Research Data Management

Quote by L. Martinez Uribe

The Office of the Director of IT has been instrumental in moving forward the research data management debate and has taken action through a number of key projects. We oversee the activities and report termly to the PRAC ICT Sub-committee on advances in the area.

Oxford Digital Repositories Steering Group:

Strategic oversight of digital repository services within the University began in 2007 with the formation of the Oxford Digital Repositories Steering Group. The Steering Group comprised key stakeholders from across the University and was responsible for ensuring:
  • communication across repository activities in the University;
  • stakeholder and user input to the requirements gathering and analysis;
  • overseeing the definition of services;
  • developing and communicating standards to ensure interoperability between services.

Scoping Digital Repository Services for Research Data Management:

The work of the Steering Group was advanced by the Scoping Digital Repository Services for Research Data Management project (2008-2009). It was formed in response to the Research Councils UK's (RCUK) increasing preassure upon researchers and their institutions to publish research results as widely as possible. Despite the numerous domain-specific national data archives within the UK, there are many disciplines without the appropriate research data infrastructure in place (see the JISC SToRe3 survey). This tendency, teamed with the termination of funding for the Arts and Humanities Data Service, drove institutions like Oxford University to take responsibility for the support of researchers and their data management and curation. (Source: L. Martinez Uribe, Project Plan [PDF 264 KB])

The project scoped researchers' requirements for data management services. It produced a research data management services framework, identified existing data management services and gaps in service provision at Oxford University. The project also contributed to the:

EIDCSR:

Embedding Institutional Data Curation Services in Research (2009-2010). The knowledge gathered by the scoping project fostered the JISC funded EIDCSR project. This project addressed the data preservation requirements of three collaborating research groups in Oxford by scoping their management and curation requirements. The workflows generated by the project were designed to scale to include other research domains and the outputs were to be of use to other research intensive institutions. (Source: EIDCSR Aims and Objectives).

Research Data Management Support website:

A new website designed to support researchers with their research data management activities was launched in November 2010. The site has been developed by Research Services in collaboration with OUCS and the JISC funded EIDCSR project.

SUDAMIH:

Supporting Data Management Infrastructure for the Humanities (2009-2011) built on the work of the EIDCSR Project. SUDAMIH aimed to "address a coherent range of requirements for the more effective management of data (broadly defined) within the Humanities at an institutional level" (Source: SUDAMIH home page). The project team work closely with the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), the Research Information Network (RIN) and the UK Research Data Service (UKRDS) initiative. The project was an intra-institutional collaboration led by the Office of the Director of IT, driven by the requirements of researchers within the Humanities Division at Oxford University and was a collaboration between the research community and institutional service providers.

VIDaas:

Virtual Infrastructure with Database as a Service is an OUCS project funded by JISC/HEFCE under the University Modernisation Fund (2011). VIDaas aims to deliver cost savings and improve the efficiency of UK HE research through the creation of a production-ready hybrid virtual infrastructure (VI) hosting a 'Database as a Service' (DaaS) system.

Further Initiatives within the University:
  • ADMIRAL - Further initiatives within the University include the ADMIRAL project, which will provide a data management infrastructure for research across the Life Sciences.
  • BRII - Building the Research Information Infrastructure (BRII) project focused on the efficient sharing of research activity information using semantic web technologies

Commitment to Research Data Management

The University of Oxford, through the PRAC ICT Sub-committee, agreed the following commitment to research data management:

"The University of Oxford is committed to supporting researchers in appropriate curation and preservation of their research data, and where applicable in accordance with the research funders' requirements. It recognises that this must be achieved through the deployment of a federated institutional data repository. This repository has to be supported by a suitable business model, and where possible funded through full economic cost recovery, so that the University can guarantee that the data deposited there will be managed over the long term. The data repository will be a cross-agency activity developed and supported by a number of departments within the University and will build, as far as possible, on existing services, including the Oxford University Research Archive (ORA). It will be overseen by a Steering Group which reports to the University Research Committee. The management and curation of research data will be addressed in cooperation with specialist agencies, research funders and other institutions in the UK and internationally. Oxford is committed to playing a significant role within the foreseen UK Research Data Service Pathfinder activities"