1. Researcher needs – a
researchers perspective
Andy Turner
Turner, A.G.D. (2014) Researcher needs – a researchers perspective. Presentation slides for the Jisc,
RLUK, SCONUL, UCISA, ARMA and RUGIT Directions for Research Data Management in UK Universities
Meeting, Cambridge, 2014-11-06, http://bit.ly/RDMRP14
2. Outline
● Researchers
● Research
● Research data
● Researcher needs
● Key issues
● Personal reflections
3. Researchers
● Individuals
o Professionals
Career stage
Status
Roles
● Leaders, assistants
o Students
Postgraduates
Undergraduates
4. ● Organisations
o Research groups/centres/institutes
Multi-institutional
● Multi-national
● UK based
Within institutions
o Status
o Structure and support
o Sustainability
5. Research
● Vast range of subjects
o STEM
o Social Science
o Arts and Humanities
o Language
● Directly funded projects
o Range of funding organisations
Publicly funded
Privately funded
6. ● Indirectly funded projects
● Ethics
o Research Data Management (RDM)
● Learning can be messy
● Types of research
o Practical, Theoretical
o Goal driven, Curiosity driven
o Qualitative, Quantitative, Experimental
7. Research Data
● Reference/source/input data
● Derived data
● New data
● Observations and measurements
● Synthetically generated data
● Reproducible
o Practicalities
o Non-reproducible data
8. ● Curators and archivists
o Academic, Government, Galleries, Libraries,
Archives, Museums, Private
● Open data
● Restricted access data
● Big data
o Volume, Variety, Velocity, Veracity, Value
9. Physical research data
● Samples
○ Soil
○ Human tissue
○ Physical artefacts and compilations
■ Old manuscripts
■ Film
● Apparatus for accessing and viewing
research data
10. Digital research data
● Two main categories
o Data not about people
o Data about people
Personal data
● Confidentiality
● Disclosure control
Anonymised/pseudonymised
● Data about places
11. Researcher needs
● Researchers need resources to survive as
researchers
o Are good Data Management Planning and RDM
rewarded commensurately?
● RDM needs vary depending on
o The role, skills, experience and status of
researchers
o Researchers awareness of the resources they can
use to support and develop their research
12. ● Researchers applying for funding are
expected to budget for research storage and
in many cases develop a DMP as part of the
application process
o Some may need more help with this than others in
order to be successful
13. ● Researchers working on research projects
should
o Develop and implement the projects DMP
Organise the projects data
Develop metadata
o Consider the difficulties others may encounter in
retracing their work
Conclusions are stronger if they can be verified
and subject to further closer scrutiny
14. ● Researchers should
o Develop an awareness of and adopt open principles
Use of open standards
Use and development of (sustainable) open
source software that is well tested and
documented
Open access publishing
● Appropriate credit for research data
developed in projects that is used by others
15. Key issues
● Research data sharing
o What new research is enabled?
What new discoveries and developments can be
based in part on the research data you make
available/curate
o When to share and how to share?
o Due credit
● Storage
o Physical storage
16. o Digital storage
o How much protection do we need for storage?
The more protection the greater the cost
o Some research will generate or require the storage
of very large volumes of digital data
Enormous volumes of active research data in
computational simulations
o Long term archiving
How long term?
17. o Will the application for research project funding be
uncompetitive if the costs for data storage are not
minimised by taking greater risks with regard data
storage?
o What to store and what to decide to destroy and
when?
● Metadata
● Software
● Validation and verification
18. ● Metric, credit and funding
● e-Infrastructure
o EU, National, Regional, Institutional
● Personal data, ethics and further research
● Data re-use
● Sustainability and risk
19. Personal reflections
● Mess
o Stan’s stroke
o Death of the webserver
o It all went down the portal again!
● Best practise
● Research Data Leeds
● Ethical dilemmas
o Consent and valuable data
20. Notes
● Directions for Research Data Management
in UK Universities Meeting, Cambridge,
November 2014
o http://bit.ly/D4RDM14