International Journal of Digital Curation
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Standardising and Harmonising Research Data Policy in Scholarly Publishing
Get PDFTo address the complexities researchers face during publication, and the potential community-wide benefits of wider adoption of clear data policies, the publisher Springer Nature has developed a standardised, common framework for the research data policies of all its journals. An expert working group was convened to audit and identify common features of research data policies of the journals published by Springer Nature, where policies were present. The group then consulted with approximately 30 editors, covering all research disciplines within the organisation. The group also consulted with academic editors, librarians and funders, which informed development of the framework and the creation of supporting resources. Four types of data policy were defined in recognition that some journals and research communities are more ready than others to adopt strong data policies. As of January 2017 more than 700 journals have adopted a standard policy and this number is growing weekly. To potentially enable standardisation and harmonisation of data policy across funders, institutions, repositories, societies and other publishers, the policy framework was made available under a Creative Commons license. However, the framework requires wider debate with these stakeholders and an Interest Group within the Research Data Alliance (RDA) has been formed to initiate this process
Preserving Transactional Data
Get PDFThis paper is an adaptation of a longer report commissioned by the UK Data Service. The longer report contributes to on-going support for the Big Data Network – a programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The longer report can be found at doi:10.7207/twr16-02. This paper discusses requirements for preserving transactional data and the accompanying challenges facing the companies and institutions who aim to re-use these data for analysis or research. It presents a range of use cases – examples of transactional data – in order to describe the characteristics and difficulties of these ‘big’ data for long-term access. Based on the overarching trends discerned in these use cases, the paper will define the challenges facing the preservation of these data early in the curation lifecycle. It will point to potential solutions within current legal and ethical frameworks, but will focus on positioning the problem of re-using these data from a preservation perspective. In some contexts, these data could be fiscal in nature, deriving from business ‘transactions’. This paper, however, considers transactional data more broadly, addressing any data generated through interactions with a database system. Administrative data, for instance, is one important form of transactional data collected primarily for operational purposes, not for research. Examples of administrative data include information collected by government departments and other organisations when delivering a service (e.g. tax, health, or education) and can entail significant legal and ethical challenges for re-use. Transactional data, whether created by interactions between government database systems and citizens or by automatic sensors or machines, hold potential for future developments in academic research and consumer analytics. Re-use of reliable transactional data in research has the power to improve services and investments by organisations in many different sectors. Ultimately, however, these data will only lead to new discoveries and insights if they are effectively curated and preserved to ensure appropriate reproducibility. This paper explores challenges to this undertaking and approaches to ensuring long-term access.Â
Using a Computational Study of Hydrodynamics in the Wax Lake Delta to Examine Data Sharing Principles
Get PDFIn this paper we describe a complex dataset used to study the circulation and wind-driven flows in the Wax Lake Delta, Louisiana, USA under winter storm conditions. The whole package bundles a large dataset (approximately 74 GB), which includes the numerical model, software and scripts for data analysis and visualization, as well as detailed documentation. The raw data came from multiple external sources, including government agencies, community repositories, and deployed field instruments and surveys. Each raw dataset goes through the processes of data QA/QC, data analysis, visualization, and interpretation. After integrating multiple datasets, new data products are obtained which are then used with the numerical model. The numerical model undergoes model verification, testing, calibration, and optimization. With a complex algorithm of computation, the model generates a structured output dataset, which is, after post-data analysis, presented as informative scientific figures and tables that allow interpretations and conclusions contributing to the science of coastal physical oceanography. Performing this study required a tremendous amount of effort. While the work resulted in traditional dissemination via a thesis, journal articles and conference proceedings, more can be gained. The data can be reused to study reproducibility or as preliminary investigation to explore a new topic. With thorough documentation and well-organized data, both the input and output dataset should be ready for sharing in a domain or institutional repository. Furthermore, the data organization and documentation also serves as a guideline for future research data management and the development of workflow protocols. Here we will describe the dataset created by this study, how sharing the dataset publicly could enable validation of the current study and extension by new studies, and the challenges that arise prior to sharing the dataset
Choose Your Own Research Data Management Guidance
Get PDFThe GW4 Research Data Services Group has developed a Research  Data Management Triage Tool to help researchers find answers quickly  to the more common research data queries, and direct them to appropriate guidance and sources of advice for more complex queries.  The tool takes the form of an interactive web page that asks users  questions and updates itself in response. The conversational and  dynamic way the tool progresses is similar to the behaviour of text  adventures, which are a genre of interactive fiction; this is one of the  oldest forms of computer game and was also popular in print form in,  for example,  the Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy  series of books.  In fact, the tool was written using interactive fiction  software.  It was tested with staff and students at the four UK  universities within the GW4 collaboration
GI+100: Long Term Preservation of Digital Geographic Information — 16 Fundamental Principles Agreed by National Mapping Agencies and State Archives
Get PDFThis paper states 16 principles for the long term retention and preservation of digital geographic information. The paper is mainly aimed at public sector geographic information providers in Europe (particularly those involved in mapping and cadastre) with the intention of highlighting the significance of fundamental concepts for digital geographic data archiving. Geographic information providers are mainly mapping agencies, but also archives preserving geographic data among a wider range of digital information. A supplementary objective is that the paper may provide useful information for providers of all types of geographic information right around the world. This paper states 16 principles for the long term retention and preservation of digital geographic information. The paper is mainly aimed at public sector geographic information providers in Europe (particularly those involved in mapping and cadastre) with the intention of highlighting the significance of fundamental concepts for digital geographic data archiving. Geographic information providers are mainly mapping agencies, but also archives preserving geographic data among a wider range of digital information. A supplementary objective is that the paper may provide useful information for providers of all types of geographic information right around the world. There are many reasons why people wish to retain access to information, though the main drivers for archiving digital geographic information are meeting legislative requirements, the short and long term exploitation (re-use not only access) of archived data for analyzing social, environmental (e.g. global climate changes) and economic changes over time as well as efficiency savings in managing superseded datasets. This paper sets out the path and describes what needs to be done now to future-proof the investment government agencies around the world have made in creating digital Geographic Data.Â
Open Data Meets Digital Curation: An Investigation of Practices and Needs
Get PDFIn the United States, research funded by the government produces a significant portion of data. US law mandates that these data should be freely available to the public through ‘public access’, which is defined as fully discoverable and usable by the public. The U.S. government executive branch supported the public access requirements by issuing an Executive Directive titled ‘Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research’ that required federal agencies with annual research and development expenditures of more than $100 million to create public access plans by 22 August 2013. The directive applied to 19 federal agencies, some with multiple divisions. Additional direction for this initiative was provided by the Executive Order ‘Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information’ which was accompanied by a memorandum with specific guidelines for information management and instructions to find ways to reduce compliance costs through interagency cooperation. In late 2013, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to conduct a project to help IMLS and its constituents understand the implications of the US federal public access mandate and how needs and gaps in digital curation can best be addressed. Our project has three research components: (1) a structured content analysis of federal agency plans supporting public access to data and publications, identifying both commonalities and differences among plans; (2) case studies (interviews and analysis of project deliverables) of seven projects previously funded by IMLS to identify lessons about skills, capabilities and institutional arrangements that can facilitate data curation activities; and (3) a gap analysis of continuing education and readiness assessment of the workforce. Research and cultural institutions urgently need to rethink the professional identities of those responsible for collecting, organizing, and preserving data for future use. This paper reports on a project to help inform further investments. Â
Next-Generation Data Management Plans: Global, Machine-Actionable, FAIR
Get PDFAt IDCC 2016 the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and University of California Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital Library (CDL) announced plans to merge our respective data management planning tools, DMPonline and DMPTool, into a single platform. By formalizing our partnership and co-developing a core infrastructure for data management plans (DMPs), we aim to meet the skyrocketing demand for our services in our national, and increasingly international, contexts. The larger goal is to engage with what is now a global DMP agenda and help make DMPs a more useful exercise for all stakeholders in the research enterprise. This year we offer a progress report that encompasses our co-development roadmap and future enhancements focused on implementing use cases for machine-actionable DMPs
Documentation and Visualisation of Workflows for Effective Communication, Collaboration and Publication @ Source
Get PDFWorkflows processing data from research activities and driving in silico experiments are becoming an increasingly important method for conducting scientific research. Workflows have the advantage that not only can they be automated and used to process data repeatedly, but they can also be reused – in part or whole – enabling them to be evolved for use in new experiments. A number of studies have investigated strategies for storing and sharing workflows for the benefit of reuse. These have revealed that simply storing workflows in repositories without additional context does not enable workflows to be successfully reused. These studies have investigated what additional resources are needed to facilitate users of workflows and in particular to add provenance traces and to make workflows and their resources machine-readable. These additions also include adding metadata for curation, annotations for comprehension, and including data sets to provide additional context to the workflow. Ultimately though, these mechanisms still rely on researchers having access to the software to view and run the workflows. We argue that there are situations where researchers may want to understand a workflow that goes beyond what provenance traces provide and without having to run the workflow directly; there are many situations in which it can be difficult or impossible to run the original workflow. To that end, we have investigated the creation of an interactive workflow visualization that captures the flow chart element of the workflow with additional context including annotations, descriptions, parameters, metadata and input, intermediate, and results data that can be added to the record of a workflow experiment to enhance both curation and add value to enable reuse. We have created interactive workflow visualisations for the popular workflow creation tool KNIME, which does not provide users with an in-built function to extract provenance information that can otherwise only be viewed through the tool itself. Making use of the strengths of KNIME for adding documentation and user-defined metadata we can extract and create a visualisation and curation package that encourages and enhances curation@source, facilitating effective communication, collaboration, and reuse of workflows
Learning by Teaching about RDM: An Active Learning Model for Internal Library Education
Get PDFThis paper reports on the design, delivery and assessment of a model for internal library education around research data management (RDM). Conducted at the University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS), the exercise and resultant instructional session employed an active learning approach, in which a group of librarians and archivists explored data issues and conventions in a discipline of their own selection and presented their findings to an audience of library colleagues. In this paper, we put forth an adaptable active learning model for internal RDM education and offer guidance for its implementation by peer libraries that are similarly building internal capacity for the design and delivery of RDM services that are responsive to disciplinary needs.Â
The Perceived Value of Acquiring Data Seals of Approval
Get PDFThe Data Seal of Approval (DSA) is one of the most widely used standards for Trusted Digital Repositories to date. Those who developed this standard have articulated seven main benefits of acquiring DSAs: 1) stakeholder confidence, 2) improvements in communication, 3) improvement in processes, 4) transparency, 5) differentiation from others, 6) awareness raising about digital preservation, and 7) less labor- and time-intensive. Little research has focused on if and how those who have acquired DSAs actually perceive these benefits. Consequently, this study examines the benefits of acquiring DSAs from the point of view of those who have them. In a series of 15 semi-structured interviews with representatives from 16 different organizations, participants described the benefits of having DSAs in their own words. Our findings suggest that participants experience all of the seven benefits that those who developed the standard promised. Additionally, our findings reflect the greater importance of some of those benefits compared to others. For example, participants mentioned the benefits of stakeholder confidence, transparency, improvement in processes and awareness raising about digital preservation more frequently than they discussed less labor- and time-intensive (e.g. it being less labor- and time-intensive to acquire DSAs than becoming certified by other standards), improvements in communication, and differentiation from others. Participants also mentioned two additional benefits of acquiring DSAs that are not explicitly listed on the DSA website that were very important to them: 1) the impact of acquiring the DSA on documentation of their workflows, and 2) assurance that they were following best practice. Implications and future directions for research are discussed