Oxford research data blog

A new version of the postcard advertising the Research Data Oxford site is now available. (Click the images to view a larger version.)

A second postcard, advertising the Research Data Health Check service for researchers, is also available.

To request copies of either of these, please email researchdata@ox.ac.uk.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the 6^th Research Data Alliance Plenary meeting in Paris. With over 600 delegates, the RDA plenary events have turned into the largest regular gatherings of the international research data management crowd that there is. Consisting of various Interest Groups and Working Groups dedicated to particular aspects of research data, the RDA has become the de facto body for establishing common policies, approaches, and standards.

This autumn, the focus of the conference was on research data for climate change, and a special effort was made to engage with the business sector and small start-ups. This included an interesting ‘minute-madness’ session in which thirty or so young entrepreneurs gave a pitch for their enterprises, explaining how they were gathering and/or using big data as a central plank of their business models. If the chosen enterprises were representative then It seems that the world will soon be awash with electrical appliance metering apps, data visualization tools, and computer-heated water. The winner was an app called ‘Plume’, which measures and reports air pollution levels in various cities around the world – perfect if you want to avoid going for a jog at the worst times of the day, although personally I try to play it safe by not going jogging at all. I was rather taken by a ‘hyperlocal’ weather app called Wezzoo Oombrella (the Web is clearly running out of unclaimed words), which would have been useful to have known about when dodging the rain last Tuesday.

Elsewhere the assembled special interest groups were continuing to pursue more academic concerns. Being a member of the Interest Group for the ‘Long Tail of Research Data’ I was particularly pleased to hear the results announced of our recent survey into the different research data management tools and software that researchers (and others) are using. Whilst the expected tools were all frequently cited (Excel, R, SPSS, MatLab, etc.), the survey also exposed some less well-known analysis software and subject-specific tools. We haven’t officially published the results yet, but I’ll link to them once they’re generally available. The downside to surveys like this is that I now have several days’ work ahead of me trying to learn more about what all these tools really do and considering whether they offer any scope to improve practices across academic disciplines.

Of particular interest amongst the sessions I attended were those relating to my obligatory new interest in sensitive data (see my post about the new Participant Data Project). Having attended the UK Data Service’s very informative ‘5 Safes of Secure Access to Confidential Data’ just the previous week, I feel as though I’m getting a pretty intensive crash-course in the finer points of data anonymization and secure sharing. Both the session on International Access to Sensitive Data and that on the Life Sciences on Sensitive Data were very informative and engaging in good work. The Big Health Data IG is still taking shape, but looks as though it will play an important role in the future. Finally, the IG on Reproducibility, whilst somewhat neglected by those RDA members that had frequented it in earlier plenaries, offered a good forum for sharing ideas regarding software and good practice in a field that I suspect will become much more important over the next few years as researchers get the hang of depositing data and the attention moves more towards what people can actually do with it.

We’ve just commenced a new project to investigate ways of improving research data management for researchers working with human participants. The scope includes research both in the medical sciences and the social sciences. The initial scoping phase of this project will last until the end of 2015 and involve interviewing researchers, clinicians, administrators, security experts, and service providers to better understand the issues faced when conducting this type of research and identify potential solutions to common problems. We anticipate that this will be followed by a second phase during which we will produce improved guidance and support for researchers, and potentially implement improvements to infrastructure and services.

More information about the project is available from the project webpage at http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/acit-rs-team/advice/research-data-management/participant-data-project/.

If you have suggestions as to how we could help improve any aspect of the research workflow, we’d love to hear from you. Tell us about the problems you confront in your own research via researchdata@ox.ac.uk.

Although it’s been a while now since the new EPSRC Expectations regarding data kicked in, I realize that I never got around to reporting on this blog how our project alerting our principal investigators to the changes went, so here it is…

The ESPRC Readiness Project was undertaken to raise awareness amongst EPSRC-funded researchers of the new research data management Expectations that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Funding Council introduced on the 1^st May 2015 (https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/standards/researchdata/expectations/). The nine Expectations oblige researchers to document, preserve, and provide access to the research data that they create, and require research institutions to provide the services and support needed to ensure this can happen. Rather than simply asking researchers to comply with the new Expectations, the project sought to understand researchers’ concerns, and to improve the guidance and support offered by the University of Oxford.

More than a hundred EPSRC grant-holders were sent a letter signed by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research (Professor Ian Walmsley) informing them of the new Expectations and inviting them to meet with a member of the EPRSC Readiness Project Team. Over the coming months, the large majority of those invited participated either in a one-to-one meeting or a disciplinary workshop.

Reactions to the EPSRC Expectations expressed during the interview and group sessions were mixed, but generally negative. Many researchers felt that the Expectations would add to their already busy workloads and be of little value either to themselves or their wider disciplinary communities. Even when informed of the kinds of benefits the EPSRC envisaged arising from the Expectations, a degree of scepticism remained. The Expectations were, however, greeted more positively by researchers working in the fields of crystallography and aspects of biochemistry, where it is already common practice to share data and where the infrastructure to assist with this is already established at the disciplinary level. It will inevitably take time for all of the new data management requirements to become generally accepted practice in many disciplines, but responses also suggested that barriers to acceptance can be greatly lowered by the provision of simple, integrated, and easy-to-use tools and services by the institution.

Throughout the project, researchers sought clarification as to how the EPSRC Expectations would affect them in practice and what they needed to do to ensure compliance. These questions were addressed and added to a FAQ on Oxford’s Research Data website (http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/epsrc-data-requirements-and-what-you-need-to-do/). A checklist and decision tree where also developed.

Particular concerns included: what actually counts as data?; what should be done with the software underpinning datasets?; whether preference should be given to preserving raw or processed data; whether the effort required to intelligently share research data was worth it for some data types; and how the expectations applied to largely theoretical research outputs. The concerns raised by researchers have been relayed to the EPSRC.

A number of suggestions as to how University support could be improved were noted down and are now being acted upon. These have proved particularly important for understanding how researchers need to interact with the University’s data repository, ORA-Data (http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bdlss/digital-services/data-archiving). As a result of the project, the data deposit workflow has been significantly improved, and the pricing model for the service is being reviewed.

EPSRC-sponsored researchers are now leading the field in terms of the number of data deposits they are making to the ORA-Data repository, suggesting that the project has indeed been successful in conveying the Expectations.

With the new EPSRC expectations coming into effect today, 1st May 2015, we have put together a simple compliance checklist for EPSRC-funded researchers at the University of Oxford. This lists the three essential steps that you need to take to ensure your future articles are compliant, and the two conditional elements of which you need to be aware. Take a look at it at http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/126/2014/03/EPSRC-Research-Data-Self-Assesment-Checklist.pdf.

We’ve also been talking to a number of researchers in the MPLS division about their concerns regarding the EPSRC Expectations, and have been trying to address the questions we’re hearing via the EPSRC FAQ page at http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/epsrc-data-requirements-and-what-you-need-to-do/. If you have questions about the Expectations that are not addressed here, please write to researchdata@ox.ac.uk, and one of our support team will be happy to help out.

(posted on behalf of Amanda Flynn, Bodleian Libaries)

The Bodleian has recently launched a new service for the University, the Oxford Research Archive for Data (ORA-Data). An integrated digital repository and catalogue for research data, ORA-Data offers a service to archive and enable the discovery, citation and sharing of data produced by researchers at Oxford. ORA-Data is aimed especially at researchers who wish:

• to deposit data that underpins publications
• to deposit data that their funding body requires be preserved and made accessible
• to add a record to the University’s catalogue of data about a dataset stored elsewhere

Any type of digital research data, from across all academic disciplines, may be deposited in ORA-Data, and we accept any file format. ORA-Data sits within the original Oxford Research Archive (ORA) for publications, so that data can be linked easily to – and browsed alongside – related publications. A permanent descriptive record is created for all data deposited in ORA-Data and a persistent unique identifier generated (a DOI, or Digital Object Identifier), which allows your dataset to be clearly attributed and cited. Data and records will be discoverable through Google and other search engines, maximising the visibility and impact of your research. You can also choose to set an embargo period for your files if you wish.

Research data management is an increasingly important concern for the University. The UK Research Councils view publicly funded research data as a public good, produced in the public interest, and now require such data to be made openly available at the close of projects with as few restrictions as possible. The EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), for example, has a set of expectations about research data management which come into effect today, 1 May 2015: https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/standards/researchdata/. We’re pleased to announce that depositing in ORA-Data will allow researchers and the University to comply with these expectations.

Until July 2015, ORA-Data is running as a free pilot, though there are plans for it to become a chargeable service in the future (with a draft charging model currently under negotiation). During the pilot period, we’re very keen to encourage researchers to try out ORA-Data, and very much welcome any feedback from users to help us improve the service. We’re pleased to say that we’ve already been able to act on some suggestions we’ve received; for example, we’re now able to offer instant DOIs for data so that you don’t have to wait for us to process your deposit before being able to cite the dataset in an article submitted for publication.

ORA-Data can be accessed via the main ORA website: http://ora.ox.ac.uk; just select ‘Contribute’ followed by the ‘Data’ link. A full guide to using ORA-Data, packed with help and support, is also available: http://ox.libguides.com/ora-data. To get in touch with the ORA-Data team please contact us at: ora@bodleian.ox.ac.uk – we would love to hear from you if you’d like to find out more about what we can offer or how we can help with your data.

Amanda Flynn, Bodleian Libraries

As the May 2015 deadline for new EPSRC guidelines on data preservation and sharing approaches, work has continued on providing advice and guidance. A batch of new questions and answers about what this policy means for day to day research has been added to the Research Data Oxford website. This has made extensive use of the feedback and comments recieved from a wide range of EPSRC funded researchers.

The new ‘Recently Asked Questions’ have been added here; http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/epsrc-data-requirements-and-what-you-need-to-do/

This should also be read in conjunction with funder specifc guidelines here; http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/funder-requirements/

The Online Research Database Service (ORDS) allows Oxford researchers and their collaborators to create, edit, search, and share databases online.

A new demo video for the ORDS is now available, giving an overview of what the ORDS does and how it can help make researchers’ lives easier. To watch the video on YouTube, click the image below.

For more information – or to try the ORDS out for yourself – visit the ORDS website, or see this blog post on Ten reasons to use the ORDS.

New information has been added to our guidelines for EPSRC funded researchers. This is in anticipation of new funder expectations being introduced 1st May 2015. A series of ‘Recently Asked Questions’ have been added here; http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/epsrc-data-requirements-and-what-you-need-to-do/

This is in addition to funder specifc guidelines here; http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/funder-requirements/