Presentation at the "Open Research Data: the Future of Science" event at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland (http://library2.epfl.ch/page-108582-en.html).

1. 28/10/2014 Open Research Data – A Jisc Perspective
Open Research Data: The Future of Science - Forum Rolex Learning Center (EPFL Campus)
Christopher Brown

2. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 2
Mission
To enable people in higher education,
further education and skills in the UK
to perform at the forefront of
international practice by exploiting
fully the possibilities of modern digital
empowerment, content and
connectivity
Vision
To make the UK the most
digitally advanced
education and research
nation in the world
23 Oct 2014 - The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) today publishes a
new report entitled Jisc: a hidden advantage for higher education
http://jisc.ac.uk/news/new-hepi-report-highlights-the-benefits-of-shared-infrastructure-23-oct-2014

3. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 3
What Jisc delivers…
Digital
content
Network &
IT services
Advice Research &
development
We provide institutions, their
students and researchers
secure, cost-effective access
to the UK’s richest collection
of digital resources.
We provide the HE sector
with Janet, the Jisc network,
advanced infrastructure
services and collaboration
platforms.
We listen to our members to
ensure we offer them quality
support, guidance and tools -
estimated to save the sector
£122 million in cost
efficiencies each year.
Identifying emerging
technologies and developing
them around our members’
needs. Testing and learning on
their behalf to ensure they are
ready to take advantage of new
technologies as they arrive.

4. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 4
Jisc’s Strategic Framework Impact Areas

5. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 5
“Open Research Data”
Definitions
» EPSRC definition: "Research data is defined as recorded factual material
commonly retained by and accepted in the scientific community as
necessary to validate research findings; although the majority of such
data is created in digital format, all research data is included irrespective of
the format in which it is created."
» Creative Commons: “we believe scientific data should be freely available to
everyone. We call this idea Open Data.”

6. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 6
What stops research data being open?
»Loss
»Destruction
»Pride
»Gluttony
»Ineptitude
»Concealment
»Bureaucracy
»Complexity
»Procrastination
»Lack of
potential
» “People will ask questions”
› So use a data centre or repository
» “It will be misinterpreted”
› Stuff happens. Also, openness encourages correction
» “It’s not interesting”
› Let others be the judge – your noise is my signal
» “I might get another paper out of it”
› Up to a point. We might get more research out of it
» “I don’t have permission”
› A real problem. But solvable at senior level
» “It’s too bad/complicated” –see above
» “It’s not a priority”
› Unfortunately, funders are making it so. But if you
looked at the evidence, it would be your priority as
well
http://datapub.cdlib.org/2013/04/24/closed-data-excuses-excuses/
With thanks to Kevin Ashley (DCC) for responses

7. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 7
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/
collaboration/fourthparadigm/4th_paradigm_book_
complete_lr.pdf

8. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 8
Unlocking the full value of Scientific Data
“Riding the wave – How Europe can gain from the rising tide of scientific data”
» Final Report of the High Level Expert Group on
Scientific Data - A submission to the European
Commission – October 2010
» Calls for a collaborative data infrastructure that
will enable researchers and other stakeholders
from education, society and business to use, re-use
and exploit research data to the maximum
benefit of science and society.
» “To collect, curate, preserve and make available
ever increasing amounts of scientific data, new
types of infrastructures will be needed. The
potential benefits are enormous but the same is
true for the costs. We therefore need to lay the
right foundations and the sooner we start the
better.” - Neelie Kroes, VP European Commission
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/e-infrastructure/docs/hlg-sdi-report.pdf

9. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 9
Knowledge Exchange response
“A Surfboard for Riding the Wave”
» The 5 Knowledge Exchange partner organisations:
› CSC - IT centre for Science in Finland
› Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF)
› German Research Foundation (DFG)
› Jisc in the United Kingdom
› SURF in the Netherlands
» Builds on the report and presents an overview of the present
situation with regard to research data in Denmark, Germany, the
Netherlands and the United Kingdom and offers broad outlines for a
possible action programme for the four countries in realising the
envisaged collaborative data infrastructure.
» Identified 4 key drivers:
› Incentives for researchers to publish and share their datasets
› Training in new skills needed for creating, handling,
manipulating, analysing, and making available large amounts of
data for re-use by others
› Infrastructure (to make datasets discoverable and accessible)
› Funding of the infrastructure
http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/surfboard

10. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 10
Science as an Open Enterprise Report, 2012
The Royal Society, UK
» “The conduct and communication of science
needs to adapt to this new era of information
technology”
» “As a first step towards this intelligent openness,
data that underpin a journal article should be
made concurrently available in an accessible
database. We are now on the brink of an
achievable aim: for all science literature to be
online, for all of the data to be online and for
the two to be interoperable.”
http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/science-public-enterprise/report/

11. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 11
Science as an Open Enterprise Report
Six key challenges
» A shift away from a research culture where data is viewed as a private preserve
» Expanding the criteria used to evaluate research to give credit for useful data
communication and novel ways of collaborating
» The development of common standards for communicating data
» Mandating intelligent openness for data relevant to published scientific papers
» Strengthening the cohort of data scientists needed to manage and support the
use of digital data (which will also be crucial to the success of private sector data
analysis and the government’s Open Data strategy)
» The development and use of new software tools to automate and simplify the
creation and exploitation of datasets

12. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 12
RCUK’s Open Data Dialogue Report, 2012
» Undertaken on behalf of the Research
Councils UK in partnership with Jisc, the Royal
Society and Sciencewise-ERC, this public
dialogue explored views on open data, data
reuse and data management policies within
research
» The public dialogue was designed to:
› Provide insight on the business issues that
the dialogue will support, at the research
councils and Jisc
› Build on prior work in the area and account
for the wider policy framework
› Engage people meaningfully around this
complex area, enabling the public to frame
issues and test out any principles emerging
across a range of research contexts..’
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/Publications/policy/OpenData/

13. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 13
Research Funder Policies
RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy
» Public good: Publicly funded research data are produced in the public interest should be
made openly available with as few restrictions as possible
» Planning for preservation: Institutional and project specific data management policies
and plans needed to ensure valued data remains usable
» Discovery: Metadata should be available and discoverable; Published results should
indicate how to access supporting data
» Confidentiality: Research organisation policies and practices to ensure legal, ethical and
commercial constraints assessed; research process should not be damaged by
inappropriate release
» First use: Provision for a period of exclusive use, to enable research teams to publish
results
» Recognition: Data users should acknowledge data sources and terms & conditions of
access
» Public funding: Use of public funds for RDM infrastructure is appropriate and must be
efficient and cost-effective
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/datapolicy/

14. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 14

15. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 15
Research Funder Policies
EPSRC’s Expectations for funded Research Organisations (ROs)
» ROs will promote internal awareness of these principles
» Published research papers should indicate how supporting research data can be accessed
» ROs will have policies and processes in place to maintain awareness of and access to their publicly-funded
research data holdings
» Non-digital publicly-funded research data will be stored in a manner to facilitate it being shared on request
» ROs will ensure that appropriately structured metadata describing the research data is published and
freely accessible
» Where access to the data is restricted the published metadata should also give the reason and summarise
the conditions which must be satisfied for access to be granted
» ROs will ensure research data is securely preserved for a minimum of 10 years from last access
» ROs will ensure effective data curation is provided throughout the full data lifecycle
» ROs will ensure adequate resources are provided to support the curation of publicly-funded research data
» Roadmap in place by 1 May 2012
» Compliance by 1 May 2015
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/index.cfm/about/standards/researchdata/

16. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 16
Principles of Open Data
From a US/UK Open Data Summit – Washington, April 2014
» Data, metadata and computer code (used to evidence published paper or equivalent) must be:
› discoverable – readily found to exist by online search
› accessible – when discovered they can be interrogated
› intelligible - they can be understood
› assessable – e.g. the provenance and reliability of data
› re-useable - they can be re‐used and re‐combined with other data as a private preserve
» Data generated by publicly/charitably funded research not used in evidence should be made
open after a pre-specified period
» Re‐use of data must formally acknowledge the originators
» Cost of creating open data is an intrinsic cost of research
» Openness is limited for commercially sensitivity, privacy of personal information, safety and
security but do not provide justification for a blanket ban
» Existing processes, reward structures and behaviour that inhibit or prevent data sharing should
be reformed to encourage/facilitate/reward data sharing and collaboration.
http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Note-of-Washington-meeting.pdf

17. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 17
Funding Research Data Infrastructures
Preliminary report of responses to SE members questionnaire – Sept 2014
» Preliminary qualitative analysis of the outcomes of a questionnaire
sent to Science Europe Members, examining the funding landscape
relating to research data infrastructure and research data
management within Europe.
» Analysis will help inform and direct subsequent stages of the
research to provide knowledge, eventually leading to a set of
recommendations for policy-makers both on the national and
European level
» Sent to 57 SE members.
» 22 responses, mostly from Research Funding Organisations

18. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 18
Where are HEIs in the UK?
Poll of 30 institutions
Blue = exploring through to Red = implementing

19. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 19
Why Research Data Management?
Key area for Jisc
» Research Excellence & Impact - data will be cited; used by others including
peers, other disciplines, the public, industry, in learning – ability to meet
global challenges; innovate & create new research areas
» Research integrity - replication, verification of research, improvement of
methods & results
» Efficiency - save duplication of research effort, data creation & therefore
costs; ease of access & re-use
» Managing risks - ability to meet FOI requests; protect reputation.

20. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 20
Promoting and Supporting good RDM
First MRD Programme, 2009-2011
5 Strands
1. Research Data Management Infrastructure (RDMI) Projects
2. Research Data Management Planning (RDMP) Projects
3. Support and Tools Projects
4. Citing, Linking, Integrating and Publishing Research Data (CLIP) Projects
5. Research Data Management Training Materials Projects

21. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 21
Building Institutional Capacity
Second MRD Programme, 2011-2013
RDM
Training
5 projects
Institutional
RDM
Infrastructure
Services
17 Projects
Data
Publication
3 projects
RDM
Planning
10 projects
Encouraged to
reuse outputs from
first programme and
elsewhere.
Mix of pilot projects
and embedding
projects.
Holistic institutional
approach to RDM.
Ownership: High level
ownership of the problem,
senior manager on
steering committee.
Sustainability: Large
institutional contributions.
Develop business cases to
sustain work.

22. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 22
What is Jisc doing?
» Digital Curation Centre – advice & guidance; DMP online; Cardio, institutional engagements, training
(http://dcc.ac.uk/)
» Training materials available in Jorum (free OER repository) http://www.jorum.ac.uk/
» Sherpa Juliet – Research funders’ OA policies (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/)
» Research data registry – discovery of data
» Journal research data policies
» Software for medical research data management and sharing – BRISSKit
» Preservation & storage – Arkivum (http://arkivum.com/) framework agreement
» Cloud services – guidance, shared purchasing & due diligence (https://www.ja.net/products-services/janet-cloud-
services)
» Access & identity management
» Standards & protocols – Sword; Cerif; metadata for discovery; citation
» Data deposit & re-use – experiments & prototypes
» Foresight/clarification – incentives; funding; costs; value.
Summarised on the Research Data Management blog -Where are we now? http://bit.ly/1v6nn7v

23. R@R:
Support
take up of
citation
DMP
OnLine
R@R:
DMP
registry
R@R:
busines
s case
& costs
23
Standards;
policies;
coordination &
cooperation.
EASY
ACCESS
Data
identifiers
Access &
security
Researcher/
organisational
identifiers
Funders
policies
Advice &
guidance/good
practice
Deposit
protocols
R@R:UK
Research
Data
Discovery
(metadata)
R@R: metrics
& usage data
service
Cardio
planning
tool
R@R:
RD Experiments
&
prototypes
Digital Curation
UKDS
/Institutional
repositories
R@R: shared
Preservation
Repositories
(metadata)
Centre
Open
Training
Materials
in Jorum
Shared data
centre
Jisc Research Data Infrastructure
R@R:
comprehensive
tool-kit;
case studies
Sherpa Juliet
Funder policies
R@R:
Journal
Policy
registry
R@R:
EPSRC
support
R@R:
RD Experiments &
Prototypes, &
BRISSkit

24. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 24
Digital Curation Centre
Established by Jisc
» Helping to build capacity, capability and skills in research data
management and curation across the UK’s higher education research
community.
Support offered by
the DCC
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

25. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 25
Digital Curation Centre
Understanding Data Requirements – Data Management Plans
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

26. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 26

27. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 27
Research @ Risk Vision and Activities
Realising a robust and sustainable research data management infrastructure and
services to enrich UK research
» Research data roadmap & a toolkit for UK universities
› Make it easy as possible for universities to access tools
» Filling the research data infrastructure gaps
› Storage, preservation, archiving – spearhead development of service
» Supporting universities in meeting research funder compliance
› EPSRC Mandate –May 2015. Building on what we have.
» Making data count
› Helping to change culture on sharing data and making it searchable. Promoting
good RDM practice (ref MANTRA and RDMRose)
» Shared research data tools & services
› Big challenge – a clear need for shared services

28. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 28
Research Data Projects
Supporting research and science
» BRISSKIT
› Biomedial research data software kit (https://www.brisskit.le.ac.uk/)
› Developing into a sustainable service that offers open source software as an
effective and competitive solution for the sharing of sensitive data between
university medical groups and other collaborators such as the NHS
» Journal research data policy bank
› Feasibility study shows it meets a requirement
› Developing a central registry that helps to make clear the policies and
expectations for data as it underpins research articles
› Helping to meeting funders requirements, and to significantly reduce the time
for researchers and their supporting staff in making decisions with regards to
their research data and its publication

29. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 29
Research Data Discovery
From pilot to service
» DCC pilot / technical evaluation (Oct 2013-Mar 2014)
› Modelled on Research Data Australia developed by ANDS
› In order to be re-used, data must be discoverable
› Harvests simple, but textually rich, metadata records for research data assets
› Piloted with 9 HEIs and UK Data Archive, Archaeology Data Centre and NERC data
centres
» From pilot to production (Nov 2014 – Oct 2016)
› Develop business case and key use cases
› Further evaluate potential software solutions
› Collaborate closely with the HEIs and Data Centres
› Identify and finalise the agreement on the metadata schema that is appropriate for a
successful cross disciplinary service
› Identify the architecture that a UK service could operate on
› Produce toolkits and advice/guidance on implementation

30. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 30
Research Data Experiments & Prototypes
Creating innovative partnerships and solutions
» Jisc is kick-starting a tranche of research data experiments and prototypes, based
around research data creation, deposit and re-use, with the view of finding
solutions, proposed by the research community & research support stakeholders,
which will enhance their workflows and make research data creation, deposit and
re-use easier
» Priority areas:
› Research data deposit and sharing protocols & tools
› Data creation, deposit and re-use by discipline
› Research data systems/interoperability standards
› Research data analytics
› Shared services for research

31. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 31
Jisc Data Centre
Supporting the requirements for academic research
» First shared data centre for medical and academic
research in the UK
» First large scale example of HPC environments being
placed in an outsourced co-location facility
» Launched Sept 2014 – supporting 6 of UK’s most
successful scientific and academic organisations
» Consolidates sensitive data in safe, off-site centre
» Increases collaboration and reduces costs
» Connected to the Janet network core, meeting the
bandwidth requirements of large data sets
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/uk-research-secures-new-national-data-centre-04-sep-2014

32. Open Research Data – A Jisc perspective 32
Christopher Brown
Senior Co-design Manager
c.brown@jisc.ac.uk
One Castlepark Tower Hill Bristol BS2 0JA
T 020 3697 5800
info@jisc.ac.uk jisc.ac.uk
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND