Research data spring: extending the OPD to cover RDM

Editor's Notes

1. The key objective for this pilot is to agree - within the community - a list of basic RDM infrastructure components in light of EPSRC's Policy Framework on Research Data and to make this infrastructure more visible and easier to identify.  Possible solution By extending the Organisational Profile Document (OPD) to consistently list hard and ‘soft’ RDM infrastructure components we will help to make them more visible, machine readable, and discoverable. What exactly is an Organisation Profile Document (OPD)? The OPD was developed by Equipment.data at the University of Southampton to help HEIs meet EPSRC's mandate about exposing information on research equipment bought with public funds. The OPD is a simple RDF file which enables equipment data to be made more visible to both humans and machines. There is a small set of mandatory fields that must be completed but great scope to extend the profile with optional information using the LinkingYou vocabulary which was developed by the Jisc-funded Linking You project project at the University of Lincoln. By extending the OPD to consistently list hard and ‘soft’ RDM infrastructure components we hope to make research data management infrastructure components more visible, discoverable, and machine readable.  Why it could work Builds upon existing infrastructure Easy to implement solution HEIs can update and maintain profile locally Profiles made visible by Equipment.data
2. Glasgow, Leeds and Lancaster participated in Phase 1. In Phase 2, we have also added Cambridge and Bath.
3. Activity: -Mapped infrastructure components to EPSRC requirements -Recommended new LinkingYou terms -Workshop to share draft components  -Period of public consultation -Tested with 3 HEIs -Ran workshop exercise around components at IFLA 2015 11 components for basic RDM Infrastructure profile Means of raising staff awareness of funders’ research data requirements - Provide a link to an information page on funders' policies. This could be internal or external (E.g., DCC's policy overview table) Research data policy - Provide a link to research data policy or aspirational statement Strategy or implementation plan for research data services - Provide a link to research data strategy page or roadmap RDM advice and support services - Provide a link to page describing data management planning guidance and/or support services at this organisation Active data storage - Provide link(s) to active research data storage information page(s). There may be multiple options at Research Group/School/College/Central levels. Data register or catalogue - Provide a link to your internal research data registration homepage. This may be provided via the data repository and/or CRIS. Persistent identification for datasets - Provide a link to any page(s) detailing schemes used to identify digital data items (e.g., DataCite). Data access procedures - Provide a link to any information provided about research data access. Secure data access - Provide a link to any information provided about secure data access and governance. Institutional publications repository (if it includes research data or metadata) - Provide a link to your institutional repository homepage Data repository for longer term access and preservation - Provide a link to your research data repository homepage. This may be an extension of your publications repository, a separate data repository or a pointer to an external data repository service (E.g., Zenodo).
4. We have developed a Research Data Management category with the following terms. Only existing term used is lyou:about-strategy but feedback suggests that we should make this specific to research data as well. Ongoing refinement and finalisation of terms based on work with HEIs.
5. General guidance released on the organisational profile document by equipment.data; HEI guide for developing RDM profile from DCC.
6. Potential for us to easily produce these as an outcome of DCC Research Infrastructure and Support Evaluation (new supported assessment approach that will replace DCC Institutional Engagement programme).
7. A growing number of universities are producing auto-discoverable profiles which include the "Linking You" terms. <http://opd.data.ac.uk/docs/key-pages> Andrew Milsted from Equipment.data team developed a filter to allow Linking You terms to be displayed collectively rather than people having to pull up an individual OPD to view the Linking You data. Beside each term you can see a description of the term plus the number of organisations that have provided that information in their OPDs.
8. If you click on the Linking You term Research Page – you would be taken to this page which allows you to see which institutions have provided information and to be able to click through to the page. We want to further refine this functionality to enable people to view one category (e.g., Research Data Management) rather than having to browse through each term individually. This would be further developed in Phase 3.
9. If you click on the Linking You term Research Page – you would be taken to this page which allows you to see which institutions have provided information and to be able to click through to the page. We want to further refine this functionality to enable people to view one category (e.g., Research Data Management) rather than having to browse through each term individually. This would be further developed in Phase 3.
10. Technology, effort and costs for different approaches; shared services; efficiencies; classify guidance and training Possibility to use OPD technology to begin to share effort across HEI by aggregating sub-profiles held and maintained across HEI rather than one unit maintaining the organisational profile (e.g., the equipment profile not likely to be maintained by the same group that maintain the RDM profile).
11. Move from providing evidence of basic infrastructure to some assessment of quality or levels of service Not possible to develop metrics for all components in time available, but Phase three will aim to examine possible metrics for three of the basic RDM components: 1) York/Hull investigating metrics around digital preservation 2) Lancaster looking at metrics around data management planning from the research office perspective 3) DCC looking at RDM support and guidance metrics