The document outlines a business case for developing an end-to-end research data management (RDM) service at Royal Holloway, University of London, emphasizing the need for improved infrastructure to support research excellence and impact. Key methodologies include user engagement and cost analysis to determine storage requirements and funding sources, alongside recommendations for implementing an active and archive storage solution by August 2016. The findings indicate a significant need for collaboration, security, and integration of services to enhance data management across the institution.

1. Business case and cost
modelling for an end-to-end
RDM service
Frances Madden, Research Data and Curation Manager
Dave Cobb, Project Manager

2. Background

3. • Research intensive university
• 21 academic departments, 9,000 students, 2000 staff
• Departments include Information Security, Physics,
Psychology
• Large arts and humanities faculty
Royal Holloway, University of London

4. • Have a policy, need ab end-to-end RDM service
• Initial investigation four months (underestimate!)
RDM Project & deliverables
Plan Create Preserve
Overarching Service Management & Support
Planning System
(improve DMPOnline)
Active Data Storage
CollaborationTools
Data Catalogue
Staging storage
Archive Data storage
(digital & analogue)
Preservation System

5. BusinessCase

6. • Funder mandates, heavily EPSRC & other Research
Council funded institution
• Improve infrastructure to facilitate research
excellence
• Improve research impact
• Be a partner of choice
Key Drivers

7. • Business analysis
• Focus group, interviews,
surveys
• Market investigation
• Events, networking,
presentations, Gartner
reports
• Supplier engagement
• Onsite visits, webinars,
events
• Guidance & consultancy
• TNA, DCC, ICO, Gartner,
specialist advice
Options Appraisal
Requirements led project – uptake is key

8. • Engaged the DCC for consultancy services
• Conducted funder analysis
• 75% of funded research is covered by OD requirements
• Conducted DAF/CARDIO Lite survey
• Circulated to all academic staff, 100+ responses
• Comparison with 2014 survey
• Informed risk and cost based business case
Consultancy

9. Findings
42%
19%
9%
14%
8%
2%
1%
5%
Data locations
Hard drive
External hard
drive
Cloud storage
Physical media
Central shared
drive
Email
Commercial
40
12
18
15
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Held
internally
Project or
other website
Third party
data service
Other
Deposit locations for data

10. Findings
63%11%
10%
6%
4%
3% 2% 1%
Funding sources
RCUK funding
EU Government
Charity funding
Overseas
Other EU
British Academy
Government
funding (inc. NHS)
Industry
[CELLRA
NGE]
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[CELLRA
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0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Less than 1GB
1-10GB
10-100GB
100-500GB
500GB-1TB
1-10TB
Over 10TB
DataVolumes

11. Costs

12. • Assessed costs of delivery options for Active and
Archive storage
• Received number of existing users of Cloud services
• Developed extensive business requirements for all
deliverables
• Still did not know how much storage was required!
Supplier and User Engagement

13. This became this….
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NGE]
[CELLRA
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[CELLRA
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[CELLRA
NGE]
[CELLRA
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[CELLRA
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0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Less than 1GB
1-10GB
10-100GB
100-500GB
500GB-1TB
1-10TB
Over 10TB
DataVolumes

14. And this….

15. Methodology – User types
• Decided on low,
medium, high and
massive categories of
users
• Based on survey
findings, scaled up
worked out quantities
of storage required
across the College
Classification % of users Example
Source
PI/Research staff 90%e N/A
Machine Generated 10%e Psychology – MRI scanner
Storage size requirements
Low (< 100GB) 60% Economics – spreadsheets; most humanities; mathematical
modelling
Medium (100GB-1TB) 28% Condensed matter physics
High (1TB – 10TB) < 9% Computer Science – data generated from algorithms
Massive (> 10TB) < 3% Physics – data received from CERN
Sensitivity
General 75% N/A
Restricted 25% PIR – defence policy work; Earth Sciences – commercial
partnerships
∟ Restricted (PII) 20% Psychology – parent & child research; Geography – video
research
Location
Online (local) 5% N/A
Online (remote) 91% N/A
Offline 4% Geography
Bandwidth & I/O
High 5%e Media Arts ; Psychology – MRI scanner
Standard 95%e N/A

16. • Calculated % which have external repositories
available based on funding councils
• Validated against estimated output per department
• Worked with R&E and academics to determine:
• Levels of personal identifiable information
• Quantity of unfunded research
• Collaboration requirements
• Offline access requirements
Methodology – User types cont.

17. Key stats
• 15-30% Personally identifiable
information
• 95% require collaboration capability
• 95% require offline or remote access
• 40% of research unfunded (based on
TRAC return, compared with funding
levels)
• 10% of research data produced
directly from equipment
29%
42%
11%
13%
5%
No. of grants and repositories
RCUK funded - Repository
RCUK funded - No repository
EU Funded
Funded - other (DR)
Funded - other (NDR)

18. Methodology – Storage requirements
• Storage allocations throughout
the lifecycle investigated and
costed
• Investigated delivery options for
archive and active
• Assessed options for different
numbers of user licences
• Appraised data for archive
storage – reducing data
volumes
UserType Qty
Research academics 250
All research staff 750
All research staff + RCUK students 1000
All research staff & students 2100
Funded research project 240
Unfunded research project 159
All research projects 399

19. Methodology – Other costs
• Integrations
• CRIS (Pure)
• DMPOnline
• Reporting tools
• New applications
• Service levels
• Staffing levels
• Application support
• Advisory service
• Project costs vs on-going costs
• Allocated vs. project costs
• Cost recovery
• Estimated 35% return over 4-5 year grant
lifecycle
• Based onTRAC return
• Overhead cost

20. Findings
 Balancing cost and control is a
challenge
 Data security work found that the
perceived risks of Cloud can be
mitigated and managed
 Data provision as it stands is not
adequate
 Cloud = higher OpEx – are you a
CapEX or OpEx institution?
 Very time-consuming
 Involves a lot of people, disparate
information sources - chase these down
and use them
 More confidence in decisions
 More involvement with stakeholders
across academic and professional
services departments
 Use expert sources like Gartner

21. Recommendation/Next steps
 Procure data catalogue and archive
storage in this financial year, before
Aug 2016
 Procure active storage solution to roll
out in Sept – Jan 2016
 Integrate planning tool with other
systems to increase knowledge of
planned research activities
 Develop service around the system to
support it and researchers using it
Still need to…
 Rate card for exceptional requirements
 Develop process for managing
exceptional requirements
 Training for admin and end users on all
new systems
 Plan for analogue data storage

22. Questions?
Frances Madden
frances.madden@rhul.ac.uk
@maddenfc
Dave Cobb
d.cobb@rhul.ac.uk
@dave_cobb