Data Management Planning: what do researchers really need to know?

Scoping digital repository services

for research data management 20 October, Oxford

Louise CortiUK Data Archive

University of Essex

Supporting research data sharing

Overview

• Introduction • Objectives of large scale Research Programme• Data Management Policy• Operating the Policy (getting tough)• Role of the UKDA • Outputs• Challenges

Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU)

The Research Programme is a large-scale unprecedented interdisciplinary collaboration between:

• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

(BBSRC)• National Environment Research Council (NERC)

The programme has a budget of £24 million, with additional funding provided by government agencies:

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)

Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department

Programme Objectives

• Rural areas in the UK are experiencing considerable change

• The Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU) aims to advance understanding of the challenges they face

• Interdisciplinary research is being funded 2004-2009 in order to inform future policy and practice with choices on how to manage the countryside and rural economies

• The Rural Economy and Land Use Programme enables researchers to work together to investigate the social, economic, environmental and technological challenges faced by rural areas

• The Programme aims to encourage social and economic vitality of rural areas and promote the protection and conservation of the rural environment

Six societal challenges

• public trust in food chains

• tackling animal and plant disease

• sustainable farming in the New Europe

• robust rural economics

• land management techniques to deal with climate change and invasive species

• managing land and water use for sustainable water catchments

Themes and data

• The Integration of Land and Water Use • The Environmental Basis of Rural Development • Sustainable Food Chains• Economic and Social Interactions with the Rural

Environment

• Programme is both using and creating a variety of data sources

• disparate types of data – social and environmental and biological data

• estimate some 80 datasets from Call 1 (8 major research projects and smaller scoping studies)

RELU data types

• Social data – people based• Micro (survey)

• Household or individual level attributes, Behaviour, attitudes and options

• Business/company• Farm level data• Aggregated

• UK Census e.g. small area statistics, Retail statistics, Health indicators

• GIS/spatial data geographically referenced environmental databases• Ordnance survey, Road networks, Settlement

RELU data types (cont.)

• water quality, land fill, air quality, emission levels

• soil data, eg mineral composition

• ecological data, animal and bird distributions

• agricultural census

• climate and meteorological data

• river flow data

• biochemical data relating to foods/habitats

RELU Data Management Policy

• Early on data management formally recognised by funders as critical

• builds on existing ESRC and NERC mandatory data policies

• aims to enhance the capabilities for interdisciplinarity and thus improves the ability of the research community to:

• apply learning from one field to another • combine different methodological approaches and

sources of information • cross-fertilise ideas and concepts • understand scientific, technological and environmental

problems in their social and economic contexts

www.relu.ac.uk/about/data.htm

Data Management Policy principles

• publicly funded research data are a valuable, long term resource

• to ensure maximum research exploitation data must be managed effectively from day-1

• researchers must collect data in such a way as to ensure longer term sharing

• RELU funds will support data management through the life of the project

• data must be made available by researchers for archiving: Research Council supported data centres provide long-term, post-project data management

RELU Data Support Service

• set up to help oversee and implement the Programme's Data Management Policy and Data Management Plan

• provides a support service for RELU researchers and staff to gain information and guidance on issues surrounding longer-term data sharing and preservation

• joint support service run by:

• ESRC/JISC supported UK Data Archive at Essex (UKDA)

• The NERC-supported Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH)

• funded initially for one year supporting one FTE and outreach activities: 1 Jan 05 – 31 Dec 05. Continuation to March 2008

RELU website

Outputs

• Getting wording of DM Plan and guidance right

• Web site to support completing application

• Web site to support completing plan once funded

• Workshops for new Principal Investigators

• Workshops for new researchers

• Best Practice Guide on Data Management

• Third party data information – costs, barriers, licensing

• Database of all data being created

• Acquire data, process and disseminate data

• Advice on data integration

Data Management Plan

• proforma to complete (Section 3 of the Project Communication and Data Management Plan)

• highlighting data management and custody issues at an early stage

• providing a basis for quality assurance within the Programme

• providing a basis from which award holders and the Programme Director can report and monitor project and overall RELU Programme progress

Information required from plan

• requirements for access to existing datasets

• details of new and derived datasets to be produced

• quality assurance of data

• formats and standards

• data description and documentation

• ethical, legal issues and IPR resolution

• data back-up procedures, security

• archiving data (for Research Council data archives)

• data management representative

RELU-DSS helps support these areas

RELU awards database

Guidance on Data Management

• Produced glossy brochure

• What is Data Management? Data, metadata etc.

• Data Management strategies

• What is Digital Preservation?

• Making Back-ups

• Format Translation and Choice of Formats

• Security

Our experience

• This degree of formalisation is new to social science data in the UK

• UKDA operate a Datasets Policy for Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) but with less leverage upfront

• DMP and DM support ensures potential sharing issues to be clarified early on and support mid and end of project

• Greater awareness of data, metadata documentation, and data sharing….albeit grudgingly

• Integration of data is key for this programme

Other disciplines (UK) Policies

• Natural Environmental Research Council (6% of each Programme)

• Arts and Humanities Research Council ICT review (AHDS History)

• Biological Sciences Research Council NEW!

• Medical Research Council STILL WAITING!

• We hope to see DMPs applied to all major investment data-rich ESRC programmes

Data management and sharing advice and training

• Web site

• Joint council brochure

• Bespoke advisory service

• Training workshops

• Training materials

• Articles

Sharing options

Advice on:

• ARCHIVING DATA AT THE UKDA • Formalised archiving and preservation of data in a

specialist data archive or centre that ensures the long-term secure safekeeping of and access to data

• SELF-ARCHIVING • UKDA established its self-archiving facility, UKDA-

store, in 2008, with support from ESRC and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). ‘Quicker and dirtier’ solution

UKDA-store

Modular

• aiming at specific and easy-to-read information

• to provide day creators/managers with best practice strategies and methods for creating a shareable dataset.

• relevant throughout the life span of a research project - from the initial award application, through the data creation phase to the end of the active research phase.

• modularised:

• How to share data• Consent, confidentiality and ethics• Copyright and other rights• Data description and metadata• Data formats and software• Data storage, back-up and security

Messages• data are valuable resources that can be used and re-used for future scientific and

educational purposes

• sharing data facilitates research often beyond the scope of the original research, encourages scientific inquiry, avoids duplicate data collection and provides resources for education and training

• the ability to demonstrate continued usage of data after the original research is completed ensures that the research community gets the most out of publicly funded research.

• many research councils are now committed to a long-term strategy for data resource provision and for supporting UK researchers. The following have data policies:

• ESRC Data Policy (operated by ESDS at UKDA)• British Academy • The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)• Medical Research Council (MRC)• Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)• Wellcome Trust

• UKDA has years of expertise in implementing and training in best practices in data management and methods of data sharing

• most research data can be shared with other researchers!

Informing of options or data sharing

• Options:

• informally, via the data creator, on a peer-to-peer basis

• deposit in a specialist data centre, dedicated to archiving, preserving and disseminating digital data

• deposit in a self-archiving system

• deposit in an institutional repository

• Set out pros and cons for complex research data

Data management and sharing advice and training website

FAQs

• Answers to key questions on consent , confidentiality and anonymisation

• Most problematic areas:

• definitions and legal aspects• gaining consent • consent forms • disclosure • data sharing and confidentiality

Workshops

• Format - half to one day per module• Group size max = 20 with 2 facilitators

• Example:

• Morning: dealing with confidential research information and consent agreements in research with people as participants (interviews, questionnaires, focus groups and so on).

• Afternoon session focuses on metadata and data documentation for archiving data

Materials

• Powerpoint presentations

• Groups:• Short briefing• I. Exercises on consent. Discusssion• II. Exercises on anonymisation. Answers

• Group feedback and discussion

• Summary

Contacts

• Louise Corti

corti@essex.ac.ukUK Data ArchiveUniversity of EssexColchesterEssexwww.esds.ac.uk