2nd EIDCSR Workshop "Institutional Policy and Guidance for Research Data" on 29th March 2010

The second EIDCSR Workshop will take place on 29th of March at the Rewley House in Oxford. Following the policy development work undertaken at the University as part of the project, the event will focus on issues around the development and implementation of institutional policy and guidance for research data. A fantastic group of speakers from Oxford, Southampton, Edinburgh, Melbourne and the BBSRC will discuss:

• data management and sharing policy at different levels such as research council, HEI institutions and research departments;
• how research records and data management policy and guidance can be useful to researchers and how to involve researchers in their development;
• how to encourage implementation of institutional policy at a local or departmental level;
• how to encourage across the institution the sharing of best practice in research records and data management.

To book a place please email eidcsr@oucs.ox.ac.uk

Scientific data repositories workshop in Barcelona

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to talk at an incredibly inspiring event organized by the Centre de Supercomputació de Catalunya titled "Repositorios de datos cientificos" under their Jornadas Catalanas de Supercomputació.

We had an extraordinary day with a fantastic group of speakers that discussed issues around supporting researchers with their data management as well as disciplinary perspectives provided by real researchers.

The whole event was filmed and is available online (for those who speak spanish!) and I also got interviewed and filmed for online publication known as Global Talent, you can also see this video (again in spanish!).

Data management policy in the University of Oxford

Neil Grindley, our JISC Programme Manager, has just posted "Data Management Policy: An Interview with Paul Taylor" in the JISC Information Environment Team blog.

Dr. Paul Taylor from the University of Melbourne is now finishing a secondment in the University of Oxford as part of the EIDCSR Project. He was instrumental in the development of University of Melbourne's data management policy and his work in Oxford will help producing a draft research records and data management policy together with a plan of action to implement it.

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28481088@N00/3352123533/

EIDCSR technical analysis: from soft to hard

After having conducted the EIDCSR audit and requirements analysis exercise, we have started converting the high level requirements gathered into technical requirements. The idea is to produce a systems design document for a Systems Developer to start with the implementation. Howard Noble, from Computing Services, is leading this exercise for the next two months.

To start with the technical analysis, Howard and I have had a very fruitful meeting this morning. We have brainstormed ideas for a high level system design trying to identify the practical things that can be done to support the data management workflows of the research groups taking part in EIDCSR.

Using a board to produce a "rich picture" recording the processes we have encountered and our thoughts was extremely useful. We will now produce a "cleaner" version of this picture and bring it forward to key people in the research groups in a workshop. This will hopefully helps us to communicate what the project aims to achieve as well as getting feedback on the design so that researchers requirements drive any development .

First EIDCSR workshop and executive board meeting

Yesterday was a busy day for the EIDCSR Project.

In the morning, the first project event took place at Rewley House in Oxford with an exciting group of speakers brought together under the theme of "Data curation: from lab to reuse". Their presentations are now available on the project website and a report will be produced shortly.

The afternoon served to held the first EIDCSR Executive Board meeting where progress and next steps for the project

were discussed with the extraordinary helpful and encouraging members of the board.

Overall, a great day providing loads of food for thought.

"Science these days has basically turned into a data-management problem"

The New York Times has an article about future scientists' ability to manage the large amounts of digital data being generated and how the likes of IBM or Google are trying to help, "Training to Climb an Everest of Digital Data", http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/technology/12data.html. IBM and Google are contributing tools, computational power and access to large-scale datasets. It was actually two years ago this month that Google and IBM announced their partnership to provide universities with dedicated cluster computing resources, open source software, a dedicated website for collaboration, and a Creative Commons-licensed curriculum. In April this year the NSF funded projects at 14 US universities to take advantage of the IBM/Google Cloud Computing University Initiative. The New York Times article highlights some of these projects. The emphasis is certainly on the massive -- big compute clusters, big datasets -- and on data analysis. Not much though on the ongoing management of, access to, and preservation of data, even if Professor Jimmy Lin (University of Maryland) is quoted as saying, “Science these days has basically turned into a data-management problem”.

EIDCSR workshop on 14 October

The first EIDCSR project workshop is taking place on 14 October, more details below:

Date and location

14 October at Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA

The event will start at 10.30 and will finish with lunch at 13.00

Description

This workshop is organized as part of the dissemination activities of the JISC-funded EIDCSR Project. The aim of the workshop is to hear about proven practice in selected data management areas identified as challenging for researchers through the EIDCSR audit and requirements analysis exercise. Whilst the EIDCSR Project is addressing the requirements of researchers working within medical and life sciences, the event is likely to be of interest to those working in, or supporting, other disciplinary areas.

The expected audience includes researchers who generate data in labs and computing simulations and staff from service units with an interest in research data management and curation issues.

Outcomes

Participants in the workshop will have the opportunity to learn about, and contribute to discussion of, the different approaches to the ensuring the flow of data between laboratory and in silico experimentation. In particular, the workshop will discuss:

* methods for the capture, storage and reuse of metadata in the laboratory;

* lifecycles integrating wet lab and in silico experimental data;

* for delivery and visualisation of large-scale data.

Programme

Some of the speakers will include:

Alan Garny, Oxford Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics - Alan will discuss his research group data management workflow and challenges.

Brian Brooks, Unilever Cambridge Centre for Molecular Informatics - Brian will talk about their Chemical Laboratory Repository In/Organic Notebooks (CLARION) Project.

Angus Whyte, Digital Curation Centre - Angus will share the experiences from the DCC SCARP Project on data management best practice.

Booking

To book a place please email eidcsr@oucs.ox.ac.uk