International Journal of Digital Curation
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A Maturing Process of Engagement: Raising Data Capabilities in UK Higher Education
Get PDFIn the spring of 2011, the UK’s Digital Curation Centre (DCC) commenced a programme of outreach designed to assist individual universities in their development of aptitude for managing research data. This paper describes the approaches taken, covering the context in which these institutional engagements have been discharged and examining the aims, methodology and processes employed. It also explores what has worked and why, as well as the pitfalls encountered, including example outcomes and identifiable or predicted impact. Observing how the research data landscape is constantly undergoing change, the paper concludes with an indication of the steps being taken to refit the DCC institutional engagement to the evolving needs of higher education
Can Persistent Identifiers Be Cool?
Get PDFThe fast growth of scientific and non-scientific digital data, as well as the proliferation of new types of digital content, has led – among many other things – to a lot of innovative work on the concept of the identifier. Digital identifiers have become the key to preserving and accessing content, just as physical identifier tags have been the key to accessing paper-based content and other physical entities for millennia. Two main schools of thought have emerged: on the one hand, librarians and public repositories have pushed the concept of the Persistent Identifier (PI) as a way to guarantee long term identification and (sometimes) access; on the other hand, the extraordinary success of the web has led several researchers and web experts to push the concept of the Cool URI as the universal mechanism for identifying and accessing digital content. Both views have their pros and cons, but so far (with only a few exceptions) the two visions have developed in parallel, sometimes with a subtle underlying hostility.In this paper, we present the evolution of the Entity Name System (ENS), an open service-based platform developed as part of the OKKAM EU co-funded project, which can reconcile these two approaches. The new system, called ENS2.0, is currently under development and will enable data creators and curators to combine the technical strengths and opportunities of the (Semantic) Web vision with the organizational, economical and social requirements legitimately raised by the PI community and stakeholders
Competencies Required for Digital Curation: An Analysis of Job Advertisements
Get PDFWith digital curation’s increasingly important role in the fast-paced and data-intensive information environment, there is a need to identify a set of competencies for professionals in this growing field. As part of a curriculum development project funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, a total of 173 job advertisements posted between October 2011 and April 2012 were collected from various sources to take into account varying types of professionals in the field of digital curation across North America. Position title, institution types and location, educational background, experience, knowledge and skills, and duties were examined and analyzed. The results of the analysis show that digital curation jobs are characterized by a complex interplay of various skills and knowledge. The findings of this study present emerging requirements for a qualified workforce in the field of digital curation
Defining What Matters When Preserving Web-Based Personal Digital Collections: Listening to Bloggers
Get PDFUser-generated content (UGC) has become a part of personal digital collections on the Web, as such collections often contain personal memories, activities, thoughts and even profiles. With the increase in the creation of personal materials on the Web, the needs for archiving and preserving these materials are increasing, not only for the purpose of developing personal archives but also for the purpose of capturing social memory and tracking human traces in this era. Using both survey and interview methods, this study investigated blogs, one popular type of UGC, and analyzed travel bloggers’ perceptions of the value of blogs and the elements of blogs that are important for preservation. The study respondents found personal and sentimental value (e.g., a way to express themselves, a way to keep personal memories and thoughts, and a way to maintain a record for their family) to be the most important reason for preserving blogs, followed by informational value and cultural/historical value. Sharing also appeared as one of the values that respondents found in their blogs. The respondents reported that self-created blog posts (content) and information related to the blog posts (context) are more important to preserve than some other elements (behavior and appearance). Integrating what bloggers consider as most valuable and what archivists think are worth preserving may be an important step when collecting personal blogs
Challenges in Building an Institutional Research Data Catalogue
Get PDFThe University of Oxford is preparing systems and services to enable members of the university to manage research data produced by its scholars. Much of the work has been carried out under the Jisc-funded Damaro project. This project draws together existing nascent services, adds new systems and services to ‘fill the gaps’ and provides a wide-ranging infrastructure. Development comprises four parallel strands: endorsement of a university research data management policy; training and guidance in research data management; technical infrastructure; and future sustainability. A key element of the technical infrastructure is DataFinder, a catalogue of Oxford research data outputs. DataFinder’s core purposes are to record the existence of Oxford datasets, enable their discovery, and provide details of their location. DataFinder will record metadata about Oxford research data, irrespective of location, discipline or format, and is viewed by the university as a crucial hub for the university’s Research Data Management (RDM) infrastructure
Generation of a Skeleton Corpus of Digital Objects for the Validation and Evaluation of Format Identification Tools and Signatures
Get PDFTo preserve digital information it is vital that the format of that information can be identified, in-perpetuity. This is the major focus of research within the field of Digital Preservation. The National Archives of the UK called for the Digital Preservation and Digital Curation communities to develop a test corpus of digital objects to help further develop tools to aid this purpose. Following that call, an attempt has been made to develop the suite.This paper initially outlines a methodology to generate a skeleton corpus using simple user-generated digital objects. It then explores the lessons learnt in the generation of a corpus using scripting language techniques from the file format signatures described in The National Archives PRONOM technical registry. It will also discuss the use of the digital signature for this purpose, the benefits of developing a test corpus using this technique. Finally, this paper will outline a methodology for future research before exploring how the community can best make use of the output of this project and how this project needs to be taken forward to completion
Towards Standardization: A Participatory Framework for Scientific Standard-Making
Get PDFIn contemporary scientific research, standard-making and standardization are key processes for the sharing and reuse of data. The goals of this paper are twofold: 1) to stress that collaboration is crucial to standard-making, and 2) to urge recognition of metadata standardization as part of the scientific process. To achieve these goals, a participatory framework for developing and implementing scientific metadata standards is presented. We highlight the need for ongoing, open dialogue within and among research communities at multiple levels. Using the Long Term Ecological Research network adoption of the Ecological Metadata Language as a case example in the natural sciences, we illustrate how a participatory framework addresses the need for active coordination of the evolution of scientific metadata standards. The participatory framework is contrasted with a hierarchical framework to underscore how the development of scientific standards is a dynamic and continuing process. The roles played by ‘best practices’ and ‘working standards’ are identified in relation to the process of standardization
Lies, Damned Lies and Research Data: Can Data Sharing Prevent Data Fraud?
Get PDFAfter a spectacular case of data fraud in the field of social psychology surfaced in The Netherlands in September 2011, the Dutch research community was confronted with a number of questions. Is this an isolated case or is scientific fraud with data more common? Is the scientific method robust enough to uncover the results of misconduct and to withstand the breach of trust that fraud causes? How responsible and reliable are researchers when they collect, process, analyse and report on data? How can we prevent data fraud? Do we need to adapt the codes of conduct for researchers or do we need stricter rules for data management and data sharing?This paper discusses the conclusions and recommendations of two reports that were published recently in consequence of this data fraud. The reports are relevant for scientific integrity and trustworthy treatment of research data. Next, this paper reports on the outcomes of enquiries in data cultures in a number of scientific disciplines. The concluding section of this paper contains a number of examples that show that the approach towards data sharing is improving gradually. The data fraud case can be regarded as a wake-up call
Model Development for Scientific Data Curation Education
Get PDFThe mounting and critical need for scientific data curation professionals was the impetus for the Data Curation Education in Research Centers (DCERC) program. DCERC is developing a sustainable and transferable model for educating Library and Information Science (LIS) students in data curation through field experiences in research and data centers. DCERC has established and implemented a graduate research and education program bringing students into the real world of scientific data curation, where they engage with current practices and challenges, and share their developing expertise and research. The DCERC partner institutions are developing and evaluating this model with the intention of scaling the program to a larger cadre of partners and participants. This paper reports on progress in the early phases of the model development
Implementing the Research Data Management Policy: University of Edinburgh Roadmap
Get PDFThis paper discusses work to implement the University of Edinburgh Research Data Management (RDM) policy by developing the services needed to support researchers and fulfil obligations within a changing national and international setting. This is framed by an evolving Research Data Management Roadmap and includes a governance model that ensures cooperation amongst Information Services (IS) managers and oversight by an academic-led steering group. IS has taken requirements from research groups and IT professionals, and at the request of the steering group has conducted pilot work involving volunteer research units within the three colleges to develop functionality and presentation for the key services. The first pilots cover three key services: the data store, a customisation of the Digital Curation Centre’s DMPonline tool, and the data repository. The paper will report on the plans, achievements and challenges encountered while we attempt to bring the University of Edinburgh RDM Roadmap to fruition