International Journal of Digital Curation
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Some Challenges for eScience Liaison
Get PDFThe Digital Curation Centre’s promotion of expertise and good practice in digital data curation is no mere exercise in theory. Through its new eScience Liaison initiative the DCC has kept a close eye on its founding principle, that the necessity for the physical and life sciences to share access to digital research resources is due mainly to issues characteristic of eScience. This article describes some of the principal liaison activities that have been addressed within that community since the summer of 2007
Dataset Preservation for the Long Term: Results of the DareLux Project
Get PDFThe purpose of the DareLux (Data Archiving River Environment Luxembourg) Project was the preservation of unique and irreplaceable datasets, for which we chose hydrology data that will be required to be used in future climatic models. The results are: an operational archive built with XML containers, the OAI-PMH protocol and an architecture based upon web services. Major conclusions are: quality control on ingest is important; digital rights management demands attention; and cost aspects of ingest and retrieval cannot be underestimated. We propose a new paradigm for information retrieval of this type of dataset. We recommend research into visualisation tools for the search and retrieval of this type of dataset
Curation of Laboratory Experimental Data as Part of the Overall Data Lifecycle
Get PDFThe explosion in the production of scientific data in recent years is placing strains upon conventional systems supporting integration, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of data and thus constraining the whole scientific process. Support for handling large quantities of diverse information can be provided by e-Science methodologies and the cyber-infrastructure that enables collaborative handling of such data. Regard needs to be taken of the whole process involved in scientific discovery. This includes the consideration of the requirements of the users and consumers further down the information chain and what they might ideally prefer to impose on the generators of those data. As the degree of digital capture in the laboratory increases, it is possible to improve the automatic acquisition of the ‘context of the data’ as well as the data themselves. This process provides an opportunity for the data creators to ensure that many of the problems they often encounter in later stages are avoided. We wish to elevate curation to an operation to be considered by the laboratory scientist as part of good laboratory practice, not a procedure of concern merely to the few specialising in archival processes. Designing curation into experiments is an effective solution to the provision of high-quality metadata that leads to better, more re-usable data and to better science
3rd Annual WePreserve Conference 2008: A New Generation of Preservation Tools and Services
Get PDFThis is a report from the third annual WePreserve conference held in Nice, France on October 28-30, 2008. The WePreserve consortium is currently made up of three Digital Preservation projects funded by the European Commission, DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE), Preservation and Long-term Access through Networked Services (Planets) and Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval (CASPAR), but is in the process of expansion to include other relevant projects. The theme for 2008 was ‘a new generation of tools and services’ and was designed to showcase the tools and services available now for use in tackling the digital preservation challenge
Digital Curation for Science, Digital Libraries, and Individuals
Get PDFThe creation, management and use of digital materials are of increasing importance for a wide range of activities. Much of the knowledge base and intellectual assets of institutions and individuals are now in digital form. The term digital curation is increasingly being used for the actions needed to add value to and maintain these digital assets over time for current and future generations of users. The paper explores this emerging field of digital curation as an area of inter-disciplinary research and practice, and the trends which are influencing its development. It analyses the genesis of the term and how traditional roles relating to digital assets are in transition. Finally it explores some of the drivers for curation ranging from trends such as exponential growth in digital information, to "life-caching", digital preservation, the Grid and new opportunities for publishing, sharing, and re-using data. It concludes that significant effort needs to be put into developing a persistent information infrastructure for digital materials and into developing the digital curation skills of researchers and information professionals. Without this, current investment in digitisation and digital content will only secure short-term rather than lasting benefits
UK Research Funders’ Policies for the Management of Information Outputs
Get PDFA successful research and innovation system depends on the open exchange of ideas, information and knowledge. But both research methods and the scholarly communications system are undergoing fundamental changes which present new opportunities and challenges in communicating the results of research. Funders are at different stages in responding to these changes, and this in turn presents challenges to researchers and research institutions. This paper reports on the findings of a study undertaken in 2006 into the policies, practices and views of a range of the major funders of research in the UK in relation to the management of the information outputs generated with the benefit of their support. It covers the full range of information outputs, including journal articles and monographs, but also other outputs, including data, that are not generally published in traditional form. The article also presents conclusions as to issues that need to be addressed in the development of a coherent and consistent policy framework for the future
Using a Remote Access Data Enclave for Data Dissemination
Get PDFThis article describes the approach taken by NORC and NIST to provide remote researcher access to confidential business micro data. We have combined technical, legal and organizational approaches to protect respondent confidential. We have also instituted a number of technical approaches to encourage researchers to provide metadata documentation
Report from the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, September 10-13, 2007, Nottingham, UK
Get PDFThis is a report from the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting held at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham on September 10-13, 2007. This event was the 5th annual All Hands Meeting. The proceedings of the meeting are available from the UK e-Science 2007 All Hands Meeting Website
The DCC / Regional eScience Collaborative Workshop
Get PDFA report from the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) / Regional eScience Collaborative Workshop, held at the eScience Institute in Edinburgh on June 12, 2008. The DCC is committed to forging and strengthening links between the digital preservation and eScience communities via its eScience Liaison team. This event was the fifth in a series of workshops which are being arranged throughout the UK, with a view to helping the DCC learn more about the eScience perspective on data curation, and to giving eScience practitioners an opportunity to influence the current and future work of the DCC. The workshop took data sharing as its central theme
Digital Archive Policies and Trusted Digital Repositories
Get PDFThe MIT Libraries, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and the University of California San Diego Libraries are conducting the PLEDGE Project to determine the set of policies that affect operational digital preservation archives and to develop standardized means of recording and enforcing them using rules engines. This has the potential to allow for automated assessment of “trustworthiness” of digital preservation archives. We are also evaluating the completeness of other efforts to define policies for digital preservation such as the RLG/NARA Trusted Digital Repository checklist and the PREMIS metadata schema. We present our results to date