Oxford research data blog

The Concordat on Open Research Data was officially launched on 28 July 2016. This document was developed by HEFCE, Research Councils UK (RCUK), Universities UK and the Wellcome Trust, with input from a wider range of organizations (including the University of Oxford) who supplied feedback on an earlier draft.

The Concordat aims to promote wider sharing and publication of research data, while also acknowledging that there are circumstances in which it will be appropriate to restrict access to data:

The intention of this Concordat is to establish sound principles which respect the needs of all parties. It is not the intention to mandate, codify or require specific activities, but to establish a set of expectations of good practice with the intention of increasing access to research data as the desired position for research for the public benefit.

– Concordat on Open Research Data, introduction

1. Open access to research data is an enabler of high quality research, a facilitator of innovation and safeguards good research practice.
2. There are sound reasons why the openness of research data may need to be restricted but any restrictions must be justified and justifiable.
3. Open access to research data carries a significant cost, which should be respected by all parties.
4. The right of the creators of research data to reasonable first use is recognised.
5. Use of others’ data should always conform to legal, ethical and regulatory frameworks including appropriate acknowledgement.
6. Good data management is fundamental to all stages of the research process and should be established at the outset.
7. Data curation is vital to make data useful for others and for long-term preservation of data.
8. Data supporting publications should be accessible by the publication date and should be in a citeable form.
9. Support for the development of appropriate data skills is recognised as a responsibility for all stakeholders.
10. Regular reviews of progress towards open research data should be undertaken.

The full Concordat is available from the HEFCE website.

The University of Oxford’s Information Security team has released three short training videos via their new YouTube channel. These give step-by-step guides to encrypting Microsoft Word and Excel documents, PDF files, and file folders.

Encryption is a useful tool for researchers working with sensitive data: password-protecting a file or folder is a straightforward way of restricting access, and thus can help to keep the information safe. This may be particularly important if material is being shared with collaborators, as it provides an additional layer of protection during the transfer of data. (You should, however, always ensure that whatever steps you take to safeguard data are suitable and sufficient for that particular dataset. If needed, the Information Security team can provide further advice on this front.)

The videos can be accessed directly via the YouTube channel, or via the Quick Links section of the Information Security website. The team hopes that the collection will be expanded to include other videos in due course. In the meantime, the website already contains a host of other useful material designed to help you keep yourself and your data safe.

Two upcoming events that may be of interest to researchers working with data:

Wolfram Training – Data Science: Analysis and Presentation

Wolfram is hosting a one-day Data Science: Analysis and Presentation training course in Oxfordshire on Friday 3 June.

The Wolfram Language is a unified system for data structuring, analysis and presentation. This course will look at a broad range of topics through data science: the first half will focus on handling data and using automatic processing functions, and the second half will go into more in-depth statistical analysis including probability, hypothesis testing and model fitting.

For further details, see the course listing. (Please note that this is an intermediate level course, assuming some prior knowledge, and that there is a fee to attend.)

Data Visualisation and the Future of Academic Publishing

On Friday 10 June, the University of Oxford’s Interactive Data Network is hosting a one-day event designed to bring together publishers, academics, journalists, and technologists around the topic of data visualisation. The aim is to foster discussion and set new goals for collaboration and innovation; a question of particular interest is how academic institutions and publishers might work together to support researchers in creating data visualisations.

For further details, including a provisional agenda, see the event web page, which also includes a link to the registration page.

For the first time in several years I was not able to attend the IDCC conference in 2016, but that does not mean that Oxford was not represented! Our data visualization expert Martin Hadley was in attendance and has put together a blog post about his reflections for the IT Services Research Support Team website. You will find it here: http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/acit-rs-team/2016/02/29/reflections-on-the-11th-digital-curation-conference/.

If you are a researcher who organizes data in databases, please spare a few minutes to complete our survey on the use of databases for research: http://goo.gl/forms/1w1EjU6FAs

The survey will inform Jisc decisions regarding the provision of a national database service developed from Oxford’s ‘Online Research Database Service’ (ORDS). It is anonymous and shouldn’t take more than five minutes to complete.

Thanks!

Following on from the publication of guidance created specifically for Oxford researchers for users of the data management planning tool DMP Online, we’re now pleased to offer a couple of complementary new resources.

DMP Online offers users the ability to sign in to the service using their Oxford Single Sign-On username and password (the same ones you use to access University email, library resources, etc.). However, for this to work, it’s first necessary to link your DMP Online account and your Oxford credentials. This is a quick and easy process, and instructions and a one-minute video walkthrough are now available from the DMP Online entry in the RDO site’s Tools, Services, and Training catalogue.

The Research Data Oxford team is delighted to announce that the Oxford Research Archive for Data (ORA-Data) has been awarded the Data Seal of Approval. The Seal represents an international, peer-reviewed standard which certifies a data archive according to sixteen essential criteria for good practice. This provides evidence of a combination of appropriate security, access and preservation mechanisms that benefits both depositors and data users. As a result the archive has been given the status of a Trusted Digital Repository. ORA-Data was launched in May 2015 as a response to growing demand for an institutional data repository and forms part of the wider Oxford Research Archive.

You can find out more about its place as part of effective data management here: http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/preserving-your-data/archives-and-other-options/

In addition visit the main website here: http://ora.ox.ac.uk/

We’re pleased to announce that users of DMP Online can now benefit from guidance created specifically for University of Oxford researchers.

DMP Online is a free web-based service from the Digital Curation Centre which allows researchers to create a data management plan for their research project. Templates from a range of major UK funders are available (suitable for creating the data management plans often now required as part of grant applications), plus a generic template for general use.

Guidance on completing each section of the plan is also provided. Users have previously been able to view guidance from the appropriate funding body and/or the DCC, but anyone creating a plan and specifying the University of Oxford as their institution will now also see a third set of guidance. In addition to providing general good practice advice, the Oxford guidance points researchers at Oxford services and information sources that may be of use.

To create a data management plan using DMP Online, visit the website and click Sign Up. Complete your details as requested (if you choose, you can then link your profile to your institutional credentials, allowing you to log in using your Oxford SSO username and password). Then click Create Plan to choose a template, and select the guidance that you’d like to see.

Further advice on research data management planning is available from the RDO Data Management Planning page. Researchers can also contact the RDM enquiries team or the IT Services Research Support team. A regular Research Data Management Planning course (which makes use of DMP Online) is offered via the IT Learning Programme.

Here’s an update on some of the things that we’re working on that you can look forward to over the coming year…

• We’re getting close to releasing the new Oxford DMPonline template

DMPonline is a widely used service to help researchers complete data management plans. It already provides templates matching the various funder guidelines and contextual guidance, and we will shortly be adding an Oxford-specific overlay. This will provide additional hints and tips on how to complete the various sections of a data management plan and reference the services and infrastructure available to members of the University.

• A high-security institutional archive for data and records that cannot be shared

The Bodleian Libraries are working towards an institutional ‘dark’ archive for university and college records and highly-sensitive research data for which the existing ORA-Data service is not appropriate. This will be a certified service meeting stringent security criteria.

• Additional services to support ‘live’ data

We are aware that innovative and informative ways of presenting data can increase the impact that research data can have, both in terms of enabling researchers to gain insights they might otherwise miss, and in terms of the effect on public understanding. IT Services are working on methods to facilitate novel data analysis and high-quality visualizations.

• A ‘one-click’ data deposit mechanism for depositing data and metadata from live data services (initially the ORDS) to data repositories (initially ORA-Data)

This longstanding intention has been put on-hold whilst the Bodleian conduct a review of the technologies they are using, but should be back on the table in early 2016. Whilst it may not literally be a one-click process (users will inevitably have to sign up to repository terms and conditions), this should make the process of getting research data from live services into an archive much simpler, and reduce the amount of descriptive metadata that researchers need to add by hand.

• Better support for researchers working with sensitive personal data

We are currently in the process of scoping requirements for a ‘Participant Data Project’ (see http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/acit-rs-team/advice/research-data-management/participant-data-project/). This work is already ensuring that the IT Services Research Support Team have a better understanding of the workflows and technologies used by researchers in the Medical and Social Sciences, and will enable improved support in future. If opportunities are identified to automate common processes then these will be pursued.

• Improvements to the Research Data Oxford website

Whist we are constantly updating the content on the RDO website to ensure it remains current and useful, we are now looking at ways in which we can expand its coverage to offer advice on some of the things that researchers can do with their data. This will include enabling better reproducibility, increased impact, and more innovative analysis.

• More examples of research data management in practice

One of the challenges we’ve faced in supporting researchers with their data management has been that there are very different practices and cultures in different academic disciplines. Understandably, people would like examples of what the various funder requirements really mean to them in practice. We will therefore be working with academics across various disciplines to produce examples and case studies of good practice to try to make the abstract a little more concrete. If you would like to be involved in creating a discipline-specific case study, let us know by writing to researchdata@ox.ac.uk.

• And much, much more

There are planned improvements to the ORDS and ORA-Data, work to better integrate Symplectic with the other parts of the RDM infrastructure is likely, and the market review that the Bodleian is undertaking is likely to lead to yet further ideas for improvements.

If you have any concerns you would like to raise, or ideas for improved research data management support at Oxford, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Please get in touch with us at researchdata@ox.ac.uk.