always include information on how to access the supporting data

• Recognition that there may be legal, ethical and commercial constraints

• Recognition that researchers may need privileged use of data for a limited period

• All users of research data should acknowledge their sources

• Appropriate to use public funds to support MRD



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Funder expectations• Institutions need to inform themselves about main

funder policies (mandates) with respect to research data management

• There is an explicit link between research income and appropriate data management infrastructures



Funded by:

Funder policies

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



Funded by:

EPSRC expectations (1)• EPSRC policy (2011) expected all institutions

receiving grant funding:• To develop a roadmap aligning their policies and processes

with EPSRC’s expectations by 1st May 2012• To be fully compliant with these expectations by 1st May

2015



Funded by:

EPSRC expectations (2)• Appropriate metadata (including unique IDs) to be made

freely available on the Internet within 12 months of data generation

• Data not generated in digital format should be stored in a manner to facilitate it being shared

• Data should be securely preserved for a minimum of 10 years after privileged access expires or the last date access was requested by a third party

• Adequate resources from existing funding streams• EPSRC will monitor progress and compliance, and reserves

the right to impose appropriate sanctions



Funded by:

Implications for researchers• Increasing number of research councils and funding bodies with data

management and sharing requirements

• Potential loss of research income if these mandates are not met

• Need to determine the costs associated with short and longer-term management and curation and to request funds as part of grant

• Responsibility for infrastructure shifting more to HEIs and less to centralised data archives, but institutional infrastructures and services are still emerging

• Need guidance - some good external support

• But also need more local support; often fragmented (need to draw upon existing channels within your institution wherever possible)



Funded by:

Activities, roles, requirements (1)• Requirements gathering

• Identifying researchers’ data requirements• Developing a shared understanding of what needs to be

done (e.g., identifying where data exist, its form and scale, any existing retention requirements)

• Identifying good practice within the institution (and the opposite)

• Methods: surveys, focus groups, case studies, joint R&D projects, assessment tools (e.g. DAF)



Funded by:

Activities, roles, requirements (2)• Identifying motivations and benefits

• For researchers, support services, the institution

• Identifying risks• Data loss (institution, research group, individual)• Increased costs (lack of planning, service inefficiency, data

loss)• Legal compliance (research funder, H&S, ethics, FoI)• Reputation (institution, unit, individual)

• Identifying costs• Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) toolkit



Funded by:

Activities, roles, requirements (3)• Assessing institutional preparedness

• Identifying institutional stakeholders, existing data support services, gaps

• Benchmarking and planning for the future

• Skills audit

• DCC CARDIO tool

• Policy development• Policies – approval by senior management is just the start; policies

need to be embedded in research practice and responsive to changing requirements

• Data management planning• DMP online, DCC How-to Develop a Data Management Plan guide



Funded by:

Activities, roles, requirements (4)• Implementation and service development

• Integrating where possible with existing services, e.g. IR, CRIS, VRE, HPC, cloud services, social media, etc.

• Appraisal, deciding what needs to be kept and for how long• Storage choices – no one-size-fits-all solution, e.g. Bristol’s

BluePeta petascale storage facility, Bath’s X-Drive approach, cloud approaches

• Data documentation and metadata – layered approaches: top-level discovery (core metadata, collection/experiment-level?), role of standards like DCMI, CERIF, DDI, etc.



Funded by:

Activities, roles, requirements (5)• Data issues:

• Appraisal: selection criteria, retention periods (who decides?)• DCC How to appraise and select research data for

curation guide• Documentation: metadata, schema, semantics• Formats: proprietary formats, community standards, etc.• Provenance and authenticity• Citation (assignment of persistent IDs?) • Access (embargo policies?)• Licensing

• DCC How to license research data guide



Funded by:

Who are involved?• Funding bodies• Archives / long-term data repositories• At institutions:

• Senior management• Researcher(s)• Research support officers / project staff• Lab technicians• Librarians / Data Centre staff• Faculty ethics committees• Institutional legal / IP advisors• FOI officer / DPA officer / records manager• Computing support• Institutional compliance officers



Funded by:

Approaching the Issue• What data exist and are being created?• Where are greatest recoups on investment available?

• Training?• Storage?• Policy development

• What are the requirements?• Who needs to be involved?



Funded by:

Making the most of what we’ve got

• Local expertise more widespread than you think• Ethics committees

• Data protection office

• IT Services

• Repository Service

• If you need help, ask!

From University of Glasgow’s Data Management micro-site



Funded by:

Data management planning• A plan to address critical data management issues:

• What data will be created (format, types) and how?

• How will the data be documented and described?

• How will ethics and intellectual property considerations be addressed?

• What are the plans for data sharing and access?

• What is the strategy for long-term preservation?



Funded by:

Integrating is a tricky business• Make a sound case for investing in data management training • Draw upon existing policies and mandates wherever you can• Spend some time identifying current data holdings, researchers’

practice and future training needs• Make sure you are putting your effort where it will count• Don’t reinvent the wheel – augment or adapt existing training

and support materials with data management aspects



Funded by:

What the DCC can help with

Delivering support

Customised Data Management Plans – templates / guidance to be added to DMP Online

Training – institutional/disciplinary tailored courses, online resources

Incremental – repackaging existing support to raise awareness and make guidance more meaningful to researchers

Developing strategic institutional RDM framework

Strategy development – getting key people together to discuss/plan for RDM

Policy development – scoping, defining, embedding research data policies

Costing - assist with the development of costing and pricing for RDM services

Risk management - identify risks in RDM practice and recommend mitigations

Institutional data catalogues - recommend options for exposing metadata about your research data via CRIS systems, repositories, or a mix of these

Needs assessment

CARDIO Tool– collaborative assessment & benchmarking of RDM strengths/weaknesses

Data Asset Framework – interviews to scope current RDM practice and recommend improvements

Workflow assessment – methodology for analysing current RDM workflows



Funded by:

Exercise: How are you performing?• Individually, complete the quick data management

quiz (5 mins)• Compare results, try to learn from those with

confidence in those areas in which you consider yourself to be weaker (10 mins)

• Based on your group’s discussions... • Write down one practical thing you can do at work in order to

edge towards an A.



Funded by:

Part 2:Developing data policies and

services

Based on a presentation prepared by Sarah Jones (Digital Curation Centre)

[email protected]



Funded by:

Outline• Who is responsible for RDM?

• What are the components of a data service?

• Learning lessons from other HEIs

• Developing roadmaps



Funded by:

Who is responsible for RDM?

Research Organisations

Funders

Data centres

Advisory bodies

Support services

Researchers

Publishers



Funded by:

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



Funded by:

Data storage – Bristol example

Blue Peta at Bristol

• £2m funding to date• Petascale facility – expandable• 3 machine rooms – resilience (tape archive 2012)• Available to all researchers for research data

http://data.bris.ac.uk

1st 5TB free per Data Steward then £400 per TB p.a. for disk storage; tape backup £40 per TB



Funded by:

Tools – an ‘academic dropbox’

National level negotiation via Janet brokerage?

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

http://tiny.cc/owncloud-pilot



Funded by:

Archiving – institutional data repositories

Not intended to replace national, subject or other

established data collections

Acknowledgment of 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



Funded by:

Archiving – external data centresResearch funders’ data centres…

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

Structured databases

Disciplinary& community initiatives



Funded by:

Data catalogues (metadata)

Develop a research dataextension to the CERIF standard

JISC & DCC planning national coordinationCan we learn lessons from overseas?

http://cerif4datasets.wordpress.com

• DataFinder at Oxford

• DDI metadata by ResearchData@Essex



Funded by:

Guidance and trainingCollate guidancewww.gla.ac.uk/datamanagement

Online traininghttp://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra

Embed into curriculum via Doctoral Training Centres e.g. Research360@Bathhttp://blogs.bath.ac.uk/research360



Funded by:

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

Disciplinary training (RDMTrain)



Funded by:

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



Funded by:

How are others developing policies?

Theme from MRD workshop in Leeds:

High level policy (ratified)

+

User guides, practical support

+

RDM Infrastructure

http://tiny.cc/MRD-policy-workshop

Developing data policies: a trend for 2012

http://tiny.cc/PolicyNews

(news post from Dec 2011)



Funded by:

Policy development

“EPSRC expects all those it funds to have developed a clear roadmap to align their policies and processes with EPSRC’s

expectations by 1st May 2012, and to be fully compliant with these expectations by 1st May 2015.”

www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/standards/researchdata/Pages/impact.aspx



Funded by:

What is the EPSRC looking for?

• Know what you hold – publish metadata

• Link publications and data

• Share data wherever possible

• Curate and preserve valuable data

http://tiny.cc/EPSRC-data-policy

The same as other funders (i.e. good research practice) so think broadly when you develop your strategy



Funded by:

Exercise: Developing a roadmap for RDM

Think about the potential components of a RDM service

Based on the strengths/weaknesses you identified in the quiz:

• Draft a list of actions needed at your institution

• Attempt to prioritise your list and pencil in timeframes (consider quick wins!)

• Decide who needs to be involved to make this happen?



Funded by:

Part 3DMP Online tool and guidance

Based on a presentation prepared by Sarah Jones and Joy Davidson (DCC)

[email protected]



Funded by:

Funders have DMP requirements

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



Funded by:

Funding body requirements• Typically a short (c.1-2 pp) statement, covering:

• What data will be created (format, types, volume, avoidance of duplication)

• Standards and methodologies to be used (including metadata)

• How ethics and Intellectual Property will be addressed• Plans for data sharing and access • Strategy for long-term preservation



Funded by:

DCC support• Guidance• Examples• Tools



Funded by:

What is DMP Online? • A web-based tool to help researchers write plans• It features:

• Templates based on different requirements • Tailored guidance (disciplinary, funder etc) • Customised exports to a variety of formats• Ability to share DMPs with others

• https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk



Funded by:

Start a plan Pick relevant

fundertemplate

Get a list of their

specific questions



Funded by:

Create a plan at the

bid stage

...answer the questions based on initial researchideas



Funded by:

Once funded, flesh the plan

out(roles, etc)

...answer the questions based on detailed workplan



Funded by:

When project is finished

...answer the questions based on the outputs that are beingkept



Funded by:

Institutional customisation

Select desired questions

Add your logo, URL, colours

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/blog/tailoring-dmp-online-for-your-institution

Profile local support, boilerplate text



Funded by:

Links to specific examples

Thinks about why the questions are

being asked – what are funders looking

for?

Gives examples, local if possible

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/content/datamanagement/dmp/framework.html



Funded by:

Top tips• Encourage researchers to start early - not wait

until the last minute!• The plan will - and should - change over life of

project.• Get other support staff involved - ethics, IT,

library, RM, DP/FoI• Update the plan with project updates• Use plan as a communication tool - with

partners, funding bodies and yourself!



Funded by:

Thank you!

Any questions?

Michael Day,Digital Curation Centre

UKOLN, University of [email protected]


digital curation 101 (university of glamorgan)

Documents

good dataresearch

good dataepsrc

research data

developing

data management

good data

research data

data exist