This slideshow was used in a Preparing Your Research Material for the Future course for the Humanities Division, University of Oxford, on 2017-02-22. It provides an overview of some key issues, focusing on the long-term management of data and other research material, including sharing and curation.

1. Preparing Your Research Material for
the Future
What You Can Do Now to Avoid Problems Later
Meriel Patrick
Research Support Team

2. Research data?
What sort of material are we talking about?

3. “Representations of observations, objects, or other entities
used as evidence of phenomena for the purposes
of research or scholarship”
Digital Curation Centre
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project
What sort of material are we talking about?

4. Any information you use in your
research
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project
What sort of material are we talking about?

5. What is research data management?
Storage
Organizing
Preservation
Documenting
Sharing
Choosing
technology
Versioning
Structuring
Backing up
Curation
Security

6. Thinking ahead is vital
• Easy to think of long term data
management as only relevant to the end
of a project
• But many aspects of it
need planning from the
beginning

7. Carrots and sticks
• Work efficiently and
with minimum hassle
over the lifetime of
the project
• Save time and avoid
problems in the
future
• Make it easy to share
your data
• University of Oxford
Policy on the
Management of
Research Data and
Records
• Funding body
requirements

8. University of Oxford policy

9. University of Oxford policy
• The full policy can be viewed on the Research
Data Oxford website
• Covers the information needed ‘to support or
validate a research project’s observations,
findings or outputs’
• Research data should be:
• Accurate, complete, identifiable,
retrievable, and securely stored
• Able to be made available to others

10. University of Oxford policy
• Research data should be retained for ‘as long as
they are of continuing value to the researcher
and the wider research community’ – but a
minimum of three years
• Specific requirements from funders take precedence
• Researchers are responsible for:
• Developing and documenting clear data management
procedures
• Planning for the ongoing custodianship of their data
• Ensuring legal, ethical, and funding body requirements are
met

11. Funders’ requirements
• Funding bodies are taking an increasing interest
in what happens to research data
• You may be required to make your data publicly
available at the end of a project
• Many funders require a data management plan
as part of grant applications
• RDO website provides a
summary of requirements

12. AHRC requirements
• If digital outputs planned, a Technical Plan must
be submitted with funding application
• Digital outputs must be available via an
‘appropriate repository’ for at least three years
after project

13. Why share material? Enable reuse
• Reduces duplication of
effort
• Allows public research
funding to be used more
effectively
• Use in contexts not
currently envisaged
• Extend research beyond
your discipline Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project

14. Why share material? Boost reputation
• Get credit for high quality
research
• Recognition for contribution
to research community
• Open data leads to
increased citations
• Of the data itself
• Of associated papers
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project

15. Why share material? Be a trailblazer!
• A paradigm shift in how research outputs are
viewed is occurring
• Data outputs are of increasing importance – and
are likely to become even more so
• E.g. journals looking to
publish datasets alongside
articles
• Be at the forefront of an
important shift in the
academic world

16. What to consider sharing
• Newly digitized or transcribed material
• Collected or structured material – e.g. databases
• Marked up texts or annotated
source materials
• Newly generated material
• Anything else with possible
reuse value
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17. Documentation and metadata

18. What’s obvious
now might not
be in a few
months, years,
decades…
Adapted from ‘Clay Tablets with Linear B Script’ by Dennis, via Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/5692813531/
MAKE SURE
YOU CAN
UNDERSTAND
IT LATER
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project
Make material understandable

19. Documentation and metadata
• Documentation is the contextual information
required to make material intelligible and aid
interpretation
• A users’ guide to your data
• For a whole collection, or specific aspects of it
• Metadata is similar, but usually more structured
• Conforms to set standards
• Machine readable

20. Make material verifiable and reusable
• Detailing methods helps
people understand what
you did
• And helps make your
work reproducible
• Provide context to
minimize the risk of
misunderstanding or
misuse
Image by woodleywonderworks, via Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/4588700881/
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project

21. Exercise
• In small groups, look at the sample data sheet
• Imagine you have just downloaded this dataset from
an archive
• What contextual or explanatory information is
missing?
• Anything odd about the data that needs clarifying?
• What additional documentation
would you like to see supplied
• About specific items of information?
• About the whole data collection?

22. • Who created it, when and why
• Description of the item
• Methodology and methods
• Units of measurement
• Definitions of jargon, acronyms and code
• References to related data
Documentation – what to include
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project

23. Also worth thinking about…
• File names and folder structures
• Are these consistent?
• Do they help you and others navigate easily?
• Version information
• Are you recording this?
• Is it clear which is the most
recent version of a file?

24. Metadata – data about data
• A formal,
structured
description
of a dataset
• Used by
archives
to create
catalogue
records

25. Missing metadata – or the riddle of the
sixth toe
• This painting shows
Georgiana, Duchess
of Devonshire as
Diana
• … or maybe Cynthia
• She has six toes – but
no one knows why
Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Georgiana_Cavendish,_Duchess_of_
Devonshire_as_Diana.jpg

26. For discussion
• What data
management
challenges have
you encountered?
• What strategies
have you
personally found
useful?

27. Keeping your data safe

28. http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/08/01/
why-you-need-a-data-management-plan/
You can only
preserve what
you still have…
… and backing
up is easier
than replacing
lost data
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project

29. Make multiple copies…
…and keep them in different places
Automate the
process if you can
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project

30. IT Services: Data Back-up on the HFS
• HFS is Oxford’s central back-up and archiving
service
• Free of charge to University staff and
postgraduates
• Automated back-ups of machines connected to
University network
• Copies kept in multiple places

31. IT Services: Nexus SharePoint
• Document repository and collaboration service
• Store, manage, and share files
• Available free of charge to any member of the
University
• http://www.it.ox.ac.uk/services/connect-and-
communicate/sharepoint-nexus

32. … and about file formats
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project
Think about your storage media…

33. Data security
• Essential to ensure that every copy of any
sensitive data has appropriate security
• InfoSec at IT Services can provide advice
• See https://www.infosec.ox.ac.uk/ for
more details

34. What happens at the end of the
project?

35. Preserving research material
• Copy on personal computer
• Convenient for own use – but no sharing means
no impact
• Personal or project website
• Great – but sustainability
needs some planning
• Deposit with a suitable
archive or repository

36. Repositories and archives
• A secure long-term
home for reusable
material
• Make material
citeable
• E.g. via a DOI
• Embargos or other
access restrictions
usually possible

37. Repositories and archives
• Key humanities repositories include:
• UK Data Archive
• Archaeology Data Service
• Oxford Text Archive
• Re3Data.org offers a
searchable catalogue
of repositories

38. ORA-Data
• University of Oxford’s institutional data archive
• Currently in pilot phase
• Long term preservation for Oxford research
datasets without another natural home

39. ORA-Data
• Also a catalogue of Oxford-created data
• Researchers depositing elsewhere strongly
encouraged to add a record to ORA-Data
http://ox.libguides.com/
about-ora-data

40. Figshare – a DIY option
• Free online sharing platform for data and other
research objects
• Shared items allocated a DataCite DOI
• A possible alternative to conventional
repositories
• If no suitable
repository is available
• If you need a way of
sharing in a hurry

41. Data sharing – concerns
• Ethical and legal concerns
• Confidential or sensitive data
• Third party data
• Professional concerns
• Intended publication
• Commercial issues
• Planning with sharing in mind
from the beginning can help alleviate problems

42. • Redact or embargo if there is good reason
Slide adapted from the
PrePARe Project
Share – but maybe not everything

43. Video by NYU Health Sciences Libraries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2zK3sAtr-4

44. Data licensing
• A licence clarifies the conditions for accessing
and making use of a dataset
• Lets users know
• What’s allowed without asking further permission
• How to cite the work
• Specific requests to go beyond the
terms of the licence can still be made

45. Data licences - examples
• Creative Common licences
• Widely used and recognized
• Six different flavours, plus CC0
public domain dedication
• Open Data Commons
• Specifically designed for datasets
• Recognizes the structure/content
distinction for databases

46. Data licensing - guidance
• ‘How to License Research Data’
• A guide from the Digital Curation Centre
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/how-guides/license-research-data

47. Data management planning

48. Data management plans
• Ideally created in the early stages of a project
• While planning, applying for funding, or setting up
• An initial plan may be expanded later
• Details plans and expectations for data
• Nature of data and its creation or
acquisition
• Storage and security
• Preservation and sharing

49. Exercise
• Have a go at drafting a data management plan
for your own research
• If there are questions you can’t answer at this
stage, make a note of
• What you need to find out
• Decisions you need to make

50. DMP Online
• Create a data
management plan
using the DMP
Online tool
• Developed by the
DCC – a national
service providing
advice and
resources
https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

51. ‘In preparing for
battle, I have
always found that
plans are useless
but planning is
indispensable.’
Dwight D. Eisenhower

52. Further information and resources

53. Research Data Oxford website
• Oxford’s central
advisory website
• University policy
is available
• Questions? Email
researchdata
@ox.ac.uk
http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/

54. IT Services: Research Support Team
• Can assist with technical aspects of research
projects at all stages of the project lifecycle
• Help with DMPs, selecting software or storage,
building a database, etc.
• Meet with someone for a
research data health check
• For more information, see:
http://research.it.ox.ac.uk/

55. Research Skills Toolkit
• Website and hands-
on workshops
• Find out about:
• Software
• University services
• Tools and
resources for
research
http://www.skillstoolkit.ox.ac.uk/

56. IT Learning Centre
• Over 200 different IT
courses
• Covering software,
skills, and new
technologies
• ITLC Portfolio offers
course materials and
other resources
http://portfolio.it.ox.ac.uk/
http://courses.it.ox.ac.uk/

57. Research Data MANTRA
• Free online
interactive
training
modules
• Aimed at
postgraduates
and early
career
researchers http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/

58. Any questions?
Ask now, or email us on
researchdata@ox.ac.uk
Slides and handouts available from
http://research.it.ox.ac.uk/rdmcourses

59. Rights and re-use
• This presentation is part of a series of research data management
training resources prepared by the IT Services Research Support
Team at the University of Oxford
• The slideshow draws on one originally developed during the
Oxford-based DaMaRO Project. Parts of it also draw on teaching
materials produced by the PrePARe Project, DATUM for Health, and
DataTrain Archaeology
• With the exception of clip art used with permission from
Microsoft, commercial logos and trademarks, and images
specifically credited to other sources, the slideshow is made
available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial
Share-Alike License
• Within the terms of this licence, we actively encourage sharing,
adaptation, and re-use of this material