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“Perfection is the enemy of the good”Supporting research data management: A pragmatic approach

Catharine Ward, Cambridge University LibrarySudamih Workshop, Oxford, 22nd July, 2010

A pilot project for supporting research data management

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Outline

• Objectives• Scoping Study• Concerns and Issues• Key findings• Implementation plan – recommendations

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Objectives• A scoping study to determine key research data management

and preservation needs of researchers

• Develop a plan for addressing these issues

• Create and pilot tools and services

• Embed the resources and findings within the University departments and supporting services and feed these up to a wider audience through the DCC, DPC and JISC

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Scoping Study Archaeology

Chemistry

Engineering

English

Public Health

Biology / SPRI

• Building on HATII digital preservation study

• Semi-structured interviews

• Similar departments to allow comparison

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Concerns and issues• Procedures for creating and organising data

– how best to name, structure and document data?

• Data storage and access– never enough storage! the need to access data remotely

• Backup– who is responsible? (often not done – and is rarely done well)

• Preservation– How? Who? Blank looks that back-up isn’t preservation…

• Data sharing and re-use– Ok, but only on my terms

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Issues with existing guidance & training

• Difficult to find

• Difficult to use

• Don’t know who to ask for assistance

• Training is often not relevant or convenient– need for disciplinary examples– online resources for anytime access

“The whole thing is incredibly dull.”

“There’s no point being told all this stuff when you’re not using it because – I only learn how to do things when I need to know.”

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Key findings• Main concerns similar between Cambridge and Glasgow -

not discipline-specific - but recognise the need for disciplinary examples for training to be understood

• Simple issues often the most irksome

• Training and guidance resources must be simple, engaging and easy to access

• Points of intervention

• Language matters

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Implementation Plan: Recommendations

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Produce simple, visual guidance on creating, storing and managing data

Making help easier to find:

• We will create simple, centralised data management web pages including categorised links and pithy notes to…

- Existing local and external resources- New resources created for the project

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University of Edinburgh’s Information Services portal

MIT Libraries’ Data Management and Publishing webpages

UKDA guidance pages

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What to call this?So we know we have to translate research data management vocabulary from specialist to non-specialist – but how? We need to find words and phrases that at least have a chance of making sense to researchers who are not specialists in information management / records management / data preservation / data curation.

http://incrementalproject.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/vocabularyjargonterminology-synonyms-and-specialist-language/

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Making help easier to understand:

• Produce simple, visual guidance on creating, storing and managing data

e.g. Fact sheets, FAQs, flow diagrams, checklists

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Cooks Illustrated

WikiHow.com

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Offering practical training resources with discipline-specific examples

• Stand alone slides/resources that can be dropped into other courses – train the trainer

• Collaborate with existing courses within departments

• Work with researchers to document their experiences, video case studies etc.

• Provide online training materials and tutorials

• Create/host screencasts for anytime access to training

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Work in progress

• A performing arts case study based around the DCC Lifecycle Model (example from Oxford workshop – thanks!)

• Will audio-record the autumn ‘Curation for Researchers’ course to create online content (model used in Planets project and well received)

• Embed training in existing courses

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Connect researchers with support staff who can offer tailored advice and partnering

• Raise awareness of existing support staff and services through data management portals and outreach

• Offer on-to-one support to help researchers define best approach for their context

• Build links with research office to point researchers to relevant support when apply for grants

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Work towards the development of a comprehensive data management

infrastructure

Cambridge University

Library

HATII

Digital Preservation Advisory Board

Many local initiatives, projects and exemplars…

Enlighten

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Thanks for listening Any questions?

For further info: Email: Catharine Ward - cw330@cam.ac.uk

Project website: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/preservation/incremental/

Project blog:http://incrementalproject.wordpress.com/