Category Archives: DataShare

Highlights from the RDM Programme Progress Report: May to July 2016

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The following key results were highlighted in the RDM Programme Progress Report:

  • There were 42 new users and 69 data management plans created with DMPOnline.
  • An additional 1.5PB has been procured for DataStore’s general capacity expansions.
  • The Roslin Institute has deposited 16 datasets into Data Vault.
  • DataShare upload release (2.1) went live on 23 May 2016.
  • There are now 334 dataset records in PURE, an increase of 124 records from the last reporting period (February to April 2016).
  • 54 datasets have been deposited into DataShare.
  • The University of Edinburgh was recommended as a preferred supplier on the Framework for the Research Data Management Shared Services for Jisc Services Ltd (JSL) for the following Lots:
  • Lot 2: Repository Interfaces
  • Lot 3: Data Exchange Interface
  • Lot 6: Research Data Preservation Tools Development
  • Lot 8: User Experience Enhancements
  • A total of 390 staff and postgraduates attended RDM courses and workshops during this quarter.
  • A total of 3,649 learners enrolled for the 5-week RDMS MOOC rolling course from March through July, 2016 and a total of 461 people completed the course in the same time frame.
  • There were 5,198 MANTRA sessions recorded from May to July with 58 to 60 percent identified as new users.
  • Set up an RDM Forum in collaboration with College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) Research Officer and Research Outputs Co-ordinator. The first RDM forum is scheduled for Wednesday, 7 September 2016.

Data Management Planning highlights

We currently hold sample data management plans for grant applications submitted to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

 Active Data Infrastructure highlights

DataStore

An additional 1.5PB has been procured for general capacity expansions. This capacity will primarily be deployed to the College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine (CMVM) and the College of Science & Engineering (CSE).

MRC Institute of Genetics & Molecular Medicine (IGMM) has purchased an additional 1.2PB of capacity, and this is now deployed in their dedicated file system.

Data Stewardship highlights

DataShare

The large data sharing investigation was completed for DataShare and reported previously. Upload release (2.1) went live on 23 May 2016. Download release planned following ‘embargo release’ and ShareGeo spatial data migration.

Data Vault

There was a soft release of Data Vault in February 2016, with the Roslin Institute depositing 16 datasets during this quarter.

PURE

There are now 334 dataset records in PURE, an increase of 124 records from the last reporting period (February to April 2016).

Research Data Discovery Service (RDDS)

Two PhD interns are working on School engagement activities (dataset records into PURE / datasets into DataShare) for Divinity & Division of Infection and Pathway Medicine; contracts end 16 September 2016. One PhD intern retrospectively added DataShare metadata to PURE for data deposits prior to PURE Data Catalogue functionality; contract to end 16 September 2016. A fourth PhD intern (to work with School of Informatics) is awaiting for approval.

Data Management Support highlights

A total of 390 staff and postgraduates attended RDM courses and workshops during this quarter.

Other related research data management support activities to highlight

  • A talk was given ‘Understanding and overcoming challenges to sharing personal and sensitive data’ at the ReCon (Research Communication and Data Visualisation) Conference, 24th June 2016, The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation (ECCI).
  • ‘Working with sensitive data in research’ guide was written for research staff and students in social sciences.
  • Another guide is being written on ‘Sharing and retaining data’ for research staff and students in social sciences.
  • Set up an RDM Forum in collaboration with College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) Research Officer and Research Outputs Co-ordinator. The first RDM forum is scheduled for Wednesday, 7 September 2016.

Other activities to highlight

The outcome of Jisc RDM Shared Services bid that was submitted in March 2016

The Procurement Panel has recommended University of Edinburgh as a preferred supplier on the Framework for the Research Data Management Shared Services for Jisc Services Ltd (JSL) for the following Lots:

  • Lot 2: Repository Interfaces
  • Lot 3: Data Exchange Interface
  • Lot 6: Research Data Preservation Tools Development
  • Lot 8: User Experience Enhancements

Unfortunately, the Procurement Panel has decided not to recommend University of Edinburgh for the following Lots:

  • Lot 1: Research Data Repository
  • Lot 4: Research Information and Administration Systems Integrations

National and International Engagement Activities

From May to June

Stuart Macdonald and Rocio von Jungenfeld ran three workshops for the IS Innovation Fund project, Data-X: Pioneering Research Data Exhibition, with PhD students from across the University. Introduction to Data-X: Pioneering Research Data Exhibition

In June

Stuart Macdonald presented peer-reviewed presentation to IASSIST conference, Bergen: Supporting the development of a national Research Data Discovery Service – a Pilot Project

Robin Rice presented a poster at Open Repositories 2016, Dublin: Data Curation Lifecycle Management at the University of Edinburgh

Pauline Ward presented a lightning talk at Open Repositories 2016, Dublin:  Growing Open Data: Making the sharing of XXL-sized research data files online a reality, using Edinburgh DataShare

Stuart Macdonald was an invited speaker at NFAIS (National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services) Fostering Open Science Virtual Seminar: NFAIS Fostering Open Science Virtual Seminar

In July

Robin Rice gave two presentations (invited and peer-reviewed) at LIBER 2016, Helsinki: University of Edinburgh RDM Training: MANTRA & beyond; Designing and delivering an international MOOC on Research Data Management and Sharing

Robin Rice filled in for Stuart Lewis as invited speaker for JISC-CNI 2016, London: Managing active research in the University of Edinburgh

This is the last quarterly report as the Research Data Management (RDM) Roadmap Project (August 2012 to July 2016) came to a close on 31 July 2016.

There will be discussions with the RDM Steering Group to decide how future reporting will be conducted. These reports will be released on the Research Data Blog as well.

Tony Mathys
Research Data Management Service Co-ordinator

 

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DataShare upgraded to v2.3 – The embargo enhancement release

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The latest upgrade of Edinburgh DataShare, from version 2.2 to 2.3, brings in several useability improvements.

  • Embargo expiry reminder
    If you want to deposit your data in DataShare, but you want to impose a delay before your files become freely downloadable, you can apply an embargo to your submission – see our “Checklist for deposit” for a fuller explanation of the embargo feature. As of DataShare v2.3, if you apply an embargo to your deposit, DataShare will now send you an email reminder one week before the embargo is due to expire. This gives you time to make us aware if you need the embargo to be extended, or to send us the details of your paper if it has been published, so that we can add those to the metadata, to help users understand your data.
  • DOI added to the citation field immediately
    When your DataShare deposit is approved by the curator, the system mints a new DOI for you. As of version 2.3, DataShare now immediately appends the URL containing that DOI into the “Citation� field, which is visible at the top of the summary view page of your item. The “Citation� field makes it easy for others to cite your data, because it provides them with text which they can copy and paste into any manuscript (or any other document where they want to cite the data). Previously you would have had to click on “Show full item record� to look for the DOI in the “Persistent identifier� field, or wait for an overnight script to paste the DOI onto the end of the “Citation� field.
  • Tombstone records
    We now have the ability to leave a ‘tombstone’ record in place for any DataShare item that is withdrawn. We only withdraw items in exceptional circumstances – for example where there is a substantive error or omission in the data, such that we feel merely labelling the item as “Superseded� is not sufficient. Now, when we tombstone an item, the files become unavailable indefinitely, but the metadata remain visible at the DOI and handle URLs. Whereas until now, every withdrawn item has become completely invisible, so that the original DOI and handle URLs produced a ‘not found’ error.
Screenshot of a DataShare item's citation field with the DOI

Cortical parcellation citation – now with DOI!

Enjoy!

Pauline Ward

Research Data Service

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Highlights from the RDM Programme Progress Report: February to April 2016

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The membership of the Research Data Service Virtual Team across four divisions of IS was confirmed and met for the first time (to replace the former action group meetings) on 11 February where it was agreed meetings would be held approximately every six weeks for information and decision-making.

In February, the DataShare metadata was mapped to the PURE metadata and staff in L&UC and Data Library trained each other for creating dataset records in Pure and reviewing submissions in DataShare. It was agreed that staff would create records in Pure for items deposited in DataShare until the company (Elsevier) provides a mechanism for automatically inputting records into Pure.

In March, Jisc announced that the University of Edinburgh was selected as a framework supplier for their new Research Data Management Shared Service.

A review of the existing ethics processes in each college is in progress with Jacqueline McMahon at the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) to create a University-wide ethics template. There is also engagement with the School ethics committees at the School of Health in Social Sciences (HiSS), Moray House School of Education (MHSE), Law and School of Social and Political Science (SPS) in CAHSS.

The Research Data Management and Sharing (RDMS) Coursera MOOC opened for enrolment on 1 March 2016. This was completed in partnership with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill CRADLE project. Research Data Management and Sharing (RDMS) MOOC stats from the Coursera Dashboard reveal that as of 23 May 2016, there have been 5,429 visitors and 1,526 active learners; 335 visitors have completed the course.

The large data sharing investigation was completed for DataShare and reported previously. (Two new releases in DataShare defined: upload and download). Upload release (2.1) to go live 23 May 2016.

PURE dataset functionality is now included in standard PURE and Research Data Management (RDM) training. There are now 210 dataset records in PURE.

Four PhD interns were hired in mid-March to act as College representatives for the IS Innovation Fund Pioneering Research Data Exhibition. They will be employed until mid-December 2016.

A total of 363 staff and postgraduates attended RDM courses and workshops during this quarter.

There were 30 new DMPonline users and 55 new plans created during this quarter.

There are now 210 dataset metadata records in PURE.

A total of 56 datasets were deposited in DataShare during this quarter.

The total number of DataStore users rose from 12,948 in the previous quarter to 13,239 in this quarter, an increase of 291 new users.

National and International Engagement Activities

In February

  • Stuart Lewis gave a DataVault presentation at the International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) in Amsterdam.

In March

  • A University news item was released to mark the launch of the Research Data Management and Sharing (RDMS) MOOC on Coursera. http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2016/dataskills-010316
  • Stuart MacDonald gave an RDM presentation to trainee physicians at the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh Course: Critical appraisal and research for trainees, Edinburgh. http://www.slideshare.net/smacdon2/rdm-for-trainee-physicians
  • Three delegates from Göttingen University were hosted here. The delegates have shared interests in RDM and visited to gain more insight into RDM support and experiences here.
  • Robin Rice gave an invited talk about the RDMS MOOC and web-based Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) tool to Learning, Teaching and Web and elearning@Ed Showcase and Network monthly gathering.

In April

As part of my responsibilities to cover the one year interim of Kerry Miller’s maternity leave, I will be writing blogs for this page until Kerry returns next summer.

Prior to this post, I worked the past 12 years as the geospatial metadata co-ordinator at EDINA. My primary role was to promote and support research data management and sharing amongst UK researchers and students using spatial data and geographical information.

Tony Mathys
Research Data Management Service Co-ordinator


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Edinburgh DataShare – new features for users and depositors

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I was asked recently on Twitter if our data library was still happily using DSpace for data – the topic of a 2009 presentation I gave at a DSpace User Group meeting. In responding (answer: yes!) I recalled that I’d intended to blog about some of the rich new features we’ve either adopted from the open source community or developed ourselves to deliver our data users and depositors a better service and fulfill deliverables in the University’s Research Data Management Roadmap.

Edinburgh DataShare was built as an output of the DISC-UK DataShare project, which explored pathways for academics to share their research data over the Internet at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and Southampton (2007-2009). The repository is based on DSpace software, the most popular open source repository system in use, globally.  Managed by the Data Library team within Information Services, it is now a key component in the UoE’s Research Data Programme, endorsed by its academic-led steering group.

An open access, institutional data repository, Edinburgh DataShare currently holds 246 datasets across collections in 17 out of 22 communities (schools) of the University and is listed in the Re3data Registry of Research Data Repositories and indexed by Thomson-Reuters’ Data Citation Index.

Last autumn, the university joined DataCite, an international standards body that assigns persistent identifiers in the form of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to datasets. DOIs are now assigned to every item in the repository, and are included in the citation that appears on each landing page. This helps to ensure that even after the DataShare system no longer exists, as long as the data have a home, the DOI will be able to direct the user to the new location. Just as importantly, it helps data creators gain credit for their published data through proper data citation in textual publications, including their own journal articles that explain the results of their data analyses.

CaptureThe autumn release also streamlined our batch ingest process to assist depositors with large and voluminous data files by getting around the web upload front-end. Currently we are able to accept files up to 10 GB in size but we are being challenged to allow ever greater file sizes.

Making the most of metadata

Discover panel screenshot

Example from Geosciences community

Every landing page (home, community, collection) now has a ‘Discover’ panel giving top hits for each metadata field (such as subject classification, keyword, funder, data type, spatial coverage). The panel acts as a filter when drilling down to different levels,  allowing the most common values to be ‘discovered’ within each section.

 

 

 

 

 

The usage statistics at each level  are now publicly viewable as well, so depositors and others can see how often an item is viewed or downloaded. This is useful for many reasons. Users can see what is most useful in the repository; depositors can see if their datasets are being used; stakeholders can compare the success of different communities. By being completely open and transparent, this is a step towards ‘alt-metrics’ or alternative ways measuring scholarly or scientific impact. The repository is now also part of IRUS-UK, (Institutional Repository Usage Statistics UK), which uses the COUNTER standard to make repository usage statistics nationally comparable.

What’s coming?

Stay tuned for future improvements around a new look and feel, preview and display by data type, streaming support, bittorent downloading, and Linked Open Data.

Robin Rice
EDINA and Data Library

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