The Policy-making for Research Data in Repositories: A Guide is intended to be used as a decision-making and planning tool for institutions with digital repositories in existence or in development that are considering adding research data to their digital collections.
The guide is a public deliverable of the JISC-funded DISC-UK DataShare project (2007-2009) which established institutional data repositories and related services at the partner institutions: the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and Southampton. It is a distilled result of the experience of the partners, together with Digital Life Cycle Research & Consulting. The guide is one way of sharing our experience with the wider community, as more institutions expand their digital repository services into the realm of research data to meet the demands of researchers who are themselves facing increasing requirements of funders to make their data available for continuing access.
The guide also can contribute indirectly to efforts to articulate the benefits of sound data management practices, as well as the goals of data sharing and long term access. In addition to setting up data repositories, institutions and libraries in particular can become more active by pursuing some of the following activities:
Raising awareness of data issues within institutions and the benefits of actively managing research data
Assisting in developing policies about data management and preservation
Providing advice to researchers about data management early in the research life cycle; influencing the way researchers will be creating their data, the formats they will use and building a commitment to use the repository to publish/preserve their data
Working with IT service colleagues to develop appropriate local data management capacity
Training and introducing data management and curation concepts to research students
Exploring methods of moving data from work-in-progress storage spaces to repositories in more seamless ways (Lewis, 2008).
This guide is largely based upon the online OpenDOAR Policy Tool (SHERPA, 2007), the OAIS Reference Model (CCSDS, 2002) and the TRAC checklist (OCLC, 2007). Although the focus was initially based on social science datasets, research institutions typically produce a vast heterogeneity of data types and so many other research outputs could be considered within the range of requirements listed in the report; other content includes images, texts, audio, video files as well as scholarly publications and ‘grey literature’. The guide does not cover the value-added services that should be offered within a curatorial environment, details of selection and appraisal, nor does it cover advocacy, researcher requirements and data management considerations surrounding funders’ mandates. Policies should be developed to address the complex issues related to access mechanisms and user support services as part of any service development process.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 5/15/2009 05:54:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
