Presentation given by Marieke Guy at the ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th July 2013, London

1. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Marieke Guy
Digital Curation Centre
m.guy@ukoln.ac.uk
Funded by:
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Bridging the gap between
researchers and research data
management

2. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Research data
• Data, or units of information which are created in the
course of funded or unfunded research
• The highest priority research data is that which underpins
a research output
• Facts, statistics, qualitative, quantitative, not published
research output, discipline specific
http://www.flickr.com/photos/charl
eswelch/3597432481//

3. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Partitioning research data
• Research lifecycle
• Research process
• Research domain
• Other factors e.g. scale

4. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London

5. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
•Government Open Agenda
•Public pressure – data as a public good
•Changes in funders’ data policies
•Research now becoming more global and more ‘data
Intensive’ – Riding the Wave report
•Institutional need for better research integrity - REF
•Best practice
•Desire to be ‘good researcher’ and a well-cited researcher
External
Internal
RDM drivers

6. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Key questions to consider when:
- Creating data
- Documenting data
- Storing data
- Sharing data
- Preserving data
- Planning data management
How do you manage data?

7. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Digital Curation Centre (DCC)
• Consortium comprising units from the Universities of Bath
(UKOLN), Edinburgh (DCC Centre) and Glasgow (HATII)
• launched 1st March 2004 as a national centre for solving
challenges in digital curation that could not be tackled by
any single institution or discipline
• funded by JISC with additional HEFCE funding from 2011
for the
• provision of support to national cloud services
• targeted institutional development

8. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Screen Shot 2012-05-03 at
11.14.00.png
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

9. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, LondonHow to cite data
• How to: appraise and select, cite
data sets, develop a data
management plan, licence research
data
• Access: embargoes, FOI
• Storage: file-store, cloud, data
centres, funder policy
• Worked intensively Informatics:
disciplinary metadata schema,
standards, formats, identifiers,
ontologies
• New: How to set a RDM service –
coming soon!

10. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Institutional Engagements
• Worked intensively with 20+ HEIs to increase RDM
capability
• 60 days of free effort per HEI drawn from a mix of DCC staff
• Single point of contact - Senior Institutional Support Officer
• Deploy DCC & external tools, approaches & best practice
• Support varied based on what each institution
wanted/needs
• Lessons & examples to be shared with the community
www.dcc.ac.uk/community/institutional

11. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Who are we working with?

12. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Support from the DCC
Assess
Needs
Make the case
Develop
support
and
services
RDM policy
development
DAF & CARDIO
assessments Guidance and
training
Workflow
assessment
DCC
support
team
Advocacy with senior
management
Institutional
data catalogues
Pilot RDM
tools
Customised Data
Management Plans
…and support policy implementation

13. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
DCC Tools
• CARDIO (http://cardio.dcc.ac.uk) – Used at
research group or department level to assess
activity and data management infrastructure and
contribute to an institution-wide view.
• DAF (http://www.data-audit.eu) – Structured
mechanism to identify what data exists, who claims
responsibility for it and what long-term custody
issues it presents.
• DMPOnline tool (http://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk) –
Creation of a customised DMPOnline, which
develops data management plans that fit funder
requirements before and after an award of grant.
• Risk management (http://bit.ly/drambora)

14. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Knowledge organising systems
• Institutional data registries and Current Research Information
Systems (CRIS)
• Retrieval systems:
– Identifiers, e.g. for data, people & organisations (e.g. DOI,
ORCID)
– Citation frameworks, attribution, provenance (e.g. DataCite)
– National / discipline-based data registries
– Metadata standards (e.g. RIF-CF, CERIF, DCMI) – DCC catalog
– Open data approaches and the use of semantic technologies
(e.g. Linked Data)

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July 2013, London
Case Study: Oxford Brookes
• Steering group meeting attendance
• Policy and EPSRC roadmap development
• Conducted a DAF in 4 different faculties (Business, Health &
Life Sciences, Humanities & Social Sciences, Technology,
Design & Environment)- investigated data holdings, capacity
growth, current practice etc.
• DMP Online template
• CARDIO lite exercise
• Training sessions for researchers and librarians

16. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
immersiveInformatics
• Pilot training programme
• Research data management training for HE support services
• Run in parallel at Uni of Bath and Uni of Melbourne
• Modular training - 10 modules delivered at approximately one
module per week, delivered in one-day F2F workshops
• Supported with a suite of resources
• Two modules will feature Immersive Research Department
Days (IRDDs) and will involve shadowing practising researchers
• Participants will work on a real dataset and create a data diary

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July 2013, London
• Less hierarchy  quicker approval
• Smaller scale  easier to engage research community
• Researchers more willing to work with the centre
• Senior management more hands-on
Existing tools & resources + quicker process of change =
opportunity for smaller, modern institutions to storm ahead
Reflections: small is beautiful

18. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Socio-organisational factors
• Awareness by HEIs of the value of research data as a
component of their knowledge store
• High-level management commitment – pilot services
• Fostering of relationships across departments, disciplines
and support groups
• Engagement with external stakeholders e.g. commercial
partners and funders
• Training for researchers, librarians, support staff

19. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Components
of
RDM
support
service
From ‘How
to develop
RDM
services’

20. ISKO UK Biennial Conference, 9th
July 2013, London
Final thoughts..
• DCC has published reports, case studies, blog posts and best
practice guides
• Process has vehicle for embedding good practice within small
group - broader impact on the HE community
• Possible to identify changes in research data management
practice as a result of institutional engagements
• External interest in programme
• New tranche of engagements planned – with changes – DCC
121
• Much overlap with knowledge organisation field of study

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July 2013, London
Any questions?
• Thanks to my DCC colleagues for help with my paper and
slides