equipment.data - The challenges of developing standards Adrian Cox, Project Manager, equipment.data & Andrew Milsted, Web Developer, equipment.data 30 th April

2 Research Facilities and Equipment Sharing

UNIQUIP – “Defining standards for the publication of research facilities and equipment data” Established network of interest across HE for development of equipment databases Established foundation for a national equipment data portal (equipment.data launched in April 2013) Further developed the N8 taxonomy for equipment categorisation – Augmenting with CPV codes Created standard vocabulary for equipment and facility databases – The “UNIQUIP Data Publishing Specification” 3

The UNIQUIP Data Publishing Specification 4

Practice what you preach! The University of Southampton database 5

University of Southampton Database Example search result - Facility 6

Issues faced for equipment sharing Ownership – Who are the stakeholders and what is their responsibility? Data sustainability – Where is the data captured? Who updates the entries? Related procedures e.g. asset Management? Can this be included in a current process? What is the impact? Adoption – Gaining buy-in to use e.g. What’s in it for me? 7

Agresso Fixed Asset Module development New “Equipment” and “Facilities” screens 8

What are the benefits of this development? It provides a more sustainable integrated approach to the data management process It will improve data ownership (therefore quality) engaging stakeholders in the asset lifecycle It delivers asset verification process efficiencies (including engaging academics through publication) Reduces need for management of an additional database – Equipment database is driven by asset register data It enables direct contribution to equipment.data 9

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It’s easy to start contributing:  Publish core minimum data to UNIQUIP data publishing specification (RCUK’s preferred standard)  Make your data discoverable and agree to publish openly It’s generating benefits:  Creating a “shop window” for UK HE equipment  Delivering sector standards creating efficiencies in asset management process  improving discoverability of data.  Working to aggregate with Gateway to Research – improving data richness and analytics to demonstrate impact It’s supporting and promoting standards:  Working with Jisc, CASRAI, Gateway to Research and CERIF 11

equipment.data – National Equipment Portal Example search results 12

Status Report – Contributors and data statistics 13

What is an Organisation Profile Document? 14 A RDF Document that describes the organisation, General information provided: Official name Postal address Contact phone number The correct logo Website Physical location Links to the parts of the organisation, Admissions, Alumni, Freedom of Information, Complaints Links to the organisation’s Open Data Service The equipment dataset

What is an Organisation Profile Document? 15 Machine Readable Version!

What is an Organisation Profile Document? 16 Human Readable Version!

OPDs and Auto-discovery 17 Dataset publicly available on website. Dataset has to be added manually along with all the institutions details, contacts etc Requires staff time (especially if any dataset changes location) Organisation has an OPD linking to dataset The OPD has to be added manually, but the dataset location and institution info is consumed directly from the OPD. Requires less staff time (as any changes made to OPD will get updated) Link to OPD from organisation’s home page OPD autodiscovered, so the dataset is automatically added to the service. Requires no staff time (as data is autodiscover)

Compliance and Sustainability BronzeSilverGold Data is on the internet and in an acceptable format. ✔✔✔ Description of dataset is provided by a remotely hosted OPD ✔✔ The OPD is discovered via autodiscovery. ✔ The OPD/dataset has a recognised and supported open licence (eg CCO, ODCA or OGL) ✔ 18

Related initiatives and developments Higher Education Data & Information Improvement Programmed (HEDIIP) CASRAI (UK “Dictionary” for research data)  “Equipment” profile working group to be formed Gateway to Research (GtR)  Working with equipment.data to establish added value from data sharing – potential to demonstrate impact CERIF (euroCRIS)  Standardisation of vocabularies in research repositories Jisc Research Information Management (RIM) Group  Knowledge sharing and standards promotion 19

….and finally, you will see us at ARMA 20

Thank you! 21