Queen Mary IT Services, in partnership with colleagues from the Library (me), Records Management Office, academic representatives and senior management have been working together to draft a new, improved, centralised policy on research data collection, management and curation. The big buzz-phrase of the moment for any research institution funded by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), and indeed any research institution with RCUK (Research Councils UK) or charitable funding that includes a policy on research data is of course... 'Research Data Management'.
No surprise that there are a number of JISC-funded RDM strand projects underway or recently completed then. See here.
An draft policy for Queen Mary is now available on the DCC website. With thanks to the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Glasgow and Warwick for inspiration when formulating the policy. And a personal thanks to IT Services for inviting the Library to be a part of this very important piece of work, and recognising the skills available from Library types to help get this up and running.
But having a policy is only the first step. Helping researchers to understand their responsibilities, and how to comply with them, indeed providing/enhancing the kind of centralised infrastructure and mechanisms to support these responsibilities is something else entirely, and the focus of further work in the coming months and years. Just thinking about the potential size of some data makes my head hurt (how much is a terabyte again?).
However, as Kevin G Ashley (DCC) recently pointed out at the Institutional Repository Manager's Workshop at Senate House, University of London (15th June 2012); 'not all data should find a home in your institutional repository' - which is a relief not only to repository manager types like myself, but to technical types who have to provide the networking and infrastructure to support such storage in the long term. The thing that is really getting the IT people here hot under the collar? Not the size of the data as you might expect (though this is a significant concern) - it's the length of time that access to that data has to be accessible. 10 years from the last date it was accessed in reality could be 'perpetuity' by another name and that's no small task when your data store grows with every project.
So, to prepare myself for the inevitable talk about research data - I have started to investigate some of the services of interest to the project board, and a few of my own:
DataFlow and DataStage
DSpace - our IR and looking likely to be the institutional data repository platform
DataCite
FigShare
In fact, if it has the word 'data' somewhere in the name - I'm quite interested in it at the moment!
Monday 25 June 2012
Half in, half out
Going slightly off the topic of Open Access and other research support related activities today and thinking about the work environment for those of us in support roles.
A while ago, I made a pact to only produce reports in electronic form, and not print them for anyone, just send them the files. I also had a plan to try and reduce the amount of paper written notes I produce, that just get transcribed into electronic notes later on.
Why? With one eye on the environment, and another on more easily accessing the information I need, whilst also reducing the amount of time I spend 'creating' notes from notes I have already created, it seems like the only way to go.
Weirdly, I find myself 'half in, half out' of the migration to digital.. I purchased a new set of notebooks yesterday. There's nothing quite like paper notebooks, somehow my thoughts and ideas don't flow so easily in an electronic world. My handwriting is certainly faster and more accurate than my typing! It's more than this though. With the need to move from meeting to meeting, or from training event and back to my desk, I'm not really provided with the tools to be able to rove from one location to another and take my work life with me. I'm not the only one, so it's not a personal thing, but it is slightly frustrating and something I am trying to change for the team I work in at present.
I have just had a peruse of my desk at work:
A while ago, I made a pact to only produce reports in electronic form, and not print them for anyone, just send them the files. I also had a plan to try and reduce the amount of paper written notes I produce, that just get transcribed into electronic notes later on.
Why? With one eye on the environment, and another on more easily accessing the information I need, whilst also reducing the amount of time I spend 'creating' notes from notes I have already created, it seems like the only way to go.
Weirdly, I find myself 'half in, half out' of the migration to digital.. I purchased a new set of notebooks yesterday. There's nothing quite like paper notebooks, somehow my thoughts and ideas don't flow so easily in an electronic world. My handwriting is certainly faster and more accurate than my typing! It's more than this though. With the need to move from meeting to meeting, or from training event and back to my desk, I'm not really provided with the tools to be able to rove from one location to another and take my work life with me. I'm not the only one, so it's not a personal thing, but it is slightly frustrating and something I am trying to change for the team I work in at present.
I have just had a peruse of my desk at work:
- Work issued computer
- Personal iPad (I wish I had a work issued one but there you go) with Mac wireless keyboard
- In-tray (overflowing with stuff I am already working on)
- 3 notebooks for the different parts of my role
- Leather bound personal/professional diary (it's posh, and I can't seem to live without it, my iPhone calendar just doesn't seem the same)
- RLUK strategic plan 2011 (passed to me by a colleague a copy of which also currently on my iPad)
- Post-its - a dead giveaway that I haven't entirely relinquished the paper world yet
File boxes, and lots of them fill my shelves, probably largely stuff that could be scanned and disposed of by now, and not replaced by new paper versions. I do however find it difficult not to print lengthy reports for ease of transport and reading at my leisure, although I am getting better at doing this with my iPad when I am on the move.
So, back to open access. If I find it hard to migrate to a more digital environment, how exactly do I expect my researcher colleagues to be any more successful in order to fulfill their open access obligations on research data? Hmm, food for thought.
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