Overviews Jisc's investigation of including electronic lab notebooks in the Research Data Shared Service, and the benefits of Connected ELNs like RSpace

1. Integrating repositories and eLab
notebooks through an
open science service
REPOSITORY FRINGE 2018
Helen Blanchett, Jisc
Richard Adams, Research Space
Nigel Goddard, the University of Edinburgh
2 July, 2018

2. Why a Research Data Shared
Service
❖ There is no single “solution” easily available that meets
requirements for universities to enable better management of
research data
➢ Managed research data shared service
➢ Repository, preservation, reporting and interoperability
components
➢ Help institutions meet funder policy compliance
➢ Enables reuse of research data for better research
➢ Enables good practices in research data management
➢ Allows for financial and resource efficiencies
➢ Allows researchers to easily publish, archive and
preserve their research outputs

3. Overview of Jisc Research
Data Shared Service
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/research-data-shared-service
Preservation
Systems
Multi-tenant
administration Discovery User Interfaces and Portals
APIs
User
InterfacesUser
InterfacesUser
InterfacesTenant User
Interfaces
APIs
Jisc Reporting
APIs
APIs
APIs
Tenant
Storage
APIs
Jisc Repository Core Infrastructure
APIs
Metadata Store
Publish
Subscribe
Messaging
Service
Cloud Data
Storage (Access
and Archival)
Tenant Repository, CRIS
and research systems
Scholarly Communications,
Service APIs

4. Next Generation Research
Environment
❖ Recommendations and actions - http://bit.ly/NGRE_recs
❖Promote the adoption of concepts, standards and identifiers
that are beneficial to Jisc members.
❖Ensure Jisc services are developed in such a way that they
can be integrated or accessed via APIs and standard
interfaces as much as possible.
❖Investigate work required in the RDSS for closer integration
between active and archival research data, and for integrating
research data and research administrative data

5. The emergence of ELNs as a
key active data research tool
❖ELNs
➢ For life sciences and related areas
➢ For active research phase: organisation of data
➢ But often just another data silo!
❖ Connected ELNs
➢ For data from other sources, e.g., microscope
➢ During active research: import and link
➢ Streamlined export to repositories

6. Benefits of integrated ELN 
repository workflow
❖Limits need to reorganize data for deposit
➢ Saves time and effort for researchers
➢ Increases interest in depositing data
➢ Increases amount of data entering repositories
❖ELNs as a tool for data curation
➢ Platform for data curators and researchers to work
together on data curation
➢ Data already organised, freeing data curators to work
on higher level curation
❖Additional benefits with Connected ELN
➢ Include data from other tools and resources in deposits
➢ Direct deposit from within ELN to repository

7. RSpace: the first Connected ELN

8. Current
repository
Current repository focus and limitations
Manipulate
Access
? Query
Other
repository
Interoperate
Data Deposit
Barriers to use
• Hard work to
prepare deposit
• No support for
tools already in
use e.g., ELN

9. Developments Needed
❖Conceptual
➢ Recognition of the benefits of
➢Connected ELNs as data organising tools
➢Enhanced ELN  repository workflow
❖ Practical
➢ Development of Repository APIs
➢ for highly organised, heterogeneous data
➢ ingestion, query, export

10. Research tools in an Open
Science Service
Information sources
» Publications Router
» Publishers
» Crossref
» ORCID
» DataCite
» PubMed
» Sherpa policy tools
University systems
» (Single Sign-On,
Finance, HR..)
» eLab notebooks
Information
destinations
» Google etc.
» Discovery services
» JiscCORE
(global OA aggregation)
» Jisc Monitor
(compliance checking)
» JiscCollections
» Funders systems
» OpenAIRE + for EU
Preservation
services
Reports and
dashboards
University X repository
Open Access publications
Research datasets
University Y repository
Open Access publications
Research datasets
University Z repository
Open Access publications
Research datasets

11. Research Tools in an Open
Science Service
❖ Framework
➢ Procurement framework for ELNs (including assessing
current tools and level of demand)
❖ Exploratory
➢ Explore interoperability between ELNs, repositories and
Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) using open
standards
❖Integration
➢ Technical integration of ELNs within the RDSS