The document discusses the role of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in promoting open access to research data in South Africa, aiming to enhance evidence-based decision-making among stakeholders. It highlights challenges such as increasing data volumes, complexities, and limited sharing culture, while emphasizing the need for effective data curation and collaboration among institutions. The HSRC's digital curation program seeks to facilitate data sharing, driving scientific, economic, and social benefits through proper data management and preservation.

1. Liberating data in South Africa: the move to open access Locating the power of in-between conference, Pretoria, 1 – 2July 2008.

2. HSRC as a knowledge hub The HSRC is a knowledge-intensive research organization whose function is to generate new knowledge , transfer and apply it, and transmit it to others through a variety of means, including web, books and reports. service a network of scientists , provide different stakeholders in the SADC region with access to: credible data and information , informed specialists , that will enable them to make evidence based decisions on planning and policy,

3. Other drivers OECD declaration –Promoting access to publicly funded research Dept. of Science & Technology – address the ‘innovation chasm’ btw research results and socio economic outcomes

4. Objective of HSRCs digital curation programme Facilitate widespread open access data-sharing which will enable researchers, enable citizens, which in turn,convey tremendous scientific, economic and social benefits

5. What is data curation? 'The activity of managing and promoting the use of data from its point of creation to ensure it is fit for contemporary purpose, and available for discover and re-use’. E-science : Curation Report: Data Curation for e-science in UK, JISC, 2003

6. The Problem Data volumes are increasing exponentially Data is becoming more complexed Lack of culture of sharing Limited access “ it’s there but where do you find it?” Gaps in research Lack of incentives in publishing data Bandwidth – digital divide increases Data not preserved for long term

7. Why the effort? Data increasingly used as evidence . Shift towards e-research Re-use for new research. To perform further analysis . To aggregate data over time. To enrich existing data. Integrate data with later findings for longitudinal analysis. Compliance to the needs of publishers, donors and legislation. To validating published results. On the occasions that it is difficult or too costly to recreate unique data. That it is cheaper to maintain expensively created data than re-generate In case of technology obsolescence . Open access to publicly funded research .

8. Network of Data and Information Centres (NEDIC) Team South Africa approach Statistical agencies Science councils universities

9. Task Coordinate efforts Share expertise and knowledge Design common standards for data sharing Preservation innovations and technology We are part of the universe Lobbing

10. Successes Institutional based Data Curation Centres Open access institutional repositories Management of data: Preservation Sharing Quality Change management

11. Making sense of data Data meaningless without context Linkage Metadata of many kinds Workflow! Ethics and rights control access Weak in expressing this long-term Collaboration tools Annotation, discussion, review Re-use leading to change and development “ Publication” Not just in “print” Underlying data should be “published”, too Citation

13. Questions?