Presented by Stuart Macdonald at the IT Professionals Forum (20/5/14) and the PPLS (School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences) RDM Workshop (6/5/14).

1. ITPF RDM presentation: 20 May 2014, Hugh Robson Building, University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh DataShare and MANTRA
Stuart Macdonald
Associate Data Librarian
EDINA & Data Library
stuart.macdonald@ed.ac.uk

2. • EDINA and Data Library (EDL) together are a division
within Information Services (IS) of the University of
Edinburgh.
• EDINA is a jisc-funded National Data Centre providing
national online resources for education and research.
• The Data Library service (established in 1983) assists
Edinburgh University users in the discovery, access,
use and management of research data assets.

3. • Mission statement: “We develop and deliver online services and digital
infrastructure for UK research and education .. drawing upon knowledge
and expertise gained through research, innovation and development.”
• Networked access to a range of online resources for UK FE and
HE
• Services free at the point of use for use by staff and students in
learning, teaching and research through institutional subscription
• Focus is on service but also undertake R&D (projects  services)
• delivers about 20 online services
• has about 5-10 major projects (including services in
development)
• employs about 70 staff (Edinburgh & St Helens)
EDINA National Data Centre

4. • Data Library & Consultancy
• JISC-funded projects
– DISC-UK DataShare (2007-2009)
• Edinburgh DataShare Repository
– Research Data MANTRA (2010-2011)
– Data Audit Framework Implementation (2008)
Data Library services and projects

5. Data Library & Consultancy
Building relationships with researchers via postgraduate
teaching activities, research support projects, IS Skills
workshops, Research Data Management training and through
traditional reference interviews.
Such engagement contributes to bottom-up development of
tools and services meant to serve academic community and
ultimately improve both research efficiency and Effectiveness
(Ref. UoE Research Data Management Roadmap)
• finding…
• accessing …
• using …
• teaching …
• managing

6. DISC-UK DataShare Project
DISC-UK DataShare Project – funded by JISC (March 2007 – March 2009)
- a collaborative project which investigated the legal, cultural and
technical issues surrounding research data sharing within UK tertiary
education community
• Explore new pathways to assist academics wishing to share their data
over the Internet via Institutional Repositories (IRs)
• Policy-Making for Research Data in Repositories: A Guide - Green, A.,
Macdonald, S. and R. Rice, (2009).
• Edinburgh DataShare digital repository – post project output –
embedded into University Information Services policy

7. Edinburgh DataShare
An online institutional repository of multi-disciplinary research
datasets produced at the University of Edinburgh, hosted by
the Data Library
Researchers producing research data associated with a
publication, or which has potential use for other researchers,
can upload their dataset for sharing and safekeeping. A
persistent identifier and suggested citation will be provided.
DataShare is a customised DSpace instance with a selection
of standards-compliant metadata fields useful for discovery of
datasets, through Google and other search engines via OAI-
PMH.

8. Edinburgh Datashare – technical development
• DSpace Version 3.2
• Embargo option - coded to restrict full data download with open metadata
until specified date
• Open Data Commons Attribution License option
• Theme aligned with University corporate style
• Extension to DSpace to record bitstream downloads in usage statistics
• Implementation of JACS for assigning keyword to content
• Download All option (zip file of all item components)
• Citation field automatically generated based on specified metadata values
• Dublin Core-based metadata schema for datasets

9. Technical development cont’d
Streamlined deposit workflow e.g. collapsible non-required metadata
fields, clear licence information
Load balancing between sites
Development server enhancements – assist depositors to test
functionality
SWORD & batch ingesting (for large or many files from remote
computers)
Streaming & viewing heterogeneous content
Use of DataCite DOIs
Research data deposit from RSpace* electronic notebook interface
into DataShare

10. Research Space (RSpace)
A ‘next generation’ ELN designed specifically for enterprise deployments at
Universities in order to manage experimental data and samples in an
integrated online environment
Collaborative functionality via Google Docs and wikis
Database structure with fine tuned sharing and precise searching
Messaging & notifications system allowing lab members to communicate about
their research without having to leave the RSpace environment
A full audit trail and two levels of electronic signatures, Research Space’s ELN
is fully capable of supporting patentable research and compliance with
regulations like 21 CFR part 11, so work which was previously done in the
paper lab book can now be done electronically.

12. Research Data MANTRA
Partnership between:
Edinburgh University Data Library
Institute for Academic Development
Funded by JISC Managing Research Data
Programme (Sept. 2010 – Aug. 2011)

13. Why manage research data?
Data Deluge – exponential growth in the volume of digital
research artefacts created within academia
Data management is one of the essential areas of responsible
conduct of research.
By managing your data you will:
• Meet funding body grant requirements.
• Ensure research integrity and replication.
• Ensure research data and records are accurate, complete, authentic and
reliable.
• Increase your research efficiency.
• Enhance data security and minimise the risk of data loss.
• Prevent duplication of effort by enabling others to use your data.

14. Grounded in three disciplinary contexts: social
science, clinical psychology and geoscience
Aim was to develop online interactive open learning
resources for PhD students and early career
researchers that will:
• Raise awareness of the key issues related to research data
management & contribute to culture change
• Provide guidelines for good practice
Project overview

15. Eight units with activities, scenarios and videos:
• Research data explained
• Data management plans
• Organising data
• File formats and transformation
• Documentation and metadata
• Storage and security
• Data protection, rights and access
• Preservation, sharing and licensing
Four data handling practicals: SPSS, NVivo, R, ArcGIS
Video stories from researchers in variety of settings
Xerte Online Toolkits – University of Nottingham
Online learning module

16. Online learning module
• Delivered online – self-paced, available ‘anytime, anyplace’
• Emphasis on practical experience and active engagement via
online activities
• One hour per unit
• Read and work through scenarios & activities (incl. videos etc)
• CC licence to allow manipulation of content for re-use with
attribution
• Portable content in open standard formats (e.g. SCORM)
available via an e-learning repositories Jorum and Xpert
• An EDINA and IS Service

17. Commitment to keep the resource up to date
3rd release since launch in 2010 (by "release" we mean the
accumulation of identified changes that warrant re-depositing in Jorum
as a new version)
Feedback from users collected on a wiki page and referenced in new
release, including:
• new 'further reading' resources for each unit, and link checking
• minor fixes to the drag and drop exercises (such as moving some to two pages
to make dragging on-screen easier)
• new video clips from previously recorded interviews, either to replace existing
ones or as supplement, but without substantially changing the length of each
unit
• revised and upgraded software handling practicals to match new versions of
software
• translation into other languages
MANTRA Future

18. stuart.macdonald@ed.ac.uk
Thanks!
Links:
• Data Library services: http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-library
• EDINA: http://edina.ac.uk/
• Edinburgh DataShare: http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/
• Research data management guidance: http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/research-
data-management
• Edinburgh University data policy: http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/research-data-
policy
• Research Data MANTRA course: http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra