Because good research needs good data Funded by: Digital Curation for Researchers, 28th February 2013 The Shifting Research Data Management Policy Landscape Joy Davidson and Sarah Jones Digital Curation Centre, Glasgow

Because good research needs good data Funded by: Digital Curation for Researchers, 28th February 2013 Digital Curation Centre Jisc-funded consortium comprising units from the Universities of Bath (UKOLN) Edinburgh (DCC Centre) Glasgow (HATII) Launched 1 st March 2004 as a national centre for solving challenges in digital curation that could not be tackled by any single institution or discipline

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 “the active management and appraisal of data over the lifecycle of scholarly and scientific interest” Data have importance as the evidential base of scholarly conclusions Curation is part of good research practice What is data curation?

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Take a minute and jot down something that you think qualifies as ‘data’. But, what is data?

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Research data can be anything! models and visualisations Workflows (Taverna, MyExperiment) databases raw data (captured from instruments) cleaned data (anonymised) blogs, tweets images audio Whatever researchers are producing!

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Why does anyone need to curate data? declaration data are a public good and should be openly available Code of good research conduct data should be preserved and accessible for 10 years + Funders’ data policies and-legal/funders-data-policies Common principles on data policy DataPolicy.aspx

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Funders’ data policies

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Not just sticks, there are carrots too! More citations: 69% ↑ (Piwowar, 2007 in PLoS) Help prevent data loss Easier to do your work… Enable validation of results

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Who is responsible for RDM? Research Organisations Funders Data centres Advisory bodies Support services Researchers Publishers

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Components of a research data service RDM policies Archive Preserve & Share Advocacy (senior mgmt & researcher ) £ Storage Back-up Access Training and guides Support staff & services Research environment & systems Tools Metadata and documentation

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Components of a research data service RDM policies

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Early research data policies “Statement of commitment”  Infrastructure  policy “10 commandments” mutual promises aspirational Baseline of RCUK Code + procedures & support legal compliance style a section in uni DM policy useful guide as appendix Based on Edin. with a few additions

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Key questions: what data will be created? how much storage is needed? where will data be stored in the short and longer term? are there ethical issues that require consent? Most funders expect data management & sharing plans at the grant application stage! Data Management Planning

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Components of a research data service Research environment & systems Tools

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Data management planning

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Storing data Key questions: What is available? What facilities is needed? -remote access to work from home -file sharing with others -high-levels of security for sensitive data How will the data be backed up?

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Active research stage – an ‘academic dropbox’ National level negotiation via Janet brokerage? Piloted at Lincoln & Edinburgh

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Key questions: What information do users need to understand the data? - descriptions of all variables / fields and their values - code labels, classification schema, abbreviations list - information about the project and data creators - tips on usage e.g. exceptions, quirks, questionable results How will this capture this and who will capture/record it? Are there standards that need to be followed? Metadata & documentation

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Guidance: Create metadata at the time – it’s hard to do later Use standards for interoperability Develop processes so everyone does the same Record contextual information in a text file (such as a ‘read me’ file) in the same directory as the data Think about how to name, structure & version your files

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Components of a research data service Archive Preserve & Share

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Key questions: What data must be kept? (for validation, etc) What must not be kept? (e.g. personal data) Is it worth keeping the data? – cost/benefits Where will the data be kept? Selecting what to keep

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Archiving – institutional data repositories Not intended to replace national, subject or other established data collections Acknowledge hybrid environment / Essex-RDR and DataPool at Southampton

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Archiving – external data centres Research funders’ data centres… List of data centres: Structured databases Disciplinary& community initiatives

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Data catalogues (finding data) Develop a research data extension to the cerif standard JISC & DCC planning National coordination

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 GU research data catalogue

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Components of a research data service Training and guides

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Guidance and training

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Disciplinary training (RDMTrain)

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Good data management is about making informed decisions

Because good research needs good data Digital Curation for Researchers, 27th February 2013 Any questions? For DCC guidance, tools and case studies see: Follow us on and #ukdcc