Research data management education for future curators

Science has progressed by “standing on the shoulders of giants” and for centuries research and knowledge have been shared through the publication and dissemination of books, papers and scholarly communications. Moving forward, much of our understanding builds on (large scale) datasets, which have been collected or generated as part of the scientific process of discovery. How will this be made available for future generations? How will we ensure that, once collected or generated, others can stand on the shoulders of the data we produce?Educating students about the challenges and opportunities of data management is a key part of the solution and helps the researchers of the future to start to think about the problems early on in their careers. We have compiled a set of case studies to show the similarities and differences in data between disciplines, and produced a booklet for students containing the case studies and an introduction to the data lifecycle and other data management practices. This has already been used at the University of Southampton within the Faculty of Engineering and is now being adopted centrally for use in other faculties. In this paper, we will provide an overview of the case studies and the guide, and reflect on the reception the guide has had to date

Enhanced Search for Educational Resources - A Perspective and a Prototype from ccLearn

Users of search tools who seek educational materials on the Internet are typically presented with either a web-scale search (e.g., Google or Yahoo) or a specialized, site-specific tool. The specialized search tools often rely upon custom data fields, such as user-entered ratings, to provide additional value. As currently designed, these systems are generally too labor intensive to manage and scale up beyond a single site or set of resources.However, custom (or structured) data of some form is necessary if search outcomes foreducational materials are to be improved. For example, design criteria and evaluative metrics are crucial attributes for educational resources, and these currently require human labeling and verification. Thus, one challenge is to design a search tool that capitalizes on available structured data (also called metadata) but is not crippled if the data are missing. This information should be amenable to repurposing by anyone, which means that it must be archived in a manner that can be discovered and leveraged easily.In this paper, we describe the extent to which DiscoverEd, a prototype developed by ccLearn, meets the design challenge of a scalable, enhanced search platform for educational resources. We then explore some of the key challenges regarding enhanced search for topic-specific Internet resources generally. We conclude by illustrating some possible future developments and third-party enhancements to the DiscoverEd prototype

Community Dimensions of Learning Object Repositories

This paper outlines some enablers and barriers in the use of learning object repositories (LORs) to support learning within a range of communities. Key dimensions of use of LORs as well as relationships between LORs and the learning communities that they aim to support are discussed. The LORs and communities analysed in the paper are SIESWE Learning Exchange (formerly Stor Curam), JORUM, IVIMEDS, and DIDET. Guided by the Activity Theory perspective, the LORs and the communities are analysed as sociocultural activity systems. Based on this analysis, some initial barriers and enablers for the use of LORs to support learning are outlined and implications for the future use of LORs are discussed

International data curation education action (IDEA) working group: a report from the second workshop of IDEA

The second workshop of the International Data curation Education (IDEA) Working Group was held December 5, 2008, in Edinburgh, Scotland, following the 4th International Digital Curation Conference. This workshop was jointly organized by the UK's Digital Curation Centre (DCC), the US's Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (SILS). Nearly forty educators and researchers accepted invitations to attend, with representation from universities, research centers, and funding agencies from Canada, the US, the UK, and Germany

Collections for people: museums' stored collections as a public resource

Collections in UK museums grew enormously in the latter half of the 20th century yet museum collections, mostly maintained at public expense, are perceived as an underused resource. The Museums Association’s 2005 report, Collections for the Future1, together with press comments and books such as Treasures on Earth (2002)2 and Fragments of the World (2005)3, brought this issue into sharp focus. Collections for People set out to understand the scale of museum stored collections, and the main parameters of their access and use: • What is the size and nature of collections as a resource? How are they distributed, geographically and among different types of museum? • How much are different types of collection used by people other than museum staff? What sort of people use collections? What do they use them for: research, teaching and learning, creative activities, visits for enjoyment such as store tours? • How do users perceive this service? Do museums actively market collections access? Do they publicise what is in their collections? • How do museums facilitate collections use? What are the factors associated with greater use of collections? What do museums see as the barriers to more use

Experimental and Creative Approaches to Collecting and Distributing New Media Art within Regional Arts Organisations

This article is an overview of preliminary research undertaken for the creation of a framework for collecting and distributing new media art within regional art galleries in the U.K. From the 1960s, artists have experimented using computers and software as production tools to create artworks ranging from static, algorithmic drawings on paper to installations with complex, interactive and process-oriented behaviours. The art-form has evolved into multiple strands of production, presentation and distribution. But are we, as collectors, researchers, artists and enthusiasts facing an uncertain future concerning the integration of new media art into institutional cultural organisations? Recently, concerns have been raised by curators regarding the importance of learning how to collect new media art if there is to be any hope of preserving the artworks as well as their histories. Traditional collections management approaches must evolve to take into account the variable characteristics of new media artworks. As I will discuss in this article, although regarded as a barrier to collecting new media artworks, artists and curators at individual institutions have recently taken steps to tackle curatorial and collections management activities concerning the often unpredictable and unstable behaviours of new media artworks by collaboration and experimentation. This method has proved successful with some mainstream, university and municipal galleries prior to acquiring or commissioning new artworks into their collections. This paper purports that by collaboration, experimentation and the sharing of knowledge and resources, these concerns may be conquered to preserve and make new media art accessible for future generations to enjoy and not to lament over its disappearance

Open data and the academy: an evaluation of CKAN for research data management

This paper offers a full and critical evaluation of the open source CKAN software (http://ckan.org) for use as a Research Data Management (RDM) tool within a university environment. It presents a case study of CKAN's implementation and use at the University of Lincoln, UK, and highlights its strengths and current weaknesses as an institutional Research Data Management tool. The author draws on his prior experience of implementing a mixed media Digital Asset Management system (DAM), Institutional Repository (IR) and institutional Web Content Management System (CMS), to offer an outline proposal for how CKAN can be used effectively for data analysis, storage and publishing in academia. This will be of interest to researchers, data librarians, and developers, who are responsible for the implementation of institutional RDM infrastructure. This paper is presented as part of the dissemination activities of the Jisc-funded Orbital project (http://orbital.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk

Telescope Bibliographies: an Essential Component of Archival Data Management and Operations

Assessing the impact of astronomical facilities rests upon an evaluation of the scientific discoveries which their data have enabled. Telescope bibliographies, which link data products with the literature, provide a way to use bibliometrics as an impact measure for the underlying data. In this paper we argue that the creation and maintenance of telescope bibliographies should be considered an integral part of an observatory's operations. We review the existing tools, services, and workflows which support these curation activities, giving an estimate of the effort and expertise required to maintain an archive-based telescope bibliography.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, to appear in SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, SPIE Conference Series 844