About

The UKOLN Informatics Research Group (IRG) was established in September 2011, and was succeeded by UKOLN Informatics in August 2013. This site has now been archived, and reflects the IRG as it was towards the end of July 2013.

The IRG delivered UKOLN’s contribution to the Digital Curation Centre and an ever evolving portfolio of research projects. Our research interests were largely focused on the management of research data, including: the development and implementation of institutional policies, the adoption of data management principles by researchers, data citation, citizen science, and sustainability.

These UKOLN IRG web pages provide access to information about the group, including summaries of our main projects, information on events and outputs (including lists of publications and presentations), and staff.

Areas of Work

Digital Curation Centre

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) was the largest focus of IRG activity. The DCC is a national hub of expertise in curating digital research data, based at the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bath. UKOLN’s contribution to the DCC includes:

  • Events – including the periodic International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC), the Research Data Management Forum (RDMF) series, and regional DCC Roadshows
  • Publications – including producing the International Journal of Digital Curation and contributing to a range of briefing papers, how-to-guides, and other DCC publications.
  • Institutional engagement – since 2011, the DCC has been developing a programme of individual engagement with selected UK higher education institutions, supporting the development and implementation of data management policies.

Data Informatics Research

The IRG’s research projects were funded by the JISC and Microsoft Research. They included the Community Capability Model for Data-Intensive Research project, a collaboration with Microsoft Research that is seeking to develop a framework that would be useful for researchers and funders in modelling a range of disciplinary and community behaviours with respect to the adoption, usage, development and exploitation of cyber-infrastructure for data-intensive research. Other IRG projects were funded as part of JISC’s Managing Research Data Programme 2011-13 (JISCMRD), including a major project focused on implementing the technical and human infrastructures for research data management at the University of Bath (Research360) as well as a project specifically focused on the data management requirements of mechanical engineering departments (REDm-MED). Earlier projects, funded under the first phases of the JISCMRD programme, looked at the specific data management requirements of the structural sciences (I2S2), engineering (ERIM), and palæoclimate data (PEG-BOARD).

List of Projects

As of July 2013 we were participants in the following projects and initiatives which relate to data informatics:

More details on these and earlier projects can be found from the Projects page. For projects and activities prior to September 2011, please consult the UKOLN Activities page.

Events

See the UKOLN Events page for a list of events involving the IRG and UKOLN’s Innovation Support Centre.

Outputs

IRG Staff