because good research needs good data Research Data Management for Researchers University of Aberdeen 7 th October 2014 Jonathan Rans Digital Curation Centre This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland License.

What will we cover? 1.Definitions that we work to 2.What does the EPSRC expect of you and your institution? 3.How can these requirements be satisfied and how are other institutions addressing them?

Who we are The (Est. 2004) is: » A national-level centre of expertise in digital preservation with a particular focus on Research Data Management (RDM) » Based across three sites – Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bath » Working closely with a number of UK institutions to boost RDM capability across the HE sector » Also involved in a variety of national and international collaborations

Definition of research data Data are representations of observations, objects, or other entities used as evidence of phenomena for the purposes of research or scholarship C.L. Borgman (2015). Big Data, Little Data, No Data: Scholarship in the Networked World. MIT Press

So, what might this include? Anything & everything produced in the course of research

Data management expectations “Data arising from MRC-funded research must be properly curated throughout its life-cycle…”

What is research data management? Research data management is an explicit process covering the creation and stewardship of research materials to enable their use for as long as they retain value. - A. Whyte and J. Rans DCC

DCC lifecycle model

A simplified data lifecycle Data Management Planning Creation Use Appraisal Deposit and Publication Discovery and Reuse PlanCreateUseAppraise Deposit and Publish Discover and Reuse

RCUK Principles 1.Data as freely and openly available as possible 2.Data Management Plans required, preservation of long-term data is required 3.Appropriate metadata should be made openly available 4.Acknowledgement of constraints on data release 5.Dataset users should acknowledge sources 6.Limited period of privileged access 7.It is appropriate to use public funds to support preservation and management of data

The role of the institution “The modern data-rich environment for research and learning and the open culture that is needed to exploit it presents new challenges for Universities… creating a setting that will encourage researchers to adapt their ways of working and… implementing strategies to manage the knowledge that they create.” Science as an open enterprise - The Royal Society 2012 p.71

Components of an RDM service

Institutions investing in managed storage for active data are making substantial amounts available free Institutional collaborative platforms 5 TB 1 TB0.5 TB

What is best practice for handling files? » Adopt file naming conventions: » » Design a good project folder structure » file-plan file-plan How can I share sensitive data? » ethics/anonymisation ethics/anonymisation » ethics/consent ethics/consent What support is there for data cleaning?

Training materials » » What help is there with data protection issues? » Institutional FOI and IP advice »

UCL sensitive data service Information governance advice Data safe haven Training and Awareness service

curation-systems/

“Sufficient metadata must be provided to enable the dataset to be used by others. Agreed best practice standards for metadata provision should be adopted where these are in place.” sharing/Guidance-for-researchers/index.htm

What metadata should be captured? » Minimum » metadata/ metadata/ » Discovery » Readme file content » Use » Data Documentation Initiative » DCC Metadata Catalogue

Do I need to archive non-digital data? How can I make data citable and get credit for sharing it? » Digital objects must have an associated DOI » Orcid profiles can integrate with institutional infrastructure »

What if I want to host my own data? » Making the case for preserving a live database » services/dmps-arts-and-humanities services/dmps-arts-and-humanities » Using an institutional repository as a back-end » services/repository-radar services/repository-radar How do I cost my RDM activities? » 4C project » » UKDA costing tool » archive.ac.uk/media/247429/costingtool.pdfhttp:// archive.ac.uk/media/247429/costingtool.pdf

Thank-you! Image Credits 4 Quadrants of research data: Stuart Lewis, Edinburgh University, Metadata devil: Jonathan