Workshops 18th and 19th Nov and Expressions of interest for pilot institutions.

Based on demands from the academic community Jisc is looking at delivering a research data management shared service over the next 18 months. In order to achieve this we will need to work in close partnership with a number of UK HEI’s to pilot the service, as well as Research Data Management (RDM) system suppliers and developers. The Jisc hosted pilot service will enable researchers to easily deposit data for publication, discovery, safe storage and long term archiving and will allow researchers and institutions to meet their policy requirements for finalised research data objects.

In relation to this project Jisc will be hosting two workshops at Conference Aston, Birmingham:

RDM Requirements Workshop – 18th November
RDM System Suppliers Workshop – 19th November

Jisc is also seeking expressions of interest from institutions who would like to be involved in piloting the shared service. Further details for these events and how to participate in the pilot follow

RDM Requirements Workshop – 18th November, Conference Aston, Birmingham

The day will be about sharing experiences and information so will be very relevant to colleagues who are implementing and managing institutional RDM solutions already. These discussions will inform the development of the proposed Jisc Shared Service.

The workshop is aimed at research data management practitioners, research support colleagues and decision makers in UK Higher Education Institutions who have experience with or are starting the purchase, upgrade or development of research data management systems (repositories, registries, ingest systems etc.), data storage (cloud and local) or other services to support the long term archiving and preservation of research data – with a particular emphasis on complying with research funder policies in this area.

Our key goals for the workshop are:

to gain feedback on the proposed Jisc RDM Shared Service functionality, architecture, requirements (Initial, draft requirements available here Draft RDM Shared Services Statement of Requirements) and development process.
to share information about current institutional RDM provision, required functionality and any current gaps
to share and learn from institutions experiences in implementing RDM systems: what worked well? what were the biggest challenges?
to hear institutions’ hopes for RDM shared services and their key concerns in this area.
to share experiences around gathering requirements
to lay out and prioritise requirements for existing and proposed institutional RDM systems and RDM shared services
to share institutional experiences in introducing an RDM system: what are the key areas and activities that require resources and support?

Registration is limited to colleagues from HEI’s and you can register for the workshop here: https://www.eventsforce.net/jisc/498/home

RDM System Suppliers Workshop – 19th November, Conference Aston, Birmingham

The second workshop is aimed at Research Data and Research Information system suppliers and developers. Jisc is looking to contract with research data system suppliers and developers leading to the development of the pilot Jisc hosted shared service that will be developed in close partnership with a number of higher education institutions.

The development of the service will require suppliers who can provide user friendly interfaces for data ingest, publication and discovery, a repository platform, data storage, archival management and storage and data preservation functionality and data and metadata exchange to enable systems integration and interoperability.

The key goals for the event are:

to inform system suppliers and developers about Jisc’s plans in developing a pilot RDM shared service
to gain system supplier and developer feedback on the proposed Jisc RDM Shared Service functionality, architecture, requirements and development process.
to hear suppliers’ hopes for RDM shared services and their key concerns in this area.
to share and learn from experiences in implementing RDM systems: what worked well? what were the biggest challenges?

The workshop aims to be informative and to allow discussion, feedback and information sharing.

Registration is open to RDM system suppliers and HEI representatives. You can register for the workshop here: https://www.eventsforce.net/jisc/499/home

Expressions of Interest for RDM Shared Service Pilot HEI’s

Jisc is looking for a number of HEI’s to partner with to develop, pilot and test the RDM shared service. Jisc is hoping to work with a range of institutions based on: size and type of institution, availability of varying types of data, their degree of RDM readiness, current use of institutional systems.

Pilot HEI’s will need to work closely with the project and work with Jisc and suppliers to provide:

Backing from internal project sponsor(s)
Access to researchers, data and metadata to test the system
Access to internal systems/staff for API development
Detailed institutional requirements / feedback into development pathway
Analysis of policy compliance
Completion of a (light) Data Asset Framework (DAF)
Metadata creation and data ingest
Quality Assurance on ingested materials
Reporting to support a business case for a production shared service.

Benefits of being involved in the pilot include:

Institution branded RDM solution (also support open access text/object publication)
Support policy compliance (EPSRC, OpenAIRE) and best practice
Institutional support to refine RDM requirements and implementation
Focus on intuitive UI and ease of use for researchers
Focus on interoperability between systems
Extensible, open standards based approach
Bit-storage archiving and data preservation
New features from Jisc pilot services: Usage Statistics and metrics, UK Research Data Discovery Service
Jisc manages system, relieving burden from institutional IT staff
Comprehensive reporting on RDM

If you are interested in being involved in the development of the pilot, either from the start, or to register your interest as a potential beta tester then please fill in this short form.

At this stage completing the form is only an expression of interest and we will require further dialogue to create the pilot and gain commitment to the project. By completing the form we will register your interest, share information directly with you and engage you in further discussion. If you are interested in being a pilot institution it would be beneficial for you to register for the RDM Requirements workshop on 18th November to hear more about the project. We expect to start engagement with pilot institutions in December 2015 with development of the service commencing in February 2016.

Following the workshop we will seek information regarding your participation and commitment according to the outlined criteria and your readiness to participate. At this stage we envisage 6-8 HEI’s being actively involved in the pilot development, with a higher number being engaged to hear and share experiences.

If you have any questions or queries about this project, the events and the expression of interest then please contact John Kaye, Senior Co-Design Manager - Research Data john.kaye@jisc.ac.uk