1. Research Data Management at University of Aberdeen & RGU 7 th October 2014 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland License Deciding what to keep …and where to keep it Angus Whyte Digital Curation Centre

2. Outline Why select, rather than ‘file and forget’! Take five steps to inform your choise… ①Think. What could be reused for what purpose? ②Recognise compliance risks ③(Gu)estimate long-term value ④Judge the cost factors ⑤Decide – what action needed The onus is on you, but it’s a partnership So what tools and practical help do you need?

3. Storage Strategies Good practice Weigh up risks, Value, and costs Select, share, safeguard what you can afford to, or dispose of it Findable Accessible Interoperable Reusable FAIR Principles www.force11.org/group/fairgroup Bad practice Keep everything until… lost by natural wastage Fragmented Risking unauthorised disclosure or loss Bit rot Media degradation Obsolescence (software, device, format, media) Fire, flood, theft Organisation failure

4. Why not keep it all? 4 Globally, data volumes are doubling every two years John Gantz and David Reinsel 2011 Extracting Value from Chaos www.emc.com/digital_universe.

5. Data volumes escalate 5 Volumes rising faster in data-intensive research domains e.g. DNA sequence data is doubling every 6-8 months “ELIXIR and Open Data” View from an ELIXIR Node” Barend Mons, ELIXIR Launch event, 18th Dec 2013ELIXIR and Open Data

6. Storage mgmt costs rise long-term 6 David Rosenthal blog.dshr.org/2012/05/lets-just-keep-everything-forever-in.htmlblog.dshr.org/2012/05/lets-just-keep-everything-forever-in.html Hardware costs decline, but power and staff costs keep rising

7. While data availability declines 7 Nature News 19 Dec 2013 www.nature.com/news/scientists-losing-data-at-a-rapid-rate-1.14416

8. What to do? 8 Data appraisal… a ‘later stage’ plan for your data ①Could this data be re-used ②Must it be kept to manage compliance risk ③Should it be kept for its potential value and… ④Considering costs ⑤Will ✔ or won’t ✗ it be kept, shared on what terms Researchers guidance & attractive choices Institutions Managed storage External repositories

9. 9 Some data may be part of research record, evidence for e.g. … Audit purposes Health & Safety (Lab book) Contractual requirement Jisc Infonet Guidance on Managing Research Records tools.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/downloads/bcs-rrs/managing-research-records.pdf Compliance also about data that won’t be kept, or may only be shared with approved researchers… Research Ethics, Duty of Confidentiality, Data Protection Act, Human Rights Act, Statistics & Registration Services Act. UK Data Archive: http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/create-manage/consent-ethics/legal What counts here? Depends on purposes data has been used for Step 1 (?) What ‘must’ be kept?

10. 10 “Data with acknowledged long-term value ” RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy “Data, information and other electronic resources of long- term interest” ESRC UK Data Archive Collections Development Policy “Where data underpins published research there is much greater expectation that it will be kept” Ben Ryan, EPSRC What about Funding Body data policies? What counts depends on data’s value for purposes it has served or may serve, so consider these as first step.

11. Step 1 (?) What ‘must’ be kept? Don’t forget Journal policies… “An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. Therefore, a condition of publication in a Nature journal is that authors are required to make materials, data and associated protocols promptly available to readers without undue qualifications. …Nature journals reserve the right to refuse publication in cases where authors do not provide adequate assurances that they can comply with the journal's requirements for sharing materials. http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/availability.html “Changemakers are journals with high impact factors….Progressive policies are not widespread, but are being adopted rapidly” Victoria Stodden “Re-use and Reproducibility:Opportunities and Challenges” Open Repositories, 2013

12. Step 2 1 What could it be reused for? 12 1.Verification 2.Further analysis 3.Reputation building 4.Resource development 5.Further publications inc. data articles 6.Learning and teaching materials 7.Private reference Step back and reflect – typical reuse purposes Then relative to these, which data must be kept and which data and related materials will have significant value?

13. e.g. High Energy Physics community Levels of data to preserveReuse purpose 1)Additional documentation (e.g. wikis, news forums) Publication-related information search 2)Data in a simplified formatOutreach, simple training analyses 3)Analysis level software and the data format Full scientific analysis based on existing reconstruction 4)Reconstruction and simulation software and basic level data Full potential of the experimental data Adapted from: DPHEP Study Group: Towards a Global Effort for Sustainable Data Preservation in High Energy Physics, May 2012. http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.4667

14. Step 3 What data should have value 14 1.Quality of the data and its description complete, accurate, reliable, valid, representative etc 2.Demand high known users, integration potential, reputation, recommendation, appeal 3.Replication difficulty difficult, costly, or impossible to reproduce 4.Low barriers legal/ ethical, copyright non-restrictive terms and conditions 5.Rarity unique copy or other copies at risk Indicators that data have value Which related material does data depend on for its value?

15. Step 4 Cost factors 15 Consider these when deciding what to keep because Costs incurred during project may add to the data’s value Need to make sure post-project costs are covered 1.Creation, collection & cleaning 2.Short-term storage & backup 3.Short-term access & security 4.Team communication & development 5.Preservation & long-term access What action needs to be taken to ensure preservation is costed?

16. Step 5 Your data appraisal 16 Establish a clear idea of what data needs packaged at end 1.Title, contributors, description, access rights * 2.Reuse purpose(s) 3.Value for purpose 4.Risk of budget shortfall 5.Keep it or not? * 6.Reasons for disposal * 7.Actions to prepare for preservation or disposal * What anyone outside the project most needs to know (but the rest will help)

17. Who should help appraise? RLUK ‘skills gaps’ survey of Subject Librarians & Managers “ …nine key areas where future involvement by Subject Librarians is considered to be important now and is al so expected to grow sharply… 1.Ability to advise on preserving research outputs (49% see as essential in 2-5 years; 10% now) 2.Knowledge to advise on data management and curatio n, (48% essential in 2-5 years; 16% now)…” Mary Auckland 2012 Reskilling Libraries for Research

18. Who else? Others who may be involved in appraising research data… Domain specialists Archives Research Office- Business development IT Support/ Research Computing Research Ethics Committee Records Management/ FOI Compliance Facilities Managers (if physical samples involved)

19.  Secure managed storage/ disposal  Institutional Data catalogue Most universities establishing  Institutional data repository If nowhere else it can go  Help to find external repository Where should it go? 19 Go Institutions aiming to offer a range of options

20.  General directories Re3data.org Databib.org  Domain specific directories e.g. life sciences – Biosharing.orgBiosharing.org  Data journal recommendations Edinburgh research data blog: Sources of dataset peer reviewSources of dataset peer review  Funding body recommendations E.g. Wellcome Trust Data repositories and database sourcesData repositories and database sources Finding external repositories 20 Go