Presentation by Robin Rice, Data Librarian, University of Edinburgh. Part of a roundtable discussion at a workshop for 'Scotland's National Collections and the Digital Humanities,' a knowledge-exchange project hosted at the University of Edinburgh. 2 May 2014. http://www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/archives-now/

1. Data and Ethics Roundtable
Scotland Collections and Digital
Humanities – Working with Data
Robin Rice, Data Librarian
University of Edinburgh

2. Binary” by Xerones on Flickr: CC-BY-NC

3. Our Services
• Data Library service (since 1984)
• Edinburgh DataShare (since 2010)
• Research Data MANTRA (since 2011)
• datalib@ed.ac.uk

4. “Publishing articles without making
the data available is scientific
malpractice.”
• Attributed to Geoffrey Boulton, chair of
committee that produced the Royal Society’s
2012 report, Science as an Open Enterprise.
• The report attributes:
Chalmers I (1990). “Under-reporting research is
scientific misconduct.” Journal of the
American Medical Association, 263.
• And cites the longer quote in the Roundtable
document in discussion of publication bias.

5. Defining research data: MANTRA
• "Research data are collected, observed, or
created, for the purposes of analysis to
produce and validate original research
results."
• How does that definition hold up for
Humanities?
• (data vs expressive work; inputs & outputs)

6. “The coolest thing to do with
your data will be thought of by
someone else.”
Rufus Pollock
Cambridge University and Open
Knowledge Foundation, 2008

8. John MacInnes on data security
(from MANTRA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p3xcDVuw1kQ

9. The public’s view on linking
administrative data for research
March, 2014, Ipsos-Mori/ESRC:
Most participants had
concluded that they supported
administrative data linkage via
the ADRN, if three main
conditions were met:
• The data are fully de-
identified as per the process
described in the workshops
• The data are kept secure at
all times
• The data are linked for
socially beneficial purposes,
broadly defined
http://www.ipsos-
mori.com/researchpu
blications/publications
/1652/Dialogue-on-
Data.aspx