UKOLN Informatics Research Group » Posters

Creating an Online Training Module on RDM

Marieke Guy — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

Creating an Online Training Module on Research Data Management for the University of Bath Research 360 In 2011 the University of Bath was awarded funding by the JISC Managing Research Data Programme to support and develop Research Data Management across the institution. The Research 360: Managing data across the institutional research lifecycle project (Research360@Bath) will develop policies, infrastructure and training resources to help researchers at the University of Bath to get the most out of their research data, realise the benefits of good data management practice and comply with funder requirements. The project team draws on expertise from across the university, including representatives from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office, the Research Development & Support Office (RDSO), the Library, the university computing service (BUCS), UKOLN, the DCC and the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies (Chemistry/Chem eng). Building Capacity One aspect of the project work is building capacity among researchers and support staff. The project team have undertaken a series of face-to-face training sessions for postgraduates and researchers, many of these being held in the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) in Sustainable Chemical Technologies. Such training is highly effective but unfortunately not always cost effective or sustainable. Online Training Module Work Package 6 of the project proposes the development of an online training module for early career researchers that focuses on the current agenda for research data management. The module is to be discipline agnostic, focusing on general issues relating to research data management. The primary audience comprises of researchers, both postgraduate and academic staff, with a secondary audience of undergraduates undertaking research projects and professional support staff wishing to learn more about research data management to support their developing roles in this area. Creation of the module will build on previous JISC-funded work including the MANTRA training module developed by the University of Edinburgh, the Incremental work developed by the University of Cambridge and the University of Glasgow, and the DataTrain work provided by the Archaeology Data Service. On completion the module will be delivered in Moodle, the University of Bath’s VLE, and released as an Open Educational Resource (OER). The project team worked with an external consultant, Mike Highfield, to appropriate content and develop technical aspects of the module. Instructional Design Process The instructional design process consists of four distinct stages: • Derive Learning Outcomes and Objectives: An initial meeting that defined the full scope of the project, what learners will cover and the content and the structure of the learning necessary to achieve this. As a result of this meeting it was agreed to use Xerte, an open source E-Learning developer tool created by the University of Nottingham, for the technical architecture. • Marshalling of Learning Content: Collation of content by subject matter experts. • Design Document and Story Board Specification: Creation of the design document and any associated storyboards capture the precise text on screen or audio narrative. Outlining of the draft visual treatments and details of learning activities. • Content Agreement: Submission of the design document to the Project Board for review. Content is edited and agreed. This poster will look at the instructional design process involved in the creation of the module, decisions taken and lessons learnt.

Citation

Guy, M., Cope, J. and Pink, C., 2013. Creating an Online Training Module on RDM. At: International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) 2013, 2013-01-14 - 2013-01-16, Amsterdam

Research360 Progress Update

Jez Cope — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Cope, J. and Pink, C., 2012. Research360 Progress Update. At: JISC MRD Progress Workshop 2012, 2012-10-24 - 2012-10-25, Nottingham.

Research360 : Data in the Research Lifecycle

Katy McKen — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

The importance of data as a product of research is highlighted by funding council mandates that research data must, as far as possible, be accessible for re-use. The University of Bath recognises that data is a valuable asset and is investing in supporting data management at the institution. To do this, with JISC’s support, the Research360 project is developing the mechanisms that will enable data management to be incorporated throughout the research lifecycle. Critical to the success of this is the involvement of stakeholders from across the institution, including computing services, librarians and research support. We are providing support to researchers submitting data management plans with their applications for funding. We are also starting to incorporate data as an output of research and are investigating how re-use of data by third parties could be considered when impacts of research are measured. To do so requires that data should be citable and that shared data should be linked with research inputs and research publications. To achieve this, data must be incorporated into research information management, thereby completing the research lifecycle.

Citation

McKen, K., Pink, C., Lyon, L. and Davidson, M., 2012. Research360 : Data in the Research Lifecycle. At:

Research Data Management for Mechanical Engineering Departments

Alex Ball — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

REDm-MED is a seven-month project to scope, specify, design and implement a research data management plan (RDMP) suited especially to the needs of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath.

Citation

Ball, A., Darlington, M., Thangarajah, U., McMahon, C. and Lyon, E., 2011. Research Data Management for Mechanical Engineering Departments. At: 7th International Digital Curation Conference, 2011-12-05 - 2011-12-07, Marriott Royal Hotel, Bristol

Modelling the Development of Research Data

Alexander Ball — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

There are a whole host of challenges that face researchers as they attempt to manage their data: clarifying intellectual property rights issues, determining the optimal formats and standards to use, forecasting expenditure on preparing data for archiving, and so on. Among these challenges, one that is sometimes overlooked is that of simply keeping track of all the data that need to be managed. In some cases, no measures at all are put in place to track the data, meaning that researchers must rely on their memory to make sense of the files they generate in the course of their research. In others, directory and file naming conventions may be used, according to a researcher's own scheme or one set out by the research group or department. Still other researchers may keep written records of which data arose from which processes. These techniques each present a different trade-off between investment and return in terms of a researcher's effort to document and understand the data, respectively. They also provide third parties - curators, consumers - with different amounts of contextual information with which to understand the data, though this is in turn affected by the quality of the documentation of the technique in use. The ERIM Project is devising an alternative technique for keeping track of data, with the aim of being: intuitive for researchers when recording progress, and for both researchers and third parties when trying to understand the data records; applicable to a wide variety of data types and disciplines (though developed in the context of engineering research); compatible with existing local practices; amenable to automation, at both the writing and the reading stages. This technique, Research Activity Information Development (RAID) modelling, provides a formalism for describing how data records - and conceivably individual data - relate to one another. The RAID models may be represented as diagrams or as XML. Underlying RAID modelling is an ontology for data, their states and the processes that relate them.

Citation

Ball, A., Darlington, M. and Howard, T., 2010. Modelling the Development of Research Data. At: 6th International Digital Curation Conference, 6-8 December 2010, Chicago, USA

PEGBOARD – Open Access, Reuse and Preservation of Palaeoclimate Data

Gregory Tourte — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Tourte, G., Tonkin, E., Valdes, P. and Ball, A., 2010. PEGBOARD - Open Access, Reuse and Preservation of Palaeoclimate Data. At: 6th International Digital Curation Conference, 6-8 December 2010, Chicago.

Twitter archiving using Twapper Keeper: technical and policy challenges

Brian Kelly — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

Twitter is widely used in a range of different contexts, ranging from informal social communications and marketing purposes through to supporting various professional activities in teaching and learning and research. The growth in Twitter use has led to a recognition of the need to ensure that Twitter posts ('tweets') can be accessed and reused by a variety of third party applications. This paper describes development work to the Twapper Keeper Twitter archiving service to support use of Twitter in education and research. The reasons for funding developments to an existing commercial service are described and the approaches for addressing the sustainability of such developments are provided. The paper reviews the challenges this work has addressed including the technical challenges in processing large volumes of traffic and the policy issues related, in particular, to ownership and copyright. The paper concludes by describing the experiences gained in using the service to archive tweets posted during the WWW 2010 conference and summarising plans for further use of the service.

Citation

Kelly, B., Hawksey, M., O'Brien, J., Guy, M. and Rowe, M., 2010. Twitter archiving using Twapper Keeper: technical and policy challenges. At: 7th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES 2010), 19-24 September 2010, Vienna, Austria

Curation and Preservation of Crystallography Data

Manjula Patel — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

This poster will describe several issues as well as the work undertaken in relation to the effective curation and preservation of crystallography data within the context of the eCrystals Federation Project. The aim of the Project is to enhance the management of crystallography data at the institution level, incorporating data generated in departments, laboratories and by individual researchers or practitioners; consequently, the work described is concerned with the development of approaches to the preservation and curation of crystallography data in open repositories. For the crystallography community, the long-term provision of data is particularly important since structure determination can only be truly repeated or verified when the raw data is available. In addition, the availability of raw and derived data is very useful for reanalysis and reprocessing as improved methods for performing these tasks emerge.

Citation

Patel, M., Coles, S. and Lyon, E., 2009. Curation and Preservation of Crystallography Data. At: The 5th International Digital Curation Conference - Moving to Multi-Scale Science: Managing Complexity and Diversity, 2-4 December 2009, London, UK

Curating Digital Engineering Documents

Alexander Ball — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Ball, A., Ding, L. and Patel, M., 2006. Curating Digital Engineering Documents. At: 2nd International Digital Curation Conference, 21 – 22 November, 2006, Glasgow, Scotland.

Curating Digital Engineering Documents

Alexander Ball — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Ball, A., Ding, L. and Patel, M., 2006. Curating Digital Engineering Documents. At: 2nd International Digital Curation Conference, 21 – 22 November, 2006, Glasgow, Scotland.