Archives des mots-clés : research data management

“Data Stewardship Wizard”: A Tool Bringing Together Researchers, Data Stewards, and Data Experts around Data Management Planning

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Authors: Robert Pergl, Rob Hooft, Marek Suchánek, Vojtěch Knaisl, Jan Slifka

The Data Stewardship Wizard is a tool for data management planning that is focused on getting the most value out of data management planning for the project itself rather than on fulfilling obligations.

It is based on FAIR Data Stewardship, in which each data-related decision in a project acts to optimize the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and/or Reusability of the data.

The background to this philosophy is that the first reuser of the data is the researcher themselves. The tool encourages the consulting of expertise and experts, can help researchers avoid risks they did not know they would encounter by confronting them with practical experience from others, and can help them discover helpful technologies they did not know existed.

In this paper, we discuss the context and motivation for the tool, we explain its architecture and we present key functions, such as the knowledge model evolvability and migrations, assembling data management plans, metrics and evaluation of data management plans.

URL : “Data Stewardship Wizard”: A Tool Bringing Together Researchers, Data Stewards, and Data Experts around Data Management Planning

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-059

Data Curation for Big Interdisciplinary Science: The Pulley Ridge Experience

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Authors : Timothy B. Norris, Christopher C. Mader

The curation and preservation of scientific data has long been recognized as an essential activity for the reproducibility of science and the advancement of knowledge. While investment into data curation for specific disciplines and at individual research institutions has advanced the ability to preserve research data products, data curation for big interdisciplinary science remains relatively unexplored terrain.

To fill this lacunae, this article presents a case study of the data curation for the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) funded project “Understanding Coral Ecosystem Connectivity in the Gulf of Mexico-Pulley Ridge to the Florida Keys” undertaken from 2011 to 2018 by more than 30 researchers at several research institutions.

The data curation process is described and a discussion of strengths, weaknesses and lessons learned is presented. Major conclusions from this case study include: the reimplementation of data repository infrastructure builds valuable institutional data curation knowledge but may not meet data curation standards and best practices; data from big interdisciplinary science can be considered as a special collection with the implication that metadata takes the form of a finding aid or catalog of datasets within the larger project context; and there are opportunities for data curators and librarians to synthesize and integrate results across disciplines and to create exhibits as stories that emerge from interdisciplinary big science.

URL : Data Curation for Big Interdisciplinary Science: The Pulley Ridge Experience

Alternative location : https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/vol8/iss2/8/

Data Management Planning: How Requirements and Solutions are Beginning to Converge

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Authors : Sarah Jones, Robert Pergl, Rob Hooft, Tomasz Miksa, Robert Samors, Judit Ungvari, Rowena I. Davis, Tina Lee

Effective stewardship of data is a critical precursor to making data FAIR. The goal of this paper is to bring an overview of current state of the art of data management and data stewardship planning solutions (DMP).

We begin by arguing why data management is an important vehicle supporting adoption and implementation of the FAIR principles, we describe the background, context and historical development, as well as major driving forces, being research initiatives and funders. Then we provide an overview of the current leading DMP tools in the form of a table presenting the key characteristics.

Next, we elaborate on emerging common standards for DMPs, especially the topic of machine-actionable DMPs. As sound DMP is not only a precursor of FAIR data stewardship, but also an integral part of it, we discuss its positioning in the emerging FAIR tools ecosystem. Capacity building and training activities are an important ingredient in the whole effort.

Although not being the primary goal of this paper, we touch also the topic of research workforce support, as tools can be just as much effective as their users are competent to use them properly.

We conclude by discussing the relations of DMP to FAIR principles, as there are other important connections than just being a precursor.

URL : Data Management Planning: How Requirements and Solutions are Beginning to Converge

Alternative location : https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dint_a_00043

 

Playing Well on the Data FAIRground: Initiatives and Infrastructure in Research Data Management

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Authors : Danielle Descoteaux, Chiara Farinelli, Marina Soares e Silva, Anita de Waard

Over the past five years, Elsevier has focused on implementing FAIR and best practices in data management, from data preservation through reuse. In this paper we describe a series of efforts undertaken in this time to support proper data management practices.

In particular, we discuss our journal data policies and their implementation, the current status and future goals for the research data management platform Mendeley Data, and clear and persistent linkages to individual data sets stored on external data repositories from corresponding published papers through partnership with Scholix.

Early analysis of our data policies implementation confirms significant disparities at the subject level regarding data sharing practices, with most uptake within disciplines of Physical Sciences. Future directions at Elsevier include implementing better discoverability of linked data within an article and incorporating research data usage metrics.

URL : Playing Well on the Data FAIRground: Initiatives and Infrastructure in Research Data Management

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/dint_a_00020

Research Data Management Among Life Sciences Faculty: Implications for Library Service

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Authors : Kelly A. Johnson, Vicky Steeves

Objective

This paper aims to inform on opportunities for librarians to assist faculty with research data management by examining practices and attitudes among life sciences faculty at a tier one research university.

Methods

The authors issued a survey to estimate actual and perceived research data management needs of New York University (NYU) life sciences faculty in order to understand how the library could best contribute to the research life cycle.

Results

Survey responses indicate that over half of the respondents were aware of publisher and funder mandates, and most are willing to share their data, but many indicated they do not utilize data repositories. Respondents were largely unaware of data services available through the library, but the majority were open to considering such services. Survey results largely mimic those of similar studies, in that storing data (and the subsequent ability to share it) is the most easily recognized barrier to sound data management practices.

Conclusions

At NYU, as with other institutions, the library is not immediately recognized as a valuable partner in managing research output. This study suggests that faculty are largely unaware of, but are open to, existent library services, indicating that immediate outreach efforts should be aimed at promoting them.

URL : Research Data Management Among Life Sciences Faculty: Implications for Library Service

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.2019.1159

Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

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Authors : Esther Plomp, Nicolas Dintzner, Marta Teperek, Alastair Dunning

Research data management (RDM) is increasingly important in scholarship. Many researchers are, however, unaware of the benefits of good RDM and unsure about the practical steps they can take to improve their RDM practices. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) addresses this cultural barrier by appointing Data Stewards at every faculty.

By providing expert advice and increasing awareness, the Data Stewardship project focuses on incremental improvements in current data and software management and sharing practices.

This cultural change is accelerated by the Data Champions who share best practices in data management with their peers. The Data Stewards and Data Champions build a community that allows a discipline-specific approach to RDM. Nevertheless, cultural change also requires appropriate rewards and incentives.

While local initiatives are important, and we discuss several examples in this paper, systemic changes to the academic rewards system are needed. This will require collaborative efforts of a broad coalition of stakeholders and we will mention several such initiatives.

This article demonstrates that community building is essential in changing the code and data management culture at TU Delft.

URL : Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.484

Building Infrastructure for African Human Genomic Data Management

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Authors: Ziyaad Parker, Suresh Maslamoney, Ayton Meintjes, Gerrit Botha, Sumir Panji, Scott Hazelhurst, Nicola Mulder

Human genomic data are large and complex, and require adequate infrastructure for secure storage and transfer. The NIH and The Wellcome Trust have funded multiple projects on genomic research, including the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative, and data are required to be deposited into the public domain.

The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) is a repository for sequence and genotype data where the data access is controlled by access committees. Access is determined by a formal application procedure for the purpose of secure storage and distribution, and must be in line with the informed consent of the study participants.

H3Africa researchers based in Africa and generating their own data can benefit tremendously from the data sharing capabilities of the internet by using the appropriate technologies.

The H3Africa Data Archive is an effort between the H3Africa data generating projects, H3ABioNet and the EGA to store and submit genomic data to public repositories. H3ABioNet maintains the security of the H3Africa Data Archive, ensures ethical security compliance, supports users with data submission and facilitates the data transfer.

The goal is to ensure efficient data flow between researchers, the archive and the EGA or other public repositories.

To comply with the H3Africa data sharing and release policy, nine months after the data is in secure storage, H3ABioNet converts the data into an XML format ready for submission to EGA. This article describes the infrastructure that has been developed for African human genomic data management.

URL : Building Infrastructure for African Human Genomic Data Management

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-047