Data Archives and Service Providers

Those members who follow IASST-L may recall that about a month ago I launched an informal poll to find out whether or not your data management plan services include reading and reviewing draft plans. I had a total of 22 respondents with the following results:

Does your data management plan service include reading and reviewing draft plans?

• 18% (4) - Yes, as a matter of  policy.
• 36% (8) - Not a policy, but I have reviewed them in the past.
• 36% (8) - Not a policy, but I'd seriously consider doing it.
• 9% (2) - Not a policy but I most likely wouldn't do it.
• 0% (0) - No, as a matter of policy.

Several repondents posted the following  comments. (All commenters identified themselves by name in the poll, but I'll keep their identities anonymous here, just in case.)

• I coordinate development of the DCC's DMP Online data management planning tool. One of the functions we are adding for v3.0 (which is set to launch this Spring) is a facility to share read/write permissions with other users. We'll be very interested in seeing how popular this proves, as it will enable more collaborative development of DMPs by the researchers AND the research support staff, data librarians, IT people, etc who are also stakeholders in the data management endeavour.
• We are on record as making the offer to help formulate and/or review DM plans. No written policy as yet, but it's something we're targetting as a service.
• I've always offered this service in my dept. The LSE is currently looking at formalising a data management policy. One of the main aims of this is supporting researchers who need to make data available for reuse as part of their funding conditions. As part of this it is likely that some support for DMPs would be offered, but whether this would be generic, on-line tools, or one-to-one support has not been decided yet.
• We offer this as an optional service had about 70 such reviews in our first year. We do have a caveat about the service on our website - see "limitations to services" on https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/rdmsgweb/About.
• The review is optional, not mandatory, and offered as an advertised service.
• I have read through a few plans when people have asked me to but I don't edit them and have commented when asked directly but have concerns about doing that. I usually state what I can and cannot give advice on and refer to appropriate office on campus when necessary (e.g., technology transfer for IP issues). Fortunately, most of the comments have had to do with where to put their data at the end (which I guess is more of a question on where to archive things rather than reviewing the plans). Typically I refer people back to sources and examples to help support writing their plans. I just find that when researchers ask me to look at their plans, most of the time they are really asking me questions about specific details with data management and not so much with editing the plan. If they did want me to edit it I would say no.
  

Many thanks to all of you who took the time to respond. I'm sure many will find this information useful.

Harrison Dekker, UC Berkeley Data Lab

Three cheers for Jen Green!!! 

When not keeping IASSIST finances in check as the IASSIST Treasurer, Jennifer Green, director of the new Stephen S. Clark Library for Maps, Government Information, and Data Services, at the University of Michigan has been busy getting the library in shape for the recent opening day! 

Check out the announcement of the grand opening festivities in the Record Update (a publication of the Office of the Vice President for Communications at the University of Michigan) and don't miss the brand new website of the Setphen S. Clark Library! 

Green says the new library’s unique combination of collections, government information expertise, and data services will provide scholars and researchers with unprecedented opportunities for exploration, discovery, and collaboration.

“Before the Clark, there was a large degree of interaction among these three units,” Green says. “Our new proximity, in a purposefully designed and equipped space, means that we can more effectively collaborate with each other, which in turn really enhances our ability to creatively collaborate with students, faculty, and researchers.”

From the Record Update

The new issue of the IASSIST Quarterly is now available on the web. This is the volume 34 (number 2, 2010).

 http://iassistdata.org/iq/issue/34/2

The layout has changed. We hope you’ll enjoy the new style presented. It seems to be a more modern format and more suited for the PDF presentation on the web. Walter Piovesan – our publication officer – had a biking accident. To show that nothing is so bad that it is not good for something Walter used his recovery time to redesign the IQ. Furthermore, Walter is the person in charge of the upcoming 2011 IASSIST conference, so he is a busy guy. And I’m happy to say that Walter should be fit for the conference.

This issue of the IQ features the following papers:

Rein Murakas and Andu Rämmer from the Estonian Social Science Data Archive (ESSDA) at the University of Tartu describe in their paper "Social Science Data Archiving and Needs of the Public Sector: the Case of Estonia" how the archive had a historical background in the empirical research of the Soviet Union.

From the historical background we move to web 2.0 in a paper  by Angela Hariche, Estelle Loiseau and Philippa Lysaght on "Wikiprogress and Wikigender: a way forward for online collaboration". The authors are working at the OECD and the paper's statement is that "collaborative platforms such as wikis along with advances in data visualisation are a way forward for the collection, analysis and dissemination of data across countries and societies”.

The third paper addresses an issue of central importance for most data archives. The question concerns balancing data confidentiality and the legitimate requirements of data users. This is a key problem of the Secure Data Service (SDS) at the UK Data Archive, University of Essex. The paper "Secure Data Service: an improved access to disclosive data" by Reza Afkhami, Melanie Wright, and Mus Ahmet shows how the SDS will allow researchers remote access to secure servers at the UK Data Archive.

The last article has the title "A user-driven and flexible procedure for data linking". The authors are Cees van der Eijk and Eliyahu V. Sapir from the Methods and Data Institute at the University of Nottingham. The data linking relates to research combining several different datasets. The implementation is developed for the PIREDEU project in comparative electoral research. The authors are combining traditional survey data with data from party manifestos and state-level data.

Articles for the IQ are always very welcome. They can be papers from IASSIST or other conferences, from local presentations or papers directly  written for the IQ.

Notice that chairing a conference session with the purpose of aggregating and integrating papers for a special issue IQ is much appreciated as the information reaches many more people than the session participants and will be readily available on the IASSIST website.

Authors are very welcome to take a look at the description for layout and sending papers to the IQ:

http://iassistdata.org/iq/instructions-authors

Authors can also contact me via e-mail: kbr @ sam.sdu.dk. Should you be interested in compiling a special issue for the IQ as guest editor or editors I will also be delighted to hear from you.

Karsten Boye Rasmussen, editor

The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ) volume 33 number 3 is now on the web:

http://iassistdata.org/iq/issue/33/3 more...