Category Archives: Research data

Feel the Heat: A World Temperature Data Quilt – Nathalie Vladis & Julia Zaenker

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Holding the increase in global average temperature to well
below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursure efforts
to limit temperature increase to 1.5° C above pre-industrial
levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the
risks and impacts of climate chang.

(Article 2, Paris Agreement, 2015)

feel-the-heat: world temperature data quilt

How much do we really want to feel the heat if the blanket is extended in
future? Can we prevent it from getting uncomfortable? No more than 2°C
– that is the target set by the United Nations in the Paris Climate Agreement.
What does this number mean and how close are we to the threshold? Climato
-logist are assembling huge data sets to describe global mean temperature
change over the last century. The HadCRUT4 global temperature data set com
-piles monthly temperature time series data from 4800 stations across the
world. The data is expressed in deviations from the average temperature between
1961 and 1990. As numbers are often hard to grasp visuliastion of the
data set can help us to literally “feel the heat�. Numer-ous representation have
been developed using computer code and plotting tools. They are the inspiration
behind the World Temperature Data Quilt which aims to bring the data to
life in the real world. Colorful tiles representing the temperature deviation in
each month over the last years form the building blocks of the blanket. Sewn
together the quilt enables us to see connections and better understand climate
history and possible future trends.

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Research Data Management (RDM) Forum

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RDM Forum is a newly created platform to bring together both researchers and research & IT support staff from across the University whose role involves helping academics in managing their research data. The aim of the Forum is to share good practice, exchange experiences as well as discuss current and future challenges related to data curation, preservation and publishing. We hope that the Forum will allow its participants to learn from one another and gain a new perspective on some common issues.

The Forum takes the form of meetings as well as e-mail updates (done through the RDM Forum mailing list) and an online platform (SharePoint website) for sharing useful resources, engaging with each other and keeping up-to-date with recent developments in RDM.

The first meeting took place on 7th December 2016. There were 24 in attendance and participants had the opportunity to introduce themselves, ask questions, and provide their expectations and suggestions for future RDM Forum meetings, which have been summarised below:

  • Overcoming challenges:
    • Supporting academic engagement
    • Going beyond funder requirements
    • Engagement beyond training
    • Avoiding last-minute arrangements
    • Addressing concerns about data sharing and reuse
  • Finding solutions that will work
    • Early training
    • Establishing workflows for standard processes
    • Developing an Information Governance structure for data
    • Sharing real-life scenarios
  • Forum structure
    • Forming several user groups focused on specific aspects of RDM
    • Organising meetings around specific themes
    • Updates from Research Data Service team
    • Forum as a platform for training
    • Forum to meet every two months at different locations

If you are interested in joining the Forum mailing list you can do so at: https://mlist.is.ed.ac.uk/lists/info/rdm-forum
RDM Forum SharePoint website (access by request) is available at:
https://uoe.sharepoint.com/sites/rdmforum

Cuna Ekmekcioglu
Senior Research Data Officer

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Data-X Exhibition and Symposium – Date for your diary!

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You are invited to the opening reception of the Pioneering Research Data (Data-X) Exhibition in the Sculpture Court, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh on Friday 25 November 2016. The opening will start at 5.00pm with a drinks reception, snacks and live performances, and end at 8.00pm.

Data-X is a University of Edinburgh IS Innovation Fund initiative supported by the Data Lab and brings together PhD researchers from the arts and sciences to develop collaborative ‘installations’ which will explore data re-use and disciplinary boundaries for a lay audience.

‘Installations’ will take the form of digital sculptures, simulations, performances, soundscapes, interactive exhibits, 3D structures, machinery, visualisations.

The exhibition runs from 26 November – 6 December 2016 in the Sculpture Court, Edinburgh College of Art, Main Building and Hunter Building, 74 Lauriston Pl, Edinburgh EH3 9DF

For further information see: http://data-x.blogs.edina.ac.uk/about/

To accompany the exhibition a symposium will be held on 1 December 2016 in the Main Lecture Theatre, Edinburgh College of Art introduced by Professor Chris Speed (Chair of Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh). PhD researchers will formally present their ‘installations’ alongside guest speakers.

To register visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/data-x-symposium-tickets-29076676121 or contact: Stuart Macdonald, Data-X Project Manager (email: stuart.macdonald@ed.ac.uk)

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DATA-X

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Welcome to the Pioneering Research Data Exhibition Blog – DATA-X.

Data-X will be holding the third networking workshops for research students to get involved in shaping, collaborating on and delivering exciting and innovative multi-disciplinary data ‘installations’ (see About for more details).

This workshop will be held in the central campus area on 29 June 2016.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The provisional schedule can be found at: http://data-x.blogs.edina.ac.uk/workshop-3-2/

Registration


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Dealing with Data 2015 – Programme

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Date:                     Monday 31 August 2015, 9:30 – 16:30
Location:             Informatics Forum and Appleton Tower, University of Edinburgh

Bookings for the Dealing with Data conference are now open.  Bookings can be made via: https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=15936

Draft Programme

09:30 Refreshments
10:00 Welcome
10:05 Opening keynote: Title TBC, Prof Jonathan Silvertown, Institute of Evolutionary Biology

10:45 Session 1 – Informatics Forum
10:45 – 11:05: University data, open data and the Smart Data Hack, Ewan Klein, Informatics.
11:05 – 11:25: Edinburgh Data Science Introduction. Mark Parsons, EPCC.
11:25 – 11:45: Channel shift – using data analysis to improve service delivery at the City of Edinburgh Council. Michael Wasilewski, Informatics.

11:45 Break

12:00 – 13:00 Session 2 – Informatics Forum
12:00 – 12:20: What are the challenges of collecting and analysing data in primary care? Lessons learned from a feasibility study in six general practices in Lothian, Scotland. Natalia Calanzani, Debbie Cavers, Gaby Vojt, David Weller, Christine Campbell, Poplation Health Sciences and Informatics.
12:20 – 12:40: Facilitating the reuse of brain imaging and clinical data from completed studies across the life course: the Brain Images of Normal Subjects (BRAINS) Imagebank. Samuel Danso, Dominic E. Job, David Alexander Dickie, David Rodriguez, Andrew Robson, Cyril Pernet, Susan D. Shenkin, Joanna M. Wardlaw, Brain Sciences.
12:40 – 13:00: Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics and R: Adding value to a public data resource with the ‘tidy data’ paradigm. Jon Minton, AQMeN.

12:00 – 13:00 Session 2 – Appleton Tower
12:00 – 12:20: Data ecosystems and wicked problems; supporting “students as researchers� in complex data environments. Arno Verhoeven, ECA; James Stewart, SPS; Ewan Klein, Informatics.
12:20 – 12:40: Factors shaping learners’ interactions in networked learning context. Srećko Joksimović, Dragan GaÅ¡ević, Education
12:40 – 13:00: Automated Content Analysis of Discussion Transcripts. Vitomir Kovanovic, Dragan Gašević, Informatics and Education.

13:00 Lunch

13:45 – 14:45 Session 4 – Informatics Forum
13:45 – 14:05: Trans-national access to commercial ‘big data’ inside China capturing the demographics and consumption of millions of consumers across a wide range of physical and digital market channels, Ashley Llyod (Title to be confirmed).
14:05 – 14:25: Gone Fishing: The Creation of the Comparative Agendas Project Master Codebook, Shaun Bevan, SSPS.
14:25 – 14:45: Electronic lab notebooks and research data management at Edinburgh Experience to date and challenges and opportunities going forward. Rory Macneil, RSpace.

13:45 – 14:45 – Session 5 – Appleton Tower
13:45 – 14:05: Tweeting Jonson’s “Foot Voyage�: deeply mapped data, Anna Groundwater, HCA.
14:05 – 14:25: University of Edinburgh Reid Concerts Database Project, Fiona Donaldson, Music.
14:25 – 14:45: Title to be confirmed, Professor Viviene Cree and Dr Steve Kirkwood, The University of Edinburgh, with Dr Daniel Winterstein, Sodash.

14:45 Break

15:00 – 16:00 Session 6 – Informatics Forum
15:00 – 15:20: The VELaSSCo framework: a software platform for end user analytics and visualization of large simulation datasets, G. Filippone, A. Janda, K.J. Hanley, S. Papanicolopulos and J.Y. Ooi, IIE, Engineering.
15:20 – 15:40: From raw data to new fundamental particles: The data management lifecycle at the Large Hadron Collider, Andrew Washbrook, Physics.
15:40 – 16:00: Tipping the balance – introducing data management on a centre-wide level, Tomasz Zieliński, Eilidh Troup, Andrew Millar, Biology.

16:00 Closing talk: Kevin Ashley, Director, Digital Curation Centre
16:30 End

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