Science Data Infrastructure for Preservation - Earth Science

The proper preservation of both current and historical scientific data will underpin a multitude of ecological, economic and political decisions in the future of our society. The SCIDIP-ES project addresses the long-term persistent storage, access and management needs of scientific data by providing preservation infrastructure services. Taking exemplars from the Earth Science domain we highlight the key preservation challenges and barriers to be overcome by the SCIDIP-ES infrastructure. SCIDIP-ES augments existing science data e-infrastructures by adding specific services and toolkits, which implement core preservation concepts, thus guaranteeing the long-term access to data assets across and beyond their designated communities.European Space Agency ESA-ESRIN, Italy, Alliance for Permanent Access, The Netherlands, Science and Technology Facility Council, United Kingdom

A linked data approach to publishing complex scientific workflows

Past data management practices in many fields of natural science, including climate research, have focused primarily on the final research output - the research publication - with less attention paid to the chain of intermediate data results and their associated metadata, including provenance. Data were often regarded merely as an adjunct to the publication, rather than a scientific resource in their own right. In this paper, we attempt to address the issues of capturing and publishing detailed workflows associated with the climate/research datasets held by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. To this end, we present a customisable approach to exposing climate research workflows for the effective re-use of the associated data, through the adoption of linked-data principles, existing widely adopted citation techniques (Digital Object Identifier) and data exchange mechanisms (Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange)

Opening Up Climate Research: A Linked Data Approach to Publishing Data Provenance

Traditionally, the formal scientific output in most fields of natural science has been limited to peer-reviewed academic journal publications, with less attention paid to the chain of intermediate data results and their associated metadata, including provenance. In effect, this has constrained the representation and verification of the data provenance to the confines of the related publications. Detailed knowledge of a dataset’s provenance is essential to establish the pedigree of the data for its effective re-use, and to avoid redundant re-enactment of the experiment or computation involved. It is increasingly important for open-access data to determine their authenticity and quality, especially considering the growing volumes of datasets appearing in the public domain. To address these issues, we present an approach that combines the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) – a widely adopted citation technique – with existing, widely adopted climate science data standards to formally publish detailed provenance of a climate research dataset as an associated scientific workflow. This is integrated with linked-data compliant data re-use standards (e.g. OAI-ORE) to enable a seamless link between a publication and the complete trail of lineage of the corresponding dataset, including the dataset itself

GI+100: Long Term Preservation of Digital Geographic Information — 16 Fundamental Principles Agreed by National Mapping Agencies and State Archives

This paper states 16 principles for the long term retention and preservation of digital geographic information. The paper is mainly aimed at public sector geographic information providers in Europe (particularly those involved in mapping and cadastre) with the intention of highlighting the significance of fundamental concepts for digital geographic data archiving. Geographic information providers are mainly mapping agencies, but also archives preserving geographic data among a wider range of digital information. A supplementary objective is that the paper may provide useful information for providers of all types of geographic information right around the world. This paper states 16 principles for the long term retention and preservation of digital geographic information. The paper is mainly aimed at public sector geographic information providers in Europe (particularly those involved in mapping and cadastre) with the intention of highlighting the significance of fundamental concepts for digital geographic data archiving. Geographic information providers are mainly mapping agencies, but also archives preserving geographic data among a wider range of digital information. A supplementary objective is that the paper may provide useful information for providers of all types of geographic information right around the world. There are many reasons why people wish to retain access to information, though the main drivers for archiving digital geographic information are meeting legislative requirements, the short and long term exploitation (re-use not only access) of archived data for analyzing social, environmental (e.g. global climate changes) and economic changes over time as well as efficiency savings in managing superseded datasets.  This paper sets out the path and describes what needs to be done now to future-proof the investment government agencies around the world have made in creating digital Geographic Data.

An Approach to Efficiently Curating Digital Metadata to Aid Effective Long-term Data Preservation and Re-use

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Digital Preservation with the Islandora Framework at Qatar National Library: Poster - iPRES 2016 - Swiss National Library, Bern

This poster outlines how Qatar National Library builds a versatile multi-purpose repository that will provide digital preservation solutions to a wide range of national stakeholders and use cases

Setting up a National Research Data Curation Service for Qatar: Challenges and Opportunities

Over the past decade, Qatar has been making considerable progress towards developing a sustainable research culture for the nation. The main driver behind Qatar’s progress in research and innovation is Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development (QF), a private, non-profit organization that aims to utilise research as a catalyst for expanding, diversifying and improving the country’s economy, health and environment. While this has resulted in a significant growth in the number of research publications produced by Qatari researchers in recent years, a nationally co-ordinated approach is needed to address some of the emerging but increasingly important aspects of research data curation, such as management and publication of research data as important outputs, and their long-term digital preservation. Qatar National Library (QNL), launched in November 2012 under the umbrella of QF, aims to establish itself as a centre of excellence in Qatar for research data management, curation and publishing to address the research data-related needs of Qatari researchers and academics. This paper describes QNL’s approach towards establishing a national research data curation service for Qatar, highlighting the associated opportunities and key challenges