Martin DonnellyDigital Curation CentreUniversity of Edinburgh

MANAGING AND SHARING RESEARCH DATA

White Rose Perspectives on Research Data Management eventUniversity of York, 24 May 2012

Running order

I. DEFINITIONSII. DRIVERSIII. SOME (IN)EQUATIONSIV. STAKEHOLDERSV. CURRENT WORK

I. DEFINITIONS

The DCC Mission

Helping to build capacity, capability and skills in data management and curation

across the UK’s higher education research

community

– DCC Phase 3 Business Plan

“the active management and appraisal of data over the lifecycle of scholarly and

scientific interest”

Data management is a part of good research practice

What is Research Data Management?

Manage

Share

RLUKRDM -20120416 - Kevin Ashley, DCC, CC-BY

Why manage research data?

• Enable reuse• Control costs• Research integrity• Research impact

– Linking data and publication– Making data citable

• Regulatory requirements• Maximising value

Where is the data in research?

The six datacentric phases of the research lifecycle

                                                             

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkmulejunk/352387473/

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=illumina+bgi&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Jl2&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&biw=1366&bih

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasp_barcode/4793484478/http://www.flickr.com/photos/charleswelch/3597432481//

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfsregion5/4546851916//

Data...

“Research Data Management”

- The phrase means different things to different people

- Researchers may care enormously about their data, so much so that they worry about it going out into the world on its own

- Others (e.g. those with responsibility for compliance) may worry about it not going out into the world, or going out when it shouldn’t / underdressed

- Some may not even recognise the relevance of ‘data’ in what they do

II. DRIVERS

“Surfing the Tsunami”

Science: 11 February 2011

The data deluge

• Public good• Preservation• Discovery• Confidentiality• First use• Recognition• Public funding

RCUK Policy and Code of Conduct on the Governance of Good Research ConductUnacceptable research conduct includes mismanagement or inadequate preservation of data and/or primary materials, including failure to:

– keep clear and accurate records of the research procedures followed and the results obtained, including interim results;

– hold records securely in paper or electronic form;

– make relevant primary data and research evidence accessible to others for reasonable periods after the completion of the research: data should normally be preserved and accessible for 10 yrs (in some cases 20 yrs or longer);

– manage data according to the research funder’s data policy and all relevant legislation;

– wherever possible, deposit data permanently within a national collection.

Responsibility for proper management and preservation of data and primary materials is shared between the

researcher and the research organisation.

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/standards/researchdata/Pages/expectations.aspx

April 2011 - EPSRC Letter to VCs

EPSRC expects all those institutions it funds:- to develop a roadmap that aligns their

policies and processes with EPSRC’s expectations by 1st May 2012

- to be fully compliant with these expectations by 1st May 2015

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-and-legal

Institutional Policies

JISC Legal

Data Access as Headline News

6.9 The Research Councils expect the researchers they fund to deposit published articles or conference proceedings in an open access repository at or around the time of publication. But this practice is unevenly enforced. Therefore, as an immediate step, we have asked the Research Councils to ensure the researchers they fund fulfil the current requirements. Additionally, the Research Councils have now agreed to invest £2 million in the development, by 2013, of a UK ‘Gateway to Research’. In the first instance this will allow ready access to Research Council funded research information and related data but it will be designed so that it can also include research funded by others in due course. The Research Councils will work with their partners and users to ensure information is presented in a readily reusable form, using common formats and open standards.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/innovation/docs/i/11-1387-innovation-and-research-strategy-for-growth.pdf

Government pressure…

III. SOME (IN)EQUATIONS

STORAGE

≠ MANAGEMENT

Greenhouse = storage

Horticulture = management

MANAGEMENT

≠ SHARING

“While many researchers are positive about sharing data inprinciple, they are almost universally reluctant in practice. ..... using these data to publish results before anyone else is theprimary way of gaining prestige in nearly all disciplines.” INCREMENTAL Project

“Data sharing was more readily discussed by early career researchers.”

Rule 1. Don’t Keep It All

Rule 2. Don’t Share It All

• Data Protection Act• Ethical concerns• Commercial interests

Open to all? Case studies of openness in research

Choices are made according to context, with degrees of openness reached according to:• The kinds of data to be made available• The stage in the research process• The groups to whom data will be made available• On what terms and conditions it will be provided

Default position of most:• YES to protocols, software, analysis tools, methods

and techniques• NO to making research data content freely

available to everyone

Angus Whyte, RIN/NESTA, 2010

Regulation

IV. STAKEHOLDERS

                                                             

“The ability to take data -to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualise it, to communicate it -that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades.”

Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google

                                                             

Implications of “Big Data” and data science for organisations in all sectors

Predicts a shortage of 190,000 data scientists by 2019

http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/MGI/Research/Technology_and_Innovation/Big_data_The_next_frontier_for_innovation

                                                             

Position LocationScience Data Librarian Stanford

Data Management Librarian Oregon State

Social Sciences Data Librarian Brown

Data Curation Librarian Northeastern

Data Librarian New South Wales

Research Data Management Co-ordinator

Sydney

Research Data & Digital Curation Officer

Cambridge

Data Services Librarian Iowa

Data Analyst ANDS

Institutional Data Scientist Bath

                                                             

1. Director IS/CIO/University Librarian2. Data librarians /data scientist

/liaison/subject/faculty librarians3. Repository managers4. IT/Computing Services5. Research Support/Innovation Office6. Doctoral Training Centres7. PVC Research + Public Engagement Office

Data roles

Liz Lyon, Informatics Transform, IJDC Current Issue, 2012

V. CURRENT WORK

DCC institutional stakeholders

University managers

Researchers

University library / repositoryIT servicesResearch and innovationEtc

Institutional Engagements

With funding from HEFCE we’re:

• Working intensively with 18 HEIs to increase RDM capability– 60 days of effort per HEI drawn from a mix of DCC staff– Deploy DCC and external tools, approaches and best practice

• Support varies based on what each institution wants/needs– Institution agrees a schedule of work with the DCC, and each assigns a

primary contact / programme manager

• Lessons and examples to be shared with the community

www.dcc.ac.uk/community/institutional-engagements

Some current IE activities

Assessing needs

RDM roadmaps

Piloting tools e.g. DataFlow

Policy development

Policy implementation

Support offered by the DCC

Assess needs

Make the case

Develop support

and services

RDM policy development

Customised Data Management Plans

DAF & CARDIO assessments Guidance and

training

Workflow assessment

DCC support

team

Advocacy to senior management

Institutional data catalogues

Pilot RDM tools

…and support policy implementation

To sum...

ALL THE PIECES MATTER

CREDITSImages:

Slide 3 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougbelshaw/ Slide 9 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaparral/ Slide 10 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpmarks/ Slide 19 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/billburris/ Slide 21 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/mykl/ Slide 28 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/mugley/ Slide 33 – http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiotsrun/ Slide 38 – http://www.treehugger.com/picture-is-worth-sum-car-parts.jpg

Thanks to DCC colleagues for their slides:Kevin Ashley, Liz Lyon, Graham Pryor, Sarah Jones

QUESTIONS AND CONTACTSFor more information:

– Visit http://www.dcc.ac.uk – Email martin.donnelly@ed.ac.uk– Twitter @mkdDCC

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland License.