rachel bruce uk research and data management where are we now

The UK and Research Data Management: where are we?Rachel Bruce, Jisc

Structure • Give some context to the meeting & an overview mainly focused on

universities

• Policy drivers & context

• Elements of the infrastructure (people, policy and services )

• Findings on the progress of universities

• Gaps

• Some emerging solutions

Research Data Directions for Universities 2

Policy & definitions

“Research data is defined as recorded factual material commonly retained by and accepted in the scientific community as necessary to validate research findings; although the majority of such data is created in digital format, all research data is included irrespective of the format in which it is created.” (Epsrc)

“Research data’ refers to information, in particular facts or numbers, collected to be examined and considered as a basis for reasoning, discussion or calculation….examples of data include statistics, results of experiments, measurements, observations resulting from fieldwork, survey results, interview recordings and images. The focus is on research data that is available in digital form.” (H2020)


» Public good: Publicly funded research data are produced in the public interest should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible

» Planning for preservation: Institutional and project specific data management policies and plans needed to ensure valued data remains usable

» Discovery: Metadata should be available and discoverable; Published results should indicate how to access supporting data

» Confidentiality: Research organisation policies and practices to ensure legal, ethical and commercial constraints assessed; research process should not be damaged by inappropriate release

» First use: Provision for a period of exclusive use, to enable research teams to publish results

» Recognition: Data users should acknowledge data sources and terms & conditions of access

» Public funding: Use of public funds for RDM infrastructure is appropriate and must be efficient and cost‐effective


http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/datapolicy/

RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy

HEFCE:• Where an HEI can demonstrate that it has taken steps towards

enabling OA for outputs beyond just articles and conference proceedings, credit will be given in the research environment component of post 2014 REF.

H2020: • Develop a Data Management Plan• Deposit in a research data repository• Make it possible for third parties to access, mine, exploit, reproduce

and disseminate data; free of charge for any user• Provide information on the tools and instruments needed to validate

the results


» “The conduct and communication of science needs to adapt to this new era of information technology”

» “As a first step towards this intelligent openness, data that underpin a journal article should be made concurrently available in an accessible database. We are now on the brink of an achievable aim: for all science literature to be online, for all of the data to be online and for the two to be interoperable.”

Science as an Open Enterprise Report, 2012Research Data Directions for Universities 6

The Royal Society, UK

http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/science‐public‐enterprise/report/

» A shift away from a research culture where data is viewed as a private preserve» Expanding the criteria used to evaluate research to give credit for useful data communication and novel ways of collaborating

» The development of common standards for communicating data» Mandating intelligent openness for data relevant to published scientific papers» Strengthening the cohort of data scientists needed to manage and support the use of digital data (which will also be crucial to the success of private sector data analysis and the government’s Open Data strategy)

» The development and use of new software tools to automate and simplify the creation and exploitation of datasets

Science as an Open Enterprise ReportResearch Data Directions for Universities 7

Six key challenges

UK Open Research Data Forum: Research Data Concordat


See the draft …

Data Management Planning

Selection and RetentionDeposit Tools

Advocacy, Guidance, Training and Support

RDM Policy and Roadmap Business Plan and

SustainabilityResearch Data

Registry

Research Data Management Support Service

Data Repositories/Catalo

gues

Managing Active Data



Russell Group (39)

Others 10%+ (35)

Others (13)

From 61 institutions

Most advanced areas


0 20 40 60 80

% indicating piloting or live


32 34 36 38 40 42

Access & storage systems

Data cataloguing &publishing

Managing implementationas a whole


Least progress Research Data Directions for Universities 13

18 20 22 24 26

Business planning &sustainability

Digital preservation &continuity planning

Governance of dataaccess & reuse


Expected timeline for enabling long‐term access to research data


18

3

9

44

40

38

31

43

38

8

14

14

Russell Group

Others 10%+

Others

Currently provide

Within the next 12monthsAfter 12 months

Barriers to progressResearch Data Directions for Universities 15

Lack of appropriate staffresources and infrastructure

Availability of funding

Low priority for researchers

71

64

59

% citing

Do you intend to archive your data with a data centre or repository?

Reasons why not:• It is not something I had ever considered ‐ 42%• It is not something my funder requires ‐ 35%• There isn't a suitable data centre for my discipline – 18%

University of York, Jen Mitcham

Gaps & need for external supportAdvocacy to senior management

Clarify costs from grants

Defining what research data the HEI should retain & for what period

Support metadata creation for discovery

Tools & infrastructures for data management

or preservation

Developing data catalogues & registers


Gaps – sharing

Collective work with software user groups, common metadata, interoperability, storage.

Shared storage

Shared training

Dialogue on incentivising researchers

Develop data scientist role between library

and researchers

Share practice, exchange events


“ lack of recognition that a national rather than an institutional approach would save everyone time and resource”

Research at Risk – some of the gaps (there were others identified!) • Storage.

• Metadata.

• Preservation.

• Defining compliance.


R@R:Support

take up of citation

R@R: DMP

registry

DMP OnLine

R@R: business case & costs

20

Standards; policies;

coordination & cooperation.

EASY ACCESS

Data identifiers

Access & security

Researcher/organisational

identifiers

Funders policies

Deposit protocols

Advice & guidance/good

practice

R@R:UK Research

Data Discovery (metadata)

R@R: metrics & usage data

service

Cardio planning

tool

R@R:RD Experiments

& prototypes

UKDS/Institutional repositories

R@R: shared PreservationRepositories(metadata)

Digital CurationCentre

Open Training Materials in Jorum

Shared data centre

Jisc Research Data Infrastructure

R@R: comprehensive

tool-kit; case studies

Sherpa Juliet Funder policies

R@R: Journal Policy

registry

R@R: EPSRC support

R@R: RD Experiments &

Prototypes, &BRISSkit

Research Data Directions for Universities

So….• If we’re driven solely by compliance will we miss

some other important issues ?

• This is new & challenging –

there aren’t answers yet to everything

• Lots of ideas and effort – can we be

more efficient and effective?

• Prioritise? Quick wins ?

• What might we want to influence –

policy? standards? who & how?

• Build on what we have

(there is good progress in the UK)


Final thought – DataPool, Southampton University “…it is clear that the issues surrounding research data management are becoming more complex rather than less. We now understand much more about the range of data to be managed, its size and sophistication and the expectations of researchers to manage workflows and share data. We also know that at institutional level the requirements of government and funders are placing potentially significant financial costs on institutions which they are finding challenging to discharge in the present financial climate.”



Thank you!

Contact: [email protected]

Twitter: rachelbruce

Acknowledgements: Angus Whyte of DCC who undertook the survey,

and cogdog flickr cc‐by‐sa for the images, notes from John Milner on storage.

rachel bruce uk research and data management where are we now

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