Filling in gaps.

Another week over. But the end of today the project will have its project plan sent to JISC, it outlines our aims and objectives, overall approach and outcomes. Looking at the timetable, we are off to a fast start with plenty to be completed by the end of April. The first objective? Gathering eveidence of existing data management practives in past and present research centres and programmes. So, the next task for me is to fill in some details on ESRC programmes and centres so we can begin to define who, and how, we are going to work with. Things I need to establish are the types of research and data collected, the re-use potential of that data and how they link to some of the priorities we are interested in, be it complex, sensitive, confidential, or commercial data. Finally, seeking to establish what their existing data management and sharing practices.

Positive responses, project plans

Critical to this project is the cooperation of ESRC funded Programmes and Research Centres. Part of the project involves travelling to a few of these programmes or research centres to learn and assess how they go about managing data. So, it's a good sign that having contacted a range of programmes and centres last week, we have had a number of positive responses to our involvement. Of course, the details have to be sorted and official approvals agreed.

Meanwhile, at the end of this month the project needs to submit our budget and plans to JISC. So, I have spent the majority of time so far this week preparing material for submission as well as finally having gained access to edit our website, filling it with content

Coming attractions

I'm working on putting together a couple of web pages for the Research Data Management programme here at the UK Data Archive. When I get the software installed and the permissions to edit granted it will emerge, quietly at first and then with a louder presence when it's respectable for public viewing. I have drafted text for the front page that outlines what the project is about within the context of archiving and secondary use. It's intended to be brief yet cover the immediate and long-term aims and tries to be accessible and open in tone - authoritative and technical where needed, but more conversational and informal where possible.

Also, look out for a twitter account and thinking aloud now, possibly a podcast might be a good idea.

Link dump: sources on data managment

Australian National Data Service: Data Management Planning http://ands.org.au/resource/data-management-planning.html

Digital Curation Blog http://digitalcuration.blogspot.com/

Digital Curation Centre: Data Management Plan Content Checklist http://www.dcc.ac.uk/docs/templates/DMP_checklist.pdf

Digital Curation Centre: Digital Curation Manual http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resource/curation-manual/

Digital Curation Centre: Research Data Management Forum http://www.dcc.ac.uk/data-forum/

Digital Curation Centre: The DCCC Curation Lifecycle Model http://www.dcc.ac.uk/docs/publications/DCCLifecycle.pdf

ICPSR: Guide to Social Science Data Preperation and Archiving http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/files/ICPSR/access/dataprep.pdf

JISC: Managing Research Data http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/mrd.aspx

MIT: Data Management and Publishing http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data-management/

MIT: Managing Research Data 101 http://libraries.mit.edu/guides/subjects/data-management/Managing_Research_Data_101_IAP_2010.pdf

National Institutes of Health: Data Sharing http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/data_sharing/data_sharing_workbook.pdf

National Institutes of Health: Examples of Data Sharing Plans http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/data_sharing/data_sharing_guidance.htm#ex

RELU: Data Management plan http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/relu/plan.asp

Research Information Network and Digital Curation Centre Research Data Management Forum http://data-forum.blogspot.com/

Research Information Network: Data Management and Curation http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/data-management-and-curation

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC): Best Practices for Preparing Environmental Data Sets to Share and Archive http://daac.ornl.gov/PI/bestprac.html

UK Data Archive: Manage and Share Data http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/sharing/sharing.asp

UKOLN: Dealing with Data: Roles, Rights, Responsibilities and Relationships http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/digitalrepositories/dealing_with_data_report-final.pdf

University of Edinburgh: Research data management guidance http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/research-support/data-library/research-data-mgmt

Day two: reviewing what's out there.

New jobs are always about reading up. You think you have an idea about the position, but when you finally sit at the desk you know there's so much more to learn. So, I have been searching for existing guides and practices on data management.

My initial main duties are to begin setting up a website for this project, and begin preparing an interim report. So, I'm going to read and reflect as much as possible on these existing practices and if possible come up with a sort of lit review. More for myself than anything.

First day

Today is my first day in a new position. I am Research Data Management Senior Officer in the UK Data Archive working on a JISC supported project on research data management for ESRC data-rich investments. This involves working with ESRC Research Centres and programmes to assess their data management practices in social science research; implement and help develop effective data management planning and increase capacity through support and training. The project is due to run from now until the end of March, 2011.

My background is having worked the UK Data Archive for a couple of years. My former position was in the data processing section. Essentially, this was the link between depositors of data and secondary users where I was responsible for the validation, conversion, enrichment, and preparation for preservation and secondary use of social science data, accompanying documentation, and metadata. I worked almost exclusively with qualitative data, but essentially there was little difference between quantitative and qualitative processing, other than the length of time qualitative datasets took to read. In addition, I also presented ESDS workshops, assisted with the constructing of teaching material and writing promotional articles based on enhanced data.