1. Data Management Planning: what do researchers really need to know? Scoping digital repository services for research data management 20 October, Oxford Louise Corti UK Data Archive University of Essex

2. Supporting research data sharing

3. Overview Introduction Objectives of large scale Research Programme Data Management Policy Operating the Policy (getting tough) Role of the UKDA Outputs Challenges

4. Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU) The Research Programme is a large-scale unprecedented interdisciplinary collaboration between: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) National Environment Research Council (NERC) The programme has a budget of £24 million, with additional funding provided by government agencies:  Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)  Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department

5. Programme Objectives Rural areas in the UK are experiencing considerable change The Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU) aims to advance understanding of the challenges they face Interdisciplinary research is being funded 2004-2009 in order to inform future policy and practice with choices on how to manage the countryside and rural economies The Rural Economy and Land Use Programme enables researchers to work together to investigate the social, economic, environmental and technological challenges faced by rural areas The Programme aims to encourage social and economic vitality of rural areas and promote the protection and conservation of the rural environment

6. Six societal challenges public trust in food chains tackling animal and plant disease sustainable farming in the New Europe robust rural economics land management techniques to deal with climate change and invasive species managing land and water use for sustainable water catchments

7. Themes and data The Integration of Land and Water Use The Environmental Basis of Rural Development Sustainable Food Chains Economic and Social Interactions with the Rural Environment Programme is both using and creating a variety of data sources disparate types of data – social and environmental and biological data estimate some 80 datasets from Call 1 (8 major research projects and smaller scoping studies)

8. RELU data types Social data – people based Micro (survey) Household or individual level attributes, Behaviour, attitudes and options Business/company Farm level data Aggregated UK Census e.g. small area statistics, Retail statistics, Health indicators GIS/spatial data geographically referenced environmental databases Ordnance survey, Road networks, Settlement

9. RELU data types (cont.) water quality, land fill, air quality, emission levels soil data, eg mineral composition ecological data, animal and bird distributions agricultural census climate and meteorological data river flow data biochemical data relating to foods/habitats

10. RELU Data Management Policy Early on data management formally recognised by funders as critical builds on existing ESRC and NERC mandatory data policies aims to enhance the capabilities for interdisciplinarity and thus improves the ability of the research community to: apply learning from one field to another combine different methodological approaches and sources of information cross-fertilise ideas and concepts understand scientific, technological and environmental problems in their social and economic contexts www.relu.ac.uk/about/data.htm

11. Data Management Policy principles publicly funded research data are a valuable, long term resource to ensure maximum research exploitation data must be managed effectively from day-1 researchers must collect data in such a way as to ensure longer term sharing RELU funds will support data management through the life of the project data must be made available by researchers for archiving: Research Council supported data centres provide long-term, post-project data management

12. RELU Data Support Service set up to help oversee and implement the Programme's Data Management Policy and Data Management Plan provides a support service for RELU researchers and staff to gain information and guidance on issues surrounding longer-term data sharing and preservation joint support service run by: ESRC/JISC supported UK Data Archive at Essex (UKDA) The NERC-supported Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) funded initially for one year supporting one FTE and outreach activities: 1 Jan 05 – 31 Dec 05. Continuation to March 2008

13. RELU website

14. Outputs Getting wording of DM Plan and guidance right Web site to support completing application Web site to support completing plan once funded Workshops for new Principal Investigators Workshops for new researchers Best Practice Guide on Data Management Third party data information – costs, barriers, licensing Database of all data being created Acquire data, process and disseminate data Advice on data integration

15. Data Management Plan proforma to complete (Section 3 of the Project Communication and Data Management Plan) highlighting data management and custody issues at an early stage providing a basis for quality assurance within the Programme providing a basis from which award holders and the Programme Director can report and monitor project and overall RELU Programme progress

16. Information required from plan requirements for access to existing datasets details of new and derived datasets to be produced quality assurance of data formats and standards data description and documentation ethical, legal issues and IPR resolution data back-up procedures, security archiving data (for Research Council data archives) data management representative RELU-DSS helps support these areas

17. RELU awards database

18. Guidance on Data Management Produced glossy brochure What is Data Management? Data, metadata etc. Data Management strategies What is Digital Preservation? Making Back-ups Format Translation and Choice of Formats Security

19. Our experience This degree of formalisation is new to social science data in the UK UKDA operate a Datasets Policy for Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) but with less leverage upfront DMP and DM support ensures potential sharing issues to be clarified early on and support mid and end of project Greater awareness of data, metadata documentation, and data sharing….albeit grudgingly Integration of data is key for this programme

20. Other disciplines (UK) Policies Natural Environmental Research Council (6% of each Programme) Arts and Humanities Research Council ICT review (AHDS History) Biological Sciences Research Council NEW! Medical Research Council STILL WAITING! We hope to see DMPs applied to all major investment data-rich ESRC programmes

21. Data management and sharing advice and training Web site Joint council brochure Bespoke advisory service Training workshops Training materials Articles

22. Sharing options Advice on: ARCHIVING DATA AT THE UKDA Formalised archiving and preservation of data in a specialist data archive or centre that ensures the long-term secure safekeeping of and access to data SELF-ARCHIVING UKDA established its self-archiving facility, UKDA-store, in 2008, with support from ESRC and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). ‘Quicker and dirtier’ solution

23. UKDA-store

24. Modular aiming at specific and easy-to-read information to provide day creators/managers with best practice strategies and methods for creating a shareable dataset. relevant throughout the life span of a research project - from the initial award application, through the data creation phase to the end of the active research phase. modularised: How to share data Consent, confidentiality and ethics Copyright and other rights Data description and metadata Data formats and software Data storage, back-up and security

25. Messages data are valuable resources that can be used and re-used for future scientific and educational purposes sharing data facilitates research often beyond the scope of the original research, encourages scientific inquiry, avoids duplicate data collection and provides resources for education and training the ability to demonstrate continued usage of data after the original research is completed ensures that the research community gets the most out of publicly funded research. many research councils are now committed to a long-term strategy for data resource provision and for supporting UK researchers. The following have data policies: ESRC Data Policy (operated by ESDS at UKDA) British Academy The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Medical Research Council (MRC) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Wellcome Trust UKDA has years of expertise in implementing and training in best practices in data management and methods of data sharing most research data can be shared with other researchers!

26. Informing of options or data sharing Options: informally, via the data creator, on a peer-to-peer basis deposit in a specialist data centre, dedicated to archiving, preserving and disseminating digital data deposit in a self-archiving system deposit in an institutional repository Set out pros and cons for complex research data

27. Data management and sharing advice and training website

28. FAQs Answers to key questions on consent, confidentiality and anonymisation Most problematic areas: definitions and legal aspects gaining consent consent forms disclosure data sharing and confidentiality

29. Workshops Format - half to one day per module Group size max = 20 with 2 facilitators Example: Morning: dealing with confidential research information and consent agreements in research with people as participants (interviews, questionnaires, focus groups and so on). Afternoon session focuses on metadata and data documentation for archiving data

30. Materials Powerpoint presentations Groups: Short briefing I. Exercises on consent. Discusssion II. Exercises on anonymisation. Answers Group feedback and discussion Summary

31. Contacts Louise Corti corti@essex.ac.uk UK Data Archive University of Essex Colchester Essex www.esds.ac.uk