Upload
others
View
6
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Principles and Benefits of
Research Data Management
John Southall
Bodleian Data Librarian
Subject Consultant for Economics, Sociology
and Social Policy & Intervention
Hilary Term
2017
Overview
Help you think about practical issues to
do with creating and working with
(digital) data
Highlight the importance of metadata
Show how ‘data management’ benefits
you
A key part of systematic reviews and
research skills
These slides will be made available!
Policy on Management of
Research Data and Records
What’s meant by research data?
“the recorded information (regardless of the
form or the media in which they may
exist) necessary to support or validate a
research project’s observations, findings or
outputs”.
Policy on Management of
Research Data and Records
There is a formal policy:
“The University of Oxford seeks to promote
the highest standards in the management of
research data and records as fundamental to
both high quality research and academic
integrity.”
See Research Data Oxford (RDO) http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/
http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/
Management Policy
Research data and records should be:
◦ a. Accurate, complete and reliable;
◦ b. Identifiable, retrievable, and available when
needed;
◦ c. Secure and kept in an appropriate manner
Impact on You
Responsibility is yours as data creators to
be aware of policy
Combine with wider research skills
development
Make use of the support framework at
Oxford
Respond to funder/publisher expectations
in the future
◦ DMP’s / Data access statements
Benefits to You?
Make more efficient use of data
Bridge the analogue – digital gap
Combat common problems of ‘fragile’
digital data
Increase citations/ impact of research
Increase funding opportunities
Not simple compliance or burden issue
Some Principles of Data
Management
Develop the mind set of RDM as the
research lifecycle
All stages of research
◦ Before
◦ During
◦ After
Data and Metadata
Usable and citable for you now
and in future
Typical Examples
Text files, numerical spreadsheets,
Codebooks and code
Research notebooks
Questionnaires, transcripts, recordings
Potentially everything?
◦ Born digital
◦ Or digitised
Digital Media
Digital – a key factor in rdm
Strengths of digital◦ Perfect copies
◦ Easy to share
◦ Convenient
But there are weaknesses
What can you suggest? What could go
wrong for your research?
Digital Media
Weaknesses of digital◦ Too easy to share
◦ Medium dependent
◦ Corrupted - Immediate loss
◦ Inflexible – difficult to repurpose
◦ Too many copies
◦ Hardware and software dependent
◦ Long term use issues - Digital obsolescence and fragility
◦ Ethical and licensing issues
So - Look after it!
Curation support
Important distinctions in managing your
data and how others view it
Dynamic or static?
Understand the difference
See where and when support fits in
During or after the project?
◦ HFS (during but not after)
◦ RDO on other options
◦ External archival services
Curation as practical steps
Disaster planning
◦ Multiple storage and backups
◦ Data security
Appropriate workflow?
Documentation – Metadata
Storage becomes preservation
Acknowledge lifecycle and other
stakeholders
Sharing data
Curation and retention
How long to keep data?
Discipline traditions may assume destruction
Increasingly retention is favoured
◦ Accessible, discoverable
Have good reasons to destroy
Policy talks of a minimum period only
Current and future use
◦ By you
◦ By others after the project? Data sharing
Support Frameworks
You are not left to figure this all out
yourself!
At Oxford
◦ The Library and its Subject Consultants
◦ Departmental level support
◦ Research Skills training (iSkills)
◦ Research Data Oxford webpage
◦ Research Data Oxford email
◦ ORA / ORA-Data
Ethical and Legal Issues
When does this occur?
◦ Creating data – live participants
◦ Curec
◦ Collecting data – Licensing
Research Ethics◦ Access Restrictions
◦ Participation/ Confidentiality agreements
◦ Ethics Committees and Informed Consent
Influences on current and future use
Support Frameworks
Outside Oxford
◦ Digital Curation Centre
◦ UK Data Archive (create & manage pages)
◦ Edinburgh – MANTRA Course
◦ Take a look at these Oxford and non-Oxford
sites
◦ Emerging literature on RDM
Ask Yourself
If you want to revisit your data ten years
from now
Intellectually possible?
◦ Is there metadata to help? (How do the
pieces fit?)
Technically feasible?
◦ Can the files be found and opened
Ethically/ Legally possible
Use a planned approach…
RDM Planning
Data Management Plans and Planning
A key practical stage
Growing popular with funders and
publishers
RDO outlines policy differences
What is it?
◦ About applying these principles in your
research
◦ Formalising previously informal stages
‘The Plan’ – an outline
Describes the research data being created
or collected
Key responsibilities
How the data will be organised
Disaster recovery
Documentation during the collection and
analysis phase
Tools
‘The Plan’ – other elements
Policy on data storage and security
What facilities and equipment will be
required
How / If the data will be preserved
If being made available in the long term
once research is completed
Plan v. Planning - a considered approach
DMPOnline tool
Closing
RDM supports practical issues to do with
creating and working with data
New interest in metadata
New drive for accessibility and sharing
that can’t be ignored
Keeps frameworks relevant to researcher
needs
Thank You
Contact :
http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/
Lifecycle image: The University of California, Santa Cruz, Data Management LibGuide,
Research Data Management Lifecycle, diagram, viewed 15th January 2017
http://guides.library.ucsc.edu/datamanagement
Desert Island: XKCD Comics https://xkcd.com/731/ viewed 15th January 2017
1