Supporting the Interdisciplinary, Long-Term Research Project ‘Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere-Systems’ by Data Management Services

Science conducted in cross-institutional, interdisciplinary, long-term research projects requires active sharing of data, documents and further information. Thus, within the Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio 32 ‘Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Systems’, funded by the German Research Foundation, research data management (RDM) services have been available since early 2007. These services were established to support all researchers during their entire individual research studies. They cover provision of general guidance, support and training for RDM. To fulfil the scientists’ needs and requests with regard to storage, backup, documentation, search and sharing of data with other project members, a project-specific RDM system was designed and implemented. This system was developed and continuously modified in collaboration with the scientists to facilitate their system acceptance. Besides the mentioned services, the system supports further common services such as controlled access to data, rights management, data publication with DOI and data statistics (on repository and single data level). All RDM services provided for the scientists are thus bundled and available to the users in one system: a ‘one-stop-shop’. After more than ten years of RDM service provision for the CRC/TR32, the repository statistics clearly visualize the use of the diverse RDM system services. Furthermore, it has been shown that an RDM adapted to the needs of interdisciplinary researchers can be fruitful and indispensable when scientists conduct their research study e.g. with a time lag. RDM services established at an early stage can contribute to a successful long-term research project

Le potentiel des infrastructures d’information pour les données de la recherche

Internet et l’expansion du numérique ont ouvert la voie à de nouvelles possibilités de diffusion et d’échanges des connaissances et d’information pour la science. Outre le concept de Science ouverte parallèle à celui d’Accès ouvert, l’accessibilité et la réutilisabilité des données de la recherche sont sources de débats. Les travaux de Peter Schirmbacher en recherche et dans son enseignement ont visé la pertinence, la conception et l’exploitation d’offres dans les infrastructures d’information pour les données de la recherche à l’ère du numérique et ont ainsi assuré des contributions pionnières pour le développement de ces services au profit des activités scientifiques. La présente contribution propose un panorama sur l’état de l’art de ces infrastructures d’information et de leurs offres et les situent dans le contexte actuel des débats sur la Science ouverte.The Internet and the expansion of digital technology have opened up new opportunities for the dissemination and exchange of knowledge and information for science. In addition to the concepts of Open Science and Open Access, the accessibility and reusability of research data have become sources of debate. Peter Schirmbacher has focused in his research and teaching on the relevance, design and use of information infrastructures for research data in the digital age. Schirmbacher has made pioneering contributions to development of these services for the benefit of scientific activities. This contribution provides an overview of these information infrastructures and their potential, and situates them in the current context of Open Science debates

CRC806-Database: A semantic e-Science infrastructure for an interdisciplinary research centre

Well designed information infrastructure improves the conduct of research, and can connect researchers and projects across disciplines to facilitate collaboration. The topic of this thesis is the design and development of an information infrastructure for a large interdisciplinary research project, the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre 806 (CRC 806). Under the name CRC806-Database the presented infrastructure was developed in the frame of the subproject "Z2: Data Management and Data Services", a so-called INF project, which is responsible for the research data management within a DFG funded CRC. During the design, development and implementation of the CRC806-Database, the complex requirements for sound data management in the context of a large interdisciplinary research project were considered theoretically, as well as practically during the implementation. The presented infrastructure design is mainly based on the requirements for research data management in CRC's, that is mainly the secure storage of primary research data for at least ten years, as well as on the further recommendations, that are about support and improvement of research and facilitation of Web-based collaboration, for information infrastructure by the DFG. The CRC806-Database semantic e-Science infrastructure consists of three main components, i.) the CRC806-RDM component that implements the research data management, including a data catalog and a publication database, ii.) the CRC806-SDI component that provides a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for Web-based management of spatial data, and additionally, iii.) the CRC806-KB component that implements a collaborative virtual research environment and knowledgebase. From a technical perspective, the infrastructure is based on the application of existing Open Source Software (OSS) solutions, that were customized to adapt to the specific requirements were necessary. The main OSS products that were applied for the development of the CRC806-Database are; Typo3, CKAN, GeoNode and Semantic MediaWiki. As integrative technical and theoretical basis of the infrastructure, the concept of Semantic e-Science was implemented. The term e-Science refers to a scientific paradigm that describes computationally intensive science carried out in networked environments. The prefix "Semantic" extends this concept with the application of Semantic Web technologies. A further applied conceptual basis for the development of CRC806-Database, is known under the name "Open Science", that includes the concepts of "Open Access", "Open Data" and "Open Methodology". These concepts have been implemented for the CRC806-Database semantic e-Science infrastructure, as described in the course of this thesis

panMetaDocs, eSciDoc, and DOIDB—An Infrastructure for the Curation and Publication of File-Based Datasets for GFZ Data Services

The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences is the national laboratory for Geosciences in Germany. As part of the Helmholtz Association, providing and maintaining large-scale scientific infrastructures are an essential part of GFZ activities. This includes the generation of significant volumes and numbers of research data, which subsequently become source materials for data publications. The development and maintenance of data systems is a key component of GFZ Data Services to support state-of-the-art research. A challenge lies not only in the diversity of scientific subjects and communities, but also in different types and manifestations of how data are managed by research groups and individual scientists. The data repository of GFZ Data Services provides a flexible IT infrastructure for data storage and publication, including minting of digital object identifiers (DOI). It was built as a modular system of several independent software components linked together through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provided by the eSciDoc framework. Principal application software are panMetaDocs for data management and DOIDB for logging and moderating data publications activities. Wherever possible, existing software solutions were integrated or adapted. A summary of our experiences made in operating this service is given. Data are described through comprehensive landing pages and supplementary documents, like journal articles or data reports, thus augmenting the scientific usability of the service

panMetaDocs, eSciDoc, and DOIDB—An Infrastructure for the Curation and Publication of File-Based Datasets for GFZ Data Services

The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences is the national laboratory for Geosciences in Germany. As part of the Helmholtz Association, providing and maintaining large-scale scientific infrastructures are an essential part of GFZ activities. This includes the generation of significant volumes and numbers of research data, which subsequently become source materials for data publications. The development and maintenance of data systems is a key component of GFZ Data Services to support state-of-the-art research. A challenge lies not only in the diversity of scientific subjects and communities, but also in different types and manifestations of how data are managed by research groups and individual scientists. The data repository of GFZ Data Services provides a flexible IT infrastructure for data storage and publication, including minting of digital object identifiers (DOI). It was built as a modular system of several independent software components linked together through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provided by the eSciDoc framework. Principal application software are panMetaDocs for data management and DOIDB for logging and moderating data publications activities. Wherever possible, existing software solutions were integrated or adapted. A summary of our experiences made in operating this service is given. Data are described through comprehensive landing pages and supplementary documents, like journal articles or data reports, thus augmenting the scientific usability of the service

Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography

This e-book includes over 800 selected English-language articles and books that are useful in understanding the curation of digital research data in academic and other research institutions. It covers topics such as research data creation, acquisition, metadata, provenance, repositories, management, policies, support services, funding agency requirements, open access, peer review, publication, citation, sharing, reuse, and preservation. It has live links to included works. Abstracts are included in this bibliography if a work is under certain Creative Commons Licenses. This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Cite as: Bailey, Charles W., Jr. Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography. Houston: Digital Scholarship, 2021