Some interesting observations are emerging from the Strand B Research Data Management Planning projects about the specific and model data management plans, or data management checklists, which they are developing.

Many of the projects are agreed in the nature of one of the principal challenges: it is to ensure that the data management plan is a practical, helpful document supporting researchers in the completion of necessary tasks/actions rather than a long-winded box-ticking compliance exercise.

For example, from the History DMP Project at the University of Hull:

‘Our Project Proposal and the subsequent Plan indicated that we would base our document on the well-known DCC  ’Checklist for a Data Management Plan’, and we shall.  However, it has become clear to us (if we hadn’t realised it already) that in its basic form it is unsuited to use by the average academic.  We intend to use the DCC checklist as the basis for a document that is more directly relevant to (in this case) history research and which not only poses questions but also offers some answers – perhaps in the sense of ‘tick boxes’ and the like but also by pointing users to people locally who might offer answers or advice and services.  The aim is to make our document obviously relevant and useful rather than an unnecessary chore that has to be dealt with.’

This point has been echoed by the DATUM in Action Project.  On the DATUM in Action blog, Sue Childs relays the typical concern of researchers that ‘completing a DMP was a demanding task, and that for many projects researchers would feel that the effort and time required for a DMP could be better spent on conducting the research itself. Projects are funded from a range of sources (most of which do not currently require DMPs), and vary in size from small scale, single researcher projects to large scale, multiple-researcher projects.’  Sue suggests that if DMPs are to become mandatory, or if the practice of developing and maintaining a DMP during the research process is to be embedded then ‘DMP-lite templates will be necessary’.  To help move towards this goal the DATUM in Action project has been cross-referencing elements.  They have also added a front page so elements can be seen at a glance.  Sue suggests that automatic population of elements would also be helpful.

Appropriately, given the name of the project, they have also modified the DMP to provide ’space for noting actions that needed to be taken: making the DMP a living document’.  This, as I understand it, is particularly important for the DATUM in Action Project which is working with researchers dealing with sensitive and personal data: the DMP needs to be (as Sue says) ‘a living document’ which prescribes and logs a set of data management related actions, some of which are conducted in compliance with ethical requirements.

Interestingly, Sue observes that ‘the EU Project researchers [with whom the DATUM in Action project is working] have already benefitted from the DMP process as they have learnt new aspects about managing their research data and records.’  To my mind, this recalls the dictum of US General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, oft quoted by Kevin Ashley, that ‘plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.’ (See various form of this at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower).

A centrepiece of the JISC Managing Research Data Programme Launch Workshop was the poster session.  Feedback on the session has been very positive and a lot of projects seem to have found it a useful and effective way of finding out about each others’ work and establishing points of contact.  Many – but not all – projects have made their posters available.  Links are provided below – I may have missed some.  I would be grateful if all projects could make their posters available on their websites/blogs so that we can link to them here, for the general felicity and edification.

Strand A: Research Data Management Infrastructure

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Institutional Pilot Projects

ADMIRe (A Data Management Infrastructure for Research), University of Nottingham

Poster to be made available.

Data.bris, University of Bristol

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://data.blogs.ilrt.org/2011/11/30/data-bris-poster-at-jisc-mrd-launch/

#idcc11 poster: http://data.blogs.ilrt.org/2011/12/04/data-bris-at-idcc-11/

Iridium, University of Newcastle

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://iridiummrd.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/poster-for-jisc-mrd02-start-up-meeting-in-nottingham/

Leeds RoaDMaP, University of Leeds

Poster to be made available.

Orbital, University of Lincoln

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://orbital.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2011/11/22/introductory-poster/

Pilot Study in Health & Life Sciences, University of the West of England

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/library/usingthelibrary/servicesforresearchers/datamanagement/managingresearchdata/projectoutputs.aspx

Research360, University of Bath

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://www.scribd.com/doc/74251322/Research360-Poster

Research Data @ Essex, University of Essex

Poster to be made available.

Service Oriented Toolkit for Research Data Management, University of Hertfordshire

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://research-data-toolkit.herts.ac.uk/2011/11/mrd-programme-launch-poster/

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Institutional Embedding and Transition to Service Projects

DaMaRO (Data Management Roll-out at Oxford), University of Oxford

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/damaro/2011/11/24/poster-for-the-jisc-mrd-meeting/

DataPool, University of Southampton

Poster to be made available.

MiSS (MaDaM into Sustainable Service), University of Manchester

Poster to be made available.

Open Exeter, University of Exeter

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/openexeterrdm/files/2012/01/Poster1.pdf

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Disciplinary Projects

KAPTUR, University for the Creative Arts

#jiscmrd Launch Workshop poster: http://kaptur.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/kaptur-poster-2011/

PIMMS (Portable Infrastructure for the Metafor Metadata System), University of Reading

Poster to be made available.

SWORD-ARM (SWORD & Archaeological Research data Management), University of York

Poster to be made available.

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Metadata

CERIF for Datasets, University of Sunderland%

Steve Hitchcock (@stevehit) from Southampton’s DataPool Project has published an interesting blog post about that project’s progress on taking forward a research data management policy.  DataPool’s three pronged approach (addressing system, policy and training) was described in Steve’s first post.  DataPool is pushing forward with the Southampton research data policy.  The project is currently hoping to have policy approved by University Executive Group and forwarded to Senate by March 2012 if all goes well.  Steve shares some details and reflections about the policy, process and function which are likely to be of interest to other JISCMRD projects:

The policy includes the policy document supported by a series of user guides to smooth implementation. It would be premature to describe the specifics of the policy here, although broadly it covers a researcher’s responsibilities, IPR, storage, retention, disposal and access, as well as setting out contextual issues such as purpose, objectives, and definitions.  My viewpoint on reading the draft policy is to anticipate how a researcher might respond to it in terms of clarity of actions, options and consequences. In this respect it is noticeable how much the policy has improved through review and iterations. …

We do not expect the policy to be without issues when it comes to implementation, clearly, for an initiative of this scale, but the policy will give the DataPool Project the basis to investigate and resolve the issues, in terms of actions and answers. On current schedule, there should be a year for the project to work with this.

There is little prior art on institutional data policy, and one of the reasons JISC has funded DataPool is not just to help produce a data policy, but to inform other institutions on implementation. … Policy implementation, monitoring and ability to adapt are the real testing ground for this latest phase of research data management projects.

Steve also engages in an interesting discussion on what should be defined as research data.  More precisely, perhaps it is a discussion of what research data should be subject to the requirements of research data policies to be retained and made available.  To my mind there are two criteria.  First, as Steve recognises the need to retain those data which underpin, provide evidence for, research findings as expressed in publications, that is research data ‘concerned with the quality and reproducibility of results, the bedrock of scientific testability’.  This is the most straightforward selection criteria.

Secondly, however, is the criteria of ‘reusability’ or ‘re-usefulness’ as Mansur Darlington will have it.  This is where the data collected may not necessarily underpin a publication – though it would be surprising if it didn’t – but for which there may be a value proposition in reuse in a number of ways.

There is likely a considerable overlap between these two criteria – but we should allow, I think, a) that some data is collected as part of a corpus susceptible to multiple analysis (time dependent observational data, archaeological digs, social surveys etc); and b) that many research projects will collect data that remains, somehow or other on the cutting room floor when publications are being prepared, but may have value in the longer term.

These are very general and abstract comments.  I would be very keen to understand whether JISCMRD projects are reaching in a more concrete and ‘empirical’ definition of a) what researchers understand by research data, and b) what research data the project and institution concludes should be subject to retention and availability policies.

There are a number of blog posts available providing accounts and discussions of the recent JISCMRD 2011-13 Launch Workshop.  I have provided links below.

I am very grateful to those of you who have posted accounts of the workshop as a whole or various sessions.  A few gaps remain and I would be grateful to anyone who was in those sessions for sharing their notes, thoughts and responses.  Please let me know if there are any I have overlooked – or any still in the pipeline.

DAY ONE – Thursday 1st December 2011

13.30-14.00 Introduction to the programme and the workshop (Simon Hodson)

An overview of the programme and strand objectives; timescales and key events; objectives and activities for the Launch Workshop.

Thorough and informative account of the opening session from Laura Molloy on the JISCMRD Evidence Gatherers’ blog: http://mrdevidence.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2011/12/12/jisc-managing-research-data-programme-–-mk-02-is-go/

Pablo de Castro’s typically thorough and informative overview of Day One on the Sonex blog: http://sonexworkgroup.blogspot.com/2011/12/dawn-of-new-jisc-mrd-programme.html

Marco Fabiani, Sustainable Management of Digital Music Research Data has provided a nice post covering the whole of day one: http://rdm.c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/programme-launch-day-1

14.00-15.00 Brian Kelly, ‘Blogging Practices To Support Project Work’ (Brian Kelly)

Overviews and materials from Brian’s session

Brian Kelly, ‘Blogging Practices to Support Project Work’: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/blogging-practices-jiscmrd-2011/

Brian Kelly Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/lisbk/blogging-practices-to-support-project-work

Brian Kelly Trip Report: Blogging Practices Session at the JISC MRD Launch Event (#jiscmrd): http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2011/12/05/trip-report-blogging-practices-session-at-the-jisc-mrd-launch-event-jiscmrd/

Brian Kelly’s Storify from the blogging session: http://storify.com/briankelly/blogging-practices-to-support-projects?awesm=sfy.co_QKo&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_content=storify-pingback

Summaries of this session:

MTG on Brian Kelly’s blogging tips and how the #kaptur_mrd project is planning to implement them: http://kaptur.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/jiscmrd-launch-brian-kelly-tips/

Related to this session, efforts have been made to provide pull together JISCMRD blogs, tweeters etc.

JISCMRD02 Tweeters: https://twitter.com/#!/briankelly/jiscmrd/members

Jez Cope’s Google Reader aggregated feed of #jiscmrd 2011-13 blogs: http://www.google.com/reader/bundle/user%2F16518345416216548412%2Fbundle%2FResearch%20data%20management

See also Jez’s post on the Research360 blog: http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/research360/2011/12/jisc-mrd-project-blogs/

(One was also put together, some time ago, by Linsay Wood of the Iridium Project – mea culpa for not having spotted this sooner… http://www.google.com/reader/bundle/user%2F03736332647529966548%2Fbundle%2FMRD%20blog%20aggregation%20%28v0.3%29

Custom Google Search of #jiscmrd 2011-13 blogs: http://www.google.co.uk/cse/home?cx=014585586457452330127:sydesikwuxu

Custom Google Search set up by Linsay Wood of the Iridium Project: http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=005355511682543137021:knmqkoyfkrq&hl=en

(See also the one set up as part of the DATUM for Health project looking over RDM Training Materials: http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=000734657432312665985:qb4jguvqyia)

Brian’s session highlighted a number of points: apps for reading RSS feeds, the usefulness of applying analytics and the importance of having an explanatory page to laying out scope, purpose and approach for the blog.

Smartr For Following JISC MRD Project Twitter Links: http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2011/12/07/smartr-for-following-jisc-mrd-project-twitter-links/

Bill Worthington on Blog Analytics: http://research-data-toolkit.herts.ac.uk/2011/12/jiscmrd-2011-2013-launch-meeting-%E2%80%93-blog-analytics/

Marco Fabiani, #smdmrd, has added a ‘blog policy’: http://rdm.c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/blog-policies

15.00-16.30 Parallel Sessions

1) DCC Tools:

DCC-run workshop giving introductions to and walk-throughs of various DCC tools;  with time for discussion and sharing experiences.

Paul Stainthorpe, from the Orbital Project, has written up a really helpful summary of the session and the tools: http://paulstainthorp.com/2011/12/01/jiscmrd-programme-launch-day-1-%E2%80%93-dcc-tools-workshop/

2) UMF Tools and Demos:

Introductions and demos from the JANET Brokerage, from Eduserv and from UMF Research Data Management Software as a Service Projects.

Pablo de Castro’s blog touches on the content of the UMF Tools and Demos session: http://sonexworkgroup.blogspot.com/2011/12/dawn-of-new-jisc-mrd-programme.html

Marco Fabiani’s post, already mentioned above, provides a brief summary of this session: http://rdm.c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/programme-launch-day-1

Presentations will appear shortly on the JISC website.  Has anyone else shared their thoughts on this session?

16.45-18.30 Poster Session and Networking

I shall publish a separate post with links to those posters that have been made available so far.  Were there any particularly reactions to this session, important contacts made or ideas sparked?

DAY TWO – 2nd December 2011

09.00-10.30 Benefits Evidence Gathering in the JISC Managing Research Data Programme, 2011-13

This session looked at approaches for gathering evidence of benefits and impact which will be important for projects and the programme, both in making a case for investment in research data management and contributing towards project business cases.  Simon Hodson introduced the session and provided an overview of the work in the previous programme and the role of the Programme Evidence Gatherers.  Neil Beagrie gave a practical introduction to the KRDS Benefits Analysis Toolkit.  Practical sessions encouraged projects to look in detail at the Benefits Framework Tool, the Value Chain Impacts Tool and consider what benefits the project is likely to generate and what evidence may be gathered.

All projects were asked to blog a first pass of the benefits which they felt they were most likely to achieve and the likely indicators, evidence and (where possible) metrics for these benefits.

Links to these posts will be provided at the Evidence Gatherers blog: http://mrdevidence.jiscinvolve.org/wp/

11.00-12.30 Thematic Parallel Sessions:

These sessions will focussed on lessons from the previous programme and related work in other institutions, which touches on a number of themes of relevance to the new projects:

A: Preparing a business case, development to service (June Finch, University of Manchester, MaDAM and MiSS Projects); identifying efficiency benefits, cost savings (James Wilson, University of Oxford, Sudamih, VIDaaS and DaMaRO Projects).

Bill Worthington from the #rdmtk_herts project has published a thorough and lively post on this session: http://research-data-toolkit.herts.ac.uk/2011/12/jiscmrd-2011-2013-launch-meeting-–-thematic-session-on-business-case/

See also the overview post from James Wilson, #DaMaRO: http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/damaro/2011/12/08/jisc-mrd-launch-meeting/

B: Identifying and supporting researcher requirements; supporting researcher needs; evaluation (Meik Poschen, University of Manchester, MaDAM and MiSS Projects; Jonathan Tedds, University of Leicester, HALOGEN and BRISSkit Projects).

See the excellent and thorough overview form Marie-Thérèse Gramstadt of #kaptur_mrd: http://kaptur.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/jiscmrd-identifying-and-supporting-researcher-requirements/

On this session in particular, but also the whole second day, see Marco Fabiani, #smdmrd: http://rdm.c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/programme-launch-day-2

C: Policy development (Robin Rice, University of Edinburgh and Miggie Pickton, University of Northampton); guidance and training materials (Sarah Jones, DCC; Laura Molloy, HATII, University of Glasgow)

Robin Rice’s presentation is available on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/rcrice/jiscmrd2-rrnov2011

Did anyone undertake to blog this session?

D: Data management planning and meeting funder requirements (Julie McLeod, University of Northumberland; Mansur Darlington, University of Bath; Brian Hole, UCL).

The presentations and discussion in this session will focus on a) disciplinary challenges as uncovered in requirements analyses, previous work and to what extent these relate to funder requirements and/or other drivers; b) use and adaptation of the DCC’s DMP checklist and/or DMPonline as a starting point; and c) how to go about supporting the execution of the plan and turning it into practice.

Angus Whyte of the DCC has made a number of thoughtful points in his post ‘Elephant Invades Room at JISCMRD 2011-13 Programme Launch’, which offers a nice discussion of the need for context in data management for different disciplines: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/news/elephant-invades-room-jisc-programme-launch-0

See also, from one of the presenters, Julie McLeod, DATUM in Action, ‘Comments on JISC MRD 2011-13 Launch Meeting’: http://datumrdm.blogspot.com/2011/12/comments-on-jisc-mrd-2011-13-launch.html

Mansur Darlington’s presentation is available from the REDm-MED Project site: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/27863/1/redm0pre111129mjd10.pdf

And micro posts of relevance from Simon Kerridge, Cerif 4 Datasets on ‘datapapers’ http://cerif4datasets.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/data-papers/ and on Mansur Darlington’s delightful neologism ’reusefulness’ http://cerif4datasets.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/re-usefulness/

13.30-15.00 Thematic Parallel Sessions

These thematic sessions were identified during the poster session and focussed on the following shared issues: projects taking a broad institutional approach, metadata strategies, projects concerned with health and life sciences, with  engineering, with the arts and humanities.

The intention was that these sessions should come up with actions to be announced in the wrap-up (even if this is simply at the level of ‘this group will keep in touch and exchange news of progress’).

Institutional Approaches

Monica Duke of DCC has given us a useful summary of the lessons and tips shared in this session: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/news/tips-institution-wide-data-management-planning

David Ford, #rdmtk_herts, noted those institutions which were present and taking a broad, institutional wide view of how to support RDM: http://research-data-toolkit.herts.ac.uk/2011/12/jiscmrd-2011-2013-launch-meeting-%E2%80%93-institutional-approach-breakout-group/

Biomedical and Health Cluster

Bill Worthington, busy chap, has again written up a summary of these discussions: http://research-data-toolkit.herts.ac.uk/2011/12/jiscmrd-2011-2013-launch-meeting-biomedicalhealth-breakout-group/

See also the post from Jonathan Tedds of the JISC/UMF BRISSkit Project (and also one of the JISCMRD Programme Evidence Gatherers): http://brisskit.blogspot.com/2011/12/jisc-managing-research-data-community.html

Metadata Issues and Strategies

Louise Corti, from RD@Essex, who facilitated this discussion, has provided an overview with clear actions: http://researchdataessex.posterous.com/metadata-session-feedback-mrd-2011-13-program

See also, the observations from Marco Fabiani, #smdmrd http://rdm.c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/programme-launch-day-2 and Anna Clements, #cerif4data http://cerif4datasets.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/mrd-launch-meeting-metadata-everywhere/

Pablo de Castro’s overview on the SONEX blog provides details of the discussion and links to information about some of the metadata standards to be used by projects: http://sonexworkgroup.blogspot.com/2011/12/thematic-parallel-session-on-metadata.html

Engineering Cluster

Blog post on the Engineering Cluster from Graham Blyth of the Leeds RoaDMaP Project: http://blog.library.leeds.ac.uk/blog/roadmap/post/19

Arts and Humanities Cluster

In Oh, the humanities! A discussion about research data management for the Arts and Humanities disciplines Laura Molloy has provided a detailed account of this session on the #jiscmrd Evidence Gatherers’ blog.

General Overviews of the Workshop

There are also a couple of overviews of the workshop which are worth a look:

Jenni Crossley, UWE: http://blogs.uwe.ac.uk/teams/mrd/archive/2011/12/06/mrd-programme-launch.aspx

David Allen, Research 360, Bath: http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/research360/2011/12/mrd-programme-launch/

In addition to the 17 Research Data Management Infrastructure Projects listed in the previous post, the JISC Grant Funding Call 07/11 Managing Research Data Programme (02) 2011-13 also funded 10 projects looking at issues relating to Research Data Management Planning.  These are listed below, with links to project websites and blogs.

Strand B: Research Data Management Planning Projects

Eight rapid six-month projects are helping research groups, projects or departments fulfil disciplinary best practice and the requirements of research funders by designing and implementing data management plans and supporting systems.

DATUM in Action, University of Northumbria

Website: http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/datum

Blog: http://datumrdm.blogspot.com/

DMSPpsych, University of Sheffield

Website: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/psychology/research/groups/dmsppsych

Blog: http://dmsppsych.blogspot.com/

History DMP, University of Hull

Blog: http://historydmp.wordpress.com/

MaRDI-Gross, University of Lancaster

Website and Blog: http://mardigross.jiscinvolve.org/wp/

REDM-MED (Research Data Management for Mechanical Engineering Departments), University of Bath

Website: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/redm-med/

Blog: http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/redm-med/

REWARD (Researchers using Existing Workflows to Archive Research Data), University College London

Website and blog: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/reward/

ROHRD (Rapid Organisation of Health Research Data), Imperial College London

Blog: http://rapidhealthdata.wordpress.com/

Sustainable Management of Digital Music Research Data, Queen Mary University of London

Website: http://rdm.c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/

Blog: http://rdm.c4dm.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/blog

Strand C: Enhancing DMPonline Projects

Two 12-month projects are exploring ways to customise and enhance the Digital Curation Centre’s DMPonline Tool to improve its interaction with institutional or disciplinary information systems and allow the better exchange of structured information and valuable metadata.

DMP-SS (Data Management Planning for Secure Services), University College London

Website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ich/research-ich/mrc-cech/data/projects/dmp_ss

Blog: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dmp-ss/

Oxford DMPonline, University of Oxford

Blog: http://datamanagementplanning.wordpress.com/

The JISC Grant Funding Call 07/11 Managing Research Data Programme (02) 2011-13 led to the funding of 27 projects across three strands.  With some exceptions for administrative delays, the projects started on 3 October 2011 and most now have their websites and blogs up and running.  Further information about the strands and projects is available on the JISC Managing Research Data Programme, 2011-13 Website.  This and subsequent posts provide links to the projects’ websites and blogs.  First, the Research Data Management Infrastructure Projects:

Strand A: Research Data Management Infrastructure

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Institutional Pilot Projects

ADMIRe (A Data Management Infrastructure for Research), University of Nottingham

Blog: http://admire.jiscinvolve.org/wp/

Data.bris, University of Bristol

Website and blog: http://data.bris.ac.uk/

Iridium, University of Newcastle

Website: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/iridium/

Blog: http://iridiummrd.wordpress.com/

Leeds RoaDMaP, University of Leeds

Website and blog pending

Orbital, University of Lincoln

Website and blog: http://orbital.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/

Pilot Study in Health & Life Sciences, University of the West of England

Website: http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/library/sc/mrd-project.aspx

Blog: http://blogs.uwe.ac.uk/teams/mrd/default.aspx

Research360, University of Bath

Website and blog: http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/research360/

Research Data @ Essex, University of Essex

Website: http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/create-manage/projects/rd-essex

Blog: http://researchdataessex.posterous.com/

Service Oriented Toolkit for Research Data Management, University of Hertfordshire

Website and blog: http://research-data-toolkit.herts.ac.uk/

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Institutional Embedding and Transition to Service Projects

DaMaRO (Data Management Rollout for Oxford), University of Oxford

Website: http://damaro.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

Blog: http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/damaro/

DataPool, University of Southampton

Blog: http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/datapool/

MiSS (MaDAM into Sustainable Service), University of Manchester

Website and blog: http://www.miss.manchester.ac.uk/

Open Exeter, University of Exeter

Website pending

Blog: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/openexeterrdm/

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Disciplinary Projects

KAPTUR, University for the Creative Arts

Website: http://vads.ac.uk/kaptur/

Blog: https://kaptur.wordpress.com/

PIMMS (Portable Infrastructure for the Metafor Metadata System), University of Reading

Website: http://proj.badc.rl.ac.uk/pimms

Blog: http://proj.badc.rl.ac.uk/pimms/blog

SWORD-ARM (SWORD & Archaeological Research data Management), University of York

Website: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/research/swordarm

Blog: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/blog/sword-arm/

Research Data Management Infrastructure: Metadata

CERIF for Datasets, University of Sunderland

Website and blog: http://cerif4datasets.wordpress.com/

In response to a recent query, I put together in an e-mail some links to information about JISC-funded activity in the area of research data management for performance and creative arts.  It seems sensible to share those here as well.

There is quite a lot of material already available, so potentially the task of implementing processes, procedures, training etc for better management of performance, practice based and creative outputs may be more manageable than it might first appear.

In the Managing Research Data Programme, the Glasgow end of the Incremental Project has produced a number of videos with researchers talking about research data management issues, see: http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/datamanagement/training/videos/

A number of these deal with artistic and performance issues.  For example:

What should researchers do to help their data survive? Dr Barry Smith, former professor of performance, Nottingham Trent University and creator of the Live Art Archive

Why should researchers share their data? Stephen Gray, JISC CAiRO project, Bristol University

Does the University ethics process affect the making and recording of artistic work? Adrian Howells, theatre maker

The ensemble of the Incremental pages at Glasgow may be of interest: http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/datamanagement/

Information about the Incremental Project is available at: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/preservation/incremental/index.html

The CAiRO Project (Curating Arts Research Outputs) is producing teaching and learning materials that enable the arts practitioner to sustainably generate, manage and disseminate their own practice-as-research: http://cairoproject.tumblr.com/

In the deposit strand of the Information Environment Programme, the Kultivate Project, is creating a model of an institutional repository for use in the creative and applied arts.  Some information is available at http://research.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2011/01/14/kultivate-project/ and other related posts.

More information about the Kultivate project may be obtained from the project officer, Marie-Therese Gramstadt: mtg at vads.ac.uk

The Kultivate final project conference may be of interest: there will be a final conference on the 15th July at RIBA for 70 delegateshttp://www.vads.ac.uk/kultur2group/downloads/20110715_Kultivate_conference.pdf. The CAiRO project (Curating Artistic Research Output) Project from the MRD Programme will also be presenting at this event to provide a perspective on creative arts data.

There is of course VADS who offer advice for digital project in art education and accept data deposit: http://www.vads.ac.uk/services/index.html

Anyone interested in this area may also wish to get in touch with Sarah Jones of the DCC.  Sarah (having worked for the AHDS Performing Arts and HATII [Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute] has a particular interest in managing research outputs from performing arts: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/about-us/dcc-staff-directory/sarah-jones

In the #jiscmrd Programme, the Research Data Management Infrastructure projects, plus HALOGEN one of the RDM Planning Projects, produced benefits case studies; some of the more institutionally oriented projects have additionally produced business cases.  This material has been synthesised by Neil Beagrie as part of his Support Role.  That report is now in its final draft and will be made public on – or shortly after – 28 July.

It is fair to say that it was a very challenging task for projects to establish effective benchmarks at the outset.  The most comprehensive approach – activity-based costing recommended by the Keeping Research Data Safe approach – is perhaps too resource intensive even for this size of project.  Similarly, with only an 18 month duration, the projects were to short to be able fully and comprehensively to compare the effect of the interventions they made.  Nevertheless, a number of immediate and potential benefits were identified.  These will be detailed in the forthcoming report.

For the time being it is worth drawing attention to some useful material already available from some of the projects.

SUDAMIH

The Sudamih Project final report contains summaries of cost-benefits analysis and business cases for the Training Initiatives (Research Data and Information Management for Humanities Researchers) and the Database as a Service: http://sudamih.oucs.ox.ac.uk/docs/Sudamih_FinalReport_v1.0.pdf at pp.19-26.

Headline findings are:

1) Given the relatively low cost of running training courses to improve RDM and information handling skills, one only need to postulate a very small efficiency saving in researchers time as a result of the course in order for the course and the creation of materials to be shown to ‘pay-its-way’.  This is approach is a little speculative – but the conclusion rests on strong evidence that information handling and research data management practice fall well short of ideal and result in significant wasted effort and time.  Training is the most obvious tool to improve this. (pp.22-3).

2) The cost savings of moving the Oxford Roman Economy Project over to a centrally managed and supported Database as a Service are estimated to be 37%, in the form of staff time in database creation and maintenance, as well as infrastructure costs. (pp.25-6).

The work of the SUDAMIH project to create a Database as a Service platform is being extended under the University Modernisation Fund/JISC VIDaaS (Virtual Infrastructure with Database as a Service) Project: http://vidaas.oucs.ox.ac.uk/

Sudamih Benefits Case Study: http://sudamih.oucs.ox.ac.uk/docs/Sudamih_BenefitsCaseStudy_v2.0.pdf

Full Sudamih Training Business Case: http://sudamih.oucs.ox.ac.uk/docs/SudamihTrainingBusinessCase_v1.1.pdf

I2S2

The core technical output of the I2S2 Project was to develop the I2S2 Information Model and to implement this within the STFC’s ICAT Lite ‘personal workbench for managing data flows’.  This allows the user to manage data, to capture provenance information and to “commit data” for long-term storage.

I2S2 has done a lot of work to identify anticipated benefits.  The most significant is the reduction of time to access derived data or results data from roughly one day (through a manual processes) to five minutes through the I2S2 ICAT system.

Other benefits are laid out in the I2S2 Benefits Case Study: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/I2S2/documents/I2S2-WP4-D4.1-CostBenefitsCaseStudies-110517.pdf

IS2S has also put in place benchmarks which will allow benefits to be measured as the pilot system is further implemented.  These are laid out in the Benefits Use Case document: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/I2S2/documents/I2S2_BenefitUseCases_final.pdf

Herewith notice of the JISC Grant Funding Call 07/11, for the Managing Research Data Programme (02) 2011-13 (#jiscmrd), which will be released in the next few days.

A total of approximately £4.6M will be available, divided across three strands.  The deadline for submissions will be 28 July 2011.

*There will be a community briefing event on Friday 1 July, in London.*

The strands are as follows:

Strand A: Institutional Research Data Management Infrastructure: divided between A(1) Start-up projects to help institutions that are at an early stage of developing a research data management infrastructure; and A(2) Embedding projects to help institutions enhance and extend an existing pilot research data management infrastructure.

These projects are intended to help Universities (1) pilot or (2) further develop and extend infrastructures for research data management as part of institutional mission to provide high quality support for research.

Funding is not expected to exceed £250,000 per project; total funding of approximately £3M is available.  Projects are to run for up to 18 months and complete by 31 March 2013.

Strand B: Research Data Management Planning: projects to design and implement research data management plans for specific projects/departments; including supporting systems and tools.

These projects are intended to help research groups/projects/departments fulfil disciplinary best practice and the requirements of research funders by implementing data management plans and supporting systems.

Funding of up to £100,000 is available per project; proposals requesting less funding are strongly encouraged.  Total funding of approximately £1M available.  Projects are to run for up to 6 months, and complete by 31 March 2012.

Strand C: Projects to develop and implement institutional data management planning tools/workflows.

These projects are intended to help Universities make best use of the DCC’s DMPonline tool by customising it for institutional use and integrating it with a research data management infrastructure, and/or with pre-grant award systems and research information management systems.

Funding is not expected to exceed £100,000 per project; total funding of approximately £600K is available.  Projects are to run for up to 12 months.

The full text of the Call and further information will appear on the JISC website in the next few days.

The fifth and final Working Groups established at the  JISCMRD Phase Two Launch Workshop encompasses the whole strand of work producing discipline focussed training materials for managing research data.

As well as presentations from the new projects, the Research Data Management Training Materials strand had input from the Data Management Skills Support Initiative (DaMSSI) Support Project; from Nicola Siminson (JORUM) and Naomi Korn (JISC IPR Consultancy).

In addition to the new MRDtrain projects, this group includes the SUDAMIH, Incremental, DMP-ESRC and DMP-MRC which have an interest in data management training.

As well as agreeing to share information on the programme platforms (wiki and lists), the group identified particular areas for exchanging information:

- Meriel Patrick, Sudamih has also offered to share their project’s bibliography with abstracts on data management as a starting point for the new projects

- the DMTPsych Project will look into working with UK Data Archive to see if their focus group can effectively assess the psychology data sets deposited in UK Data Archive for reuse;

It was also noted that JORUM has just released a survey to help them plan future developments. It might be a useful to browse through JORUM and respond to the survey with an eye to how it might be most useful for depositing and retrieving your data management training materials. The survey can be found at: http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/mimas/jorumuxpr-oct2010/.

The outlines of two potentially useful workshops were identified.

1) drawing on the historians’ approach to evaluating primary sources, the group will investigate the value of running a DCC workshop to help develop critical assessment of digital source information focusing on examples identified by the RDMtrain projects;

2) a one-day workshop in (early) spring 2011 to have more detail on depositing to JORUM and to review the legal and IPR issues surrounding the development and reuse of data management training materials.