Continuing Access to Research Data: The New Digital Curation Centre

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Continuing Access to Research Data The New
Digital Curation Centre

• Peter Burnhill
• Director (Phase One)

Funded by
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An Overview

• Personal Provenance
• Digital Curation Centre
• what it is (and is not)
• whos involved
• Curating the Future
• Were all Curators Now

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Personal Provenance A Data Person
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Demand-side Verbs from Virtual Library

• Discover information object of interest
• e.g. reference in an AI databases or cited at
  the foot of an article
• Locate service on information object
• e.g. a service giving electronic access to the
  full text of the article, or ones own library
  having the volume on a shelf nearby
• Request use of service
• via payment of money or (better still) privilege
  of membership involves authorisation and
  authentication
• Access (service on) object of interest
• e.g. online access (and print-out), personal
  visit or document delivery
• MODELS workshops, UKOLN/JISC eLib Programme,
  1994ish

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UK Digital Curation Centre

• identified in Report commissioned by JISC Cttee
  for Support of Research (Lord Macdonald, May
  2003)
• Twin drivers
• Digital Preservation ePublishing (DPC)
  eLearning
• Continuing Access e-Science, data deluge Res
  Council policies
• Call to set up DCC in JISC Circular 6/03, June
  2003
• Ambitious demanding remit,
• Joint funding by JISC and e-Science Core
  Programme
• Funding for outreach, services development
• Funding for research programme
• Task entrusted to Consortium of four partners
• award made Feb/March 2004

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Overall Aim

• continuing quality improvement in data curation
  digital preservation
• Initial focus
• data as evidential base for scholarly
  conclusions
• role of data archiving preservation as keys to
  reproducibility and reuse
• Wider context remit
• worlds of scholarly communication eLearning

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Objectives

• vibrant research programme
• addressing the wider issues of digital curation
• Collaborative Associates Network of Data
  Organisations
• outreach for strong links across existing
  community of practice
• engagement with curators (individuals
  organisations)
• service definition and delivery
• to evaluate tools, methods, standards and
  policies
• a repository of tools and technical information
• virtuous circle
• expertise, experience requirement feed into the
  DCC research programme

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What the DCC is not ...

• a national digital repository
• an attempt to teach grandmothers to suck eggs
• just another advisory service

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DCC Consortium Partners

• Four Consortium partner institutions
• University of Edinburgh - lead partner
• University of Glasgow (HATII)
• University of Bath (UKOLN)
• CCLRC (Rutherford and Daresbury Laboratories)
• Prior links via National eScience Centre (NeSC)
• jointly managed by Universities of Edinburgh
  Glasgow

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Some Names Responsibilities

• Them with titles
• Peter Burnhill, Director (Phase One)
• with Robin Rice, Phase One Project Co-ordinator
• EDINA Data Library, University of Edinburgh
• Peter Buneman Research Director ( PI on EPSRC
  grant)
• Informatics, University of Edinburgh
• Liz Lyon, Associate Director (Community Support
  Outreach)
• UKOLN, University of Bath
• Seamus Ross, Associate Director (Service
  Definition Delivery)
• HATII, University of Glasgow
• David Giaretta, Associate Director (Development)
• CCLRC
• Two significant well known Ex Portfolio names
• Malcolm Atkinson, Director, NeSC
• Chris Rusbridge, Director, Information Services,
  UofGlasgow

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What needs to be done

• Respond to policy imperatives
• twin aimsexcellence in research excellence in
  service
• international respect national leadership
• meeting the needs of e-Science
• impact now and into the future
• manage complexity, risk and sustainability
• Bridge across communities
• universities research institutes
• scientific data tradition document tradition
• different disciplinary perspectives
• engaging the information computing sciences
• Develop a collaborative model
• Associates Network of Data Organisations

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NDCCCANDO
CCLRC
UKOLN
DELOS
DPC
DLI (US)
NeSC
UofG
UofE
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developing the collaborative model
curation organisations eg DPC
communities of practice users
community support outreach
Collaborative Associates Network of
Data Organisations
management co-ordination
research collaborators
services
research
development
testbeds tools
Industry
standards bodies
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Digital Curation(1) Terminology

• actions needed to maintain and utilise digital
  data research results over entire life-cycle
• for current and future generations of users.
• alongside which is Archiving
• appraisal retention/disposal
• logical physical integrity authenticity/securit
  y
• and Digital Preservation
• long-run technological/legal accessibility
  usability
• Data curation in science
• maintenance of body of trusted data
• to represent current state of knowledge in area
  of research.

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Digital Curation (2)

• Digital Curation
• Data Curation Digital Preservation
• two organising themes
• data as evidence
• archival responsibility
• mix of traditions and of activities
• shared concern for current and future scholarship
• whats different about the digital, about data
• maintenance of body of trusted data

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Digital Curation (3)

• Digital Curation
• Data Curation Digital Preservation
• Data Curation
• Data in use (huge, distributed, for long periods)
• Adding value (eg annotation)
• Combination and re-combination (provenance)
• Digital Preservation
• Future technological/legal accessibility
  usability
• Significance of designated community (OAIS)

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Curation in action

• Astronomy
• Integrating and analysing distributed data
  (AstroGrid)
• publishing multi-TB sky surveys (SuperCOSMOS
  WFCAM)
• interoperability standards (IVO Alliance)
• BioInformatics
• data publishing generic tools for XML export
  (EBI Biomart)
• annotation tools for massive data sets (Pubmed,
  VOTable)
• archiving tools for dynamic data sets (biological
  DBs)
• Environmental sciences
• spatio-temporal annotation (OS Mastermap/ Mouse
  Atlas)
• Document management
• Tools for capture normalisation (Xena)
• Repository certification (RLG Task Force)

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Digital Preservation Issues

• Supporting ingest, management and dissemination
• Registries file formats, metadata, peripheral
  devices
• Tracking and testing tools and standards
• ingest, repository management, data exchange,
  ontologies, interoperability, metadata
• Using OAIS as reference against which to test new
  models and architectures
• Research topics
• Repositories repository models, registries
• Long-term viability of metadata
• Preservation strategies for emerging digital
  formats
• Invest to Save, Report and recommendations of the
  NSF-DELOS Working Group on Digital Archiving and
  Preservation (2003)
• http//delos-noe.iei.pi.cnr.it/

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Research Development

• Research
• Annotation, Data integration and publication
• Appraisal and long-term preservation
• Socio-economic legal context
• rights, responsibilities and viability
• Performance and Optimisation
• Development into Services
• Standards Testbeds
• File Formats
• Registry of Metadata Standards
• Further topics
• Evolution of structure, Ontologies, Emulation

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Research Agenda

• Aims
• evidence curation as integrative activities
• usability automation
• novel visible research
• deliverables/testbeds
• Hot Topics
• annotation provenance
• universal interest, wide subject, eg referencing
• data publishing
• metadata, Grid services, integration, security,
  optimisation
• archiving and appraisal
• process automation at ingest, curating change,
  scalability
• socio-economic and legal
• organisational dynamics, rights/responsibilities
• Reach out listen - virtuous circle

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Development

• Turns Research into Products for Research that
  our communities can use with confidence
• tracking and testing tools and standards
• that are correct, usable, reliable, well
  documented
• e.g. for ingest, repository management, data
  exchange, ontologies
• working with tool developers wherever possible
• developing testbeds interworking with other
  testbeds
• aim to gain leverage formats
• working with other projects worldwide
• using generic tools and techniques
• to develop strategies for emerging digital
  formats
• Metadata standards
• long-term viability of metadata
• Registries underpin this work to provide basis of
  Advisory Service

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Setting up the DCC

• Funding from the JISC began on 1 March 2004
• EPSRC Research funding begins on 1 September 2004
• expect to harvest early crop from extant
  research
• Phase One Set-up
• from now until Launch of Centre in October 2004
• face2face meetings 20/21 March 24/25 June
• drawing up programme of deliverables
• re-deploying recruiting staff
• aim to have appointed full time director in time
  for Launch

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Early deliverables

• Website at www.dcc.ac.uk
• visit to learn of updates progress
• especially of such work in progress as
• draft of DCC Approach to Digital Curation
• Dr David Giaretta, DCC Associate Director (CCLRC)
• launch of e-journal
• Dr Liz Lyon, DCC Associate Director (UKOLN)
• Digital Curation Manual
• Dr Seamus Ross, DCC Associate Director (HATII)
• and Presentations like this
• to help build the Associates Network
• Leona Carpenter
• Helpdesk at digitalcuration_at_dcc.ac.uk
• contact us with offers of collaboration