[SCC_Active_Members] FW: Dealing with data

[H.M. Gladney]

The British report described in the attached note might be of interest to
SPG members. 

Cheerio, Henry

-----Original Message-----
From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK]
On Behalf Of Neil Jacobs
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 7:47 AM
To: JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Dealing with data

The data deluge is upon us, and now is the right time to be taking action to
ensure that we are not overwhelmed. A new report "Dealing with Data" charts
a practical path forward and will help all stakeholders plan the next steps
in data curation. The report, by Dr Liz Lyon, Director, UKOLN and Associate
Director, DCC, is strategically positioned to provide a bridge between the
Research Information Network's high-level Framework of Principles and
Guidelines for the stewardship of research data, and practitioner-focussed
technical development work.

Why is data such a big challenge? Whereas articles or books have, until
recently, been fairly standard formats across disciplines, data has always
been diverse, with some disciplines using rich textual sources, others using
massive petabyte datasets, and still others using data that changes by the
second. The range of stakeholders involved is wide, too, with important
roles for funders, institutions, JISC and others if the aim - well managed
and usable data - is to be achieved.

The report reviews the variety of data, and arrangements for its curation
and use, across disciplines.The work of funders, national data centres,
institutional repositories, learned societies and the Digital Curation
Centre are all documented, with a view to identifying (as the report's
subtitle says) the "roles, rights, responsibilities and relationships", that
are emerging as important.

The report's recommendations offer a practical way forward in this area,
where the sheer scale of the task can be daunting. JISC and others are
already taking forward work in a number of the areas highlighted, such as
the costs and benefits of data preservation, and offering
discipline-specific guidance to the sector. Further work is planned,
including the development of a 'Data Audit Framework' to enable all
universities and colleges to carry out an audit of departmental data
collections, awareness, policies and practice for data curation and
preservation.

We are moving rapidly into an era of data-driven research and scholarship,
across the broad range of academic disciplines. If the currency of that
work, the data itself, is not to be debased, then it needs to be well
managed, so that researchers can use it both now and into the future.

The final report is available at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_digital_repositories/pro
ject_dealing_with_data.aspx

Best wishes
Neil

--
Neil Jacobs <n.jacobs at jisc.ac.uk>
JISC Executive, Beacon House, Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1QU
+44 (0)117 33 10772   /   07768 040179