Natasha Simons

Managing Research Data WorkshopData discovery and metadata

iSchools Data Science Winter InstituteHong Kong7 December 2017

Why do people search for data?

Why do people search for data*?•Exploratory/Scoping

•Reuse/Secondary data analysis

•Can be starting point or ad hoc

•Peer review

•Reproduce/extend results

•Repurpose (e.g. for mashups, visualisations, simulations)

•Verify claims (e.g. report findings)

*Not in any order; not exhaustive!

How do people find data?

How do people find data*?•Google

•Ask a colleague

•Find link to data in a journal article

•Data journals

•Data registries e.g. re3data

•Open data portals e.g. data.gov

•Institutional repositories

•Data / Discipline repositories e.g. Dryad

•Project website

•Data discovery aggregators like Research Data Australia

•Library catalogues, databases

*Not in any order; not exhaustive!

Characteristics of finding data

When creating metadata records, keep in mind that finding data is:

● Movable feast / changing beast

● No standard practice, universal standard or vocab

● Databases are non-exhaustive

● Methods for searching and terms driven by why people are

looking and how the data is stored

FAIR DataTo aid discovery and reuse, data needs to be:

● Findable

● Accessible

● Interoperable

● Reusable

More on FAIR Data:● FAIR Data Principles (FORCE11): https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples

● ANDS and FAIR Data: https://www.ands.org.au/working-with-data/fairdata

● FAIR Data ANDS Webinar series: https://www.youtube.com/user/andsdata (FAIR Data Playlist)

ANDS/Nectar/RDS

“FAIRground” booth

at eResearch

Australasia 2017

Hands-on exercise: data descriptionYour task:

1. Divide into pairs

2. Each pair take one of the CSV data files

3. Describe the data by creating a metadata record. Think about:

title, creators, date, short description and so on.

You have 15 minutes - go!!

If you are unfamiliar with metadata, take few minutes

to view the introductory video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABF2FvSPVYE

Class discussionHow did you go?

What did you learn?

Here are the original metadata descriptions:

CSV dataset #1 - https://data.qld.gov.au/dataset/marine-oil-spills-

data

CSV dataset #2 –

https://data.qld.gov.au/dataset/koala-hospital-data

Australian data discovery portals

Open data case studyUniversity of Tasmania - IMAS Marine Data

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bs56PnYK9g

More Open Data project stories: https://www.youtube.com/user/andsdata

(Open Data Playlist)

Research Data Australia

https://researchdata.ands.org.au/

TERN - Terrestrial/ecology data

http://portal.tern.org.au/#/00629597

AURIN - urban research data

https://data.aurin.org.au/

Atlas of Living Australia

https://www.ala.org.au/

National Library’s TROVE

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

re3data includes Aus data repositories

With the exception of third party images or where otherwise indicated, this work is licensed under the Creative

Commons 4.0 International Attribution Licence.

ANDS, Nectar and RDS are supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research

Infrastructure Strategy Program (NCRIS).

Natasha.simons@ands.org.au@n_simonsorcid.org/0000-0003-0635-1998

Natasha Simons