Presentation given to introduce the 'Components of Institutional Research Data Services' workshop, jointly organised by the JISC Managing Research Data Programme 2011-13 and the DCC Institutional Engagements, and which took place on Wednesday 24 October to Thursday 25 October 2012 at the NCL Conference Centre, Nottingham, UK.
More than Just Lines on a Map: Best Practices for U.S Bike Routes
Components of Institutional Research Data Management Services Workshop - Introduction
1. Wednesday 24 October
NCL Conference Centre, Nottingham
JISCMRD Programme Progress Workshop / DCC
Institutional Engagements Workshop
Simon Hodson
JISC Programme Manager, Managing Research Data
2. Housekeeping
Wireless: BTOpenzone, pw: green2468
No fire test. If alarm sounds, exit the building and assemble in the car park.
Fire exits front and rear.
Toilets in the west atrium and near reception.
Breakouts: 1, 2, 3, 6 in atrium. 1 and 6 have keys.
Coffee in atrium.
Bar from 6pm.
Dinner 7.30pm in restaurant.
Breakfast 7am-9am in restaurant.
Checkout before we start: warning late checkout fee!
4. UK Research Data
Research
Locally
Managed Project
Discovery Service
Data Store
Institutionally
Selection
Managed / Triage
Funder Institutional Disciplinary
Research Data Data
Outputs Repository Archive
Institutional
Data
Catalogue
UK Research
Data Discovery
Service
5. JISC runs programmes, not collections of projects
JISC programmes are more than the sum of their parts
6. Building Institutional Capacity:
Second MRD Programme, 2011-13
RDM Infrastructure (policy, guidance/support, systems)
17 large projects
http://bit.ly/jiscmrd02-infrastructure
RDM Planning (DMPs, best practice, disciplinary challenges)
http://bit.ly/jiscmrd2011-13-RDMP
http://bit.ly/enhancing_DMPonline
RDM Training (disciplines and libraries/research support)
http://bit.ly/JISCMRD02-RDMtrain
Innovative data publication
http://bit.ly/JISCMRD02-datapubs
Second JISC MRD Programme, 2009-11: http://bit.ly/jiscmrd2009-11
8. Institutional data repositories
as an elevator for data collections
The Data Pyramid: taken from Royal Society Report, Science as an Open Enterprise:
http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/science-public-enterprise/report/
9. Institutional Role in Data Management
Beth Plale at RDA: universities in the US ‘are poised to move forward as data
centres’, IRs are growing into repositories for data.
Importance of university partnerships with data centres.
Institutions necessarily have a role before point of selection and in RIM.
Universities will need to serve many areas not covered by existing centres and
data infrastructure.
Significant challenges: human and technical capacity, costs etc.
This is precisely what we as a programme are seeking to explore!
10. Essential to have a big impact!!! And we are…
Image from Stan Gaz (2010) Sites of Impact, reviewed on The Photobook blog http://thephotobook.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/stan-gaz-sites-of-impact/
11. Your hard work recognised!
The Science as an Open Enterprise report recognises the importance of the JISC
Managing Research Data Programme.
Recommendedthat it ‘should be expanded beyond the pilot 17 institutions within
the next five years.’
[Royal Society 2012, Science as an Open Enterprise, p.73]
13. DCC institutional engagements
Objective: Helping to build capacity, capability
and skills in data management and curation
Key features
• UMF funding
• Sixty day term
• Senior management champions
• Institutionally led
• Dedicated DCC effort plus back-up
• Inclusive (management, support, researchers)
• Several (but not all) motivated by EPSRC/other
funder requirements
14. IE rationale and process
Assess Institutional
data catalogues
needs Workflow
assessment Pilot RDM
tools
Develop
DAF & CARDIO DCC support
support Guidance
assessments and training and
team
services
Advocacy with RDM policy
senior management development
Customised Data
Make the case Management
Plans
…and support policy implementation
15. Three stage development
- Identify drivers and - Inventory data assets
champions Socio-technical - Profile norms, roles and
- Scope project with a management values
focus on the feasibility - Identify infrastructure
of objectives capacities
- Analyse perceived - Analyse current workflows
Information - Using DAF, CARDIO, Benefits
issues and challenges systems
- Identify capability Analysis Tool
gaps
- Assess costs, benefits,
risks Referring to research stakeholders
- Engage stakeholders Research
practice (management and practitioners) and
core support services
- Describe new service options
- Produce feasible, desirable changes
- Evaluate fitness for purpose
16. Key questions for the evaluation of IEs
• Which stakeholders become engaged in service
development?
• What new roles are adopted?
• What are the common RDM service priorities
and the enablers/barriers to developing them?
• How much intermediation is needed to enable
the use of DAF, CARDIO and other tools?
• What are the institutional success indicators and
how do they measure the value of our
intervention?
17. Components of an institutional RDM service
Policies and
Roadmaps
Business Plans
Guidance and
and
Training
Sustainability
Data Data
Catalogues and Management
Metadata Planning
Data Managing Active
Repositories Data
What to keep?
18. Workshop Objectives
Improved understanding of…
how particular challenges are being tackled by various projects;
areas where there have been successes or lessons learnt which may be
broadly generalisable;
areas where significant challenges still remain;
opportunities for DCC / MRD activities which may help clarify the challenges
and make them more tractable.
19. Workshop Approach: questions to consider
In parallel sessions, presentations and discussion should consider:
what has worked/is working?
what lessons they have learned and how generalisable these may be?
what challenges remain?
how such challenges may be approached and what the institution/project
intends to do?
what DCC / MRD activity they think may help make the challenge more
tractable?
20. Workshop Programme: Day One
1A: Institutional Policies, Strategies, Roadmaps MR1
1B: Managing Active Data Main Conference Room
2A: Data Management Planning Main Conference Room
2B1: Data Repositories and Storage
MR2
2B2: Data Repositories and Storage
MR1
(ePrints/SWORD)
Poster Session Main Conference Room
Workshop Programme: http://bit.ly/JISCMRD-DCC-Workshop-Programme
21. Workshop Programme: Day Two
3A1: Training and Guidance MR1
3A2: Training and Guidance MR2
3B: Triage and Handover Main Conference Room
4A: Business Cases and Sustainability MR1
4B: Data Catalogues Main Conference Room
Discussion and report back Main Conference Room
Workshop: DataFlow/SWORD Main Conference Room
Workshop: Janet Brokerage MR1
Workshop Programme: http://bit.ly/JISCMRD-DCC-Workshop-Programme
The data is presented as a set of webpages: Research Data Australia. These are searchable and can be browsed by subjects, collections and parties (creators whether individual or corporate).
Workshop brings together MRD, DCC IEs and other institutions.ImportantBrief overview of the MRD programme for those outside the programme.JISC runs programmes, not collections of projects. Believe that there is value in sharing experiences.Blogs, lists, twitter, workshops. Projects are exploratory, need to share what we learn.Important for MRD projects to have a workshop to share progress. Sensible to do this with IEs and fellow travellers, and to learn from them too.
Second programme started in October 2011.Small projects on data management planning, training and data publication.Core of the programme seventeen large projects to develop RDM infrastructure and support services in institutions.Looking at all aspects of what it is to develoop an RDM service in a university: policy, guidance, training, storage, deposit, repositories, identfiiers, metadata, sustainability.
Timeline.Most of the planning projects have finished.Belated launch meeting for training projects on Friday.Most of large projects have six months left – a few that recruited late have had extensions.Workshops: launch meeting, policy workshop, progress workshop, programme conference.
The Royal Society Science as an Open Enterprise report uses an adaptation of the data pyramid.The pyramid describes the management and preservation of research data may be considered as happening in four tiers, forming a hierarchy of increased value and permanence.Tier One comprises major international resources such as the Worldwide Protein Data Bank.In Tier Two we find the national data centres such as the UK Data Archive and the British Atmospheric Data Centre.Universities’ institutional data repositories and research data services, such as those being piloted in the JISC Managing Research Data programme are found in Tier ThreeIn Tier Four come the data collections of individual researchers or research groups: as likely as not these are unsystematically structured and described, reside on temporary storage, shared only with collaborators and not subject to any plan for longer term preservation.The reality is that the vast majority of research data is effectively undiscoverable and unavailable for verification and reuse in ad hoc storage (Tier Four)Tier Three is dramatically underdeveloped with only a few initiatives and collections.This is a real problem - Tier Three services in universities have an extremely important role to play in the research data infrastructure.In short, institutional data services can form an elevator by means of which important data collections may emerge from the temporary and inaccessible storage of Tier 4.
Beth Plale at RDA: universities in the US ‘are poised to move forward as data centres’, IRs are growing into repositories for data.Importance of university partnerships with data centres.Institutions necessarily have a role before point of selection and in RIM.Universities will need to serve many areas not covered by existing centres and data infrastructure.Significant challenges: human and technical capacity, costs etc.This is precisely what we as a programme are seeking to explore!
Important to have a big impact.We are: the projects are being very successful.I am grateful for your hard work and I congratulate you on your success.
JISC and other stakeholders recognise the challenge and importance of RDM.Success of MRD programme, of the DCC and of the projects and institutions whose work we are supporting.
But we need to show it: this is why your work with the evidence gatherers is so important. They are part of the programme in order to help you.JISC will be making decisions about priorities.Important to demonstrate benefits.Provide the sector with insights, lessons, frameworks for establishing RDM services.Important for each and every project to be a success and for the programme to help achieve that and enhance that success, to make it generalisable.
Workshop broken down into themes.Components of an institutional RDM service as identified by forthcoming DCC How To Guide.Aim to understand each of these areas better.Provide case studies for DCC.What approaches have been really successful and are worth trying elsewhere?What have we found out about particular challenges: e.g. how to break down processes like deposit workflows.What has proved difficult and why?