Implementation Plan
Posted: March 26, 2012 Filed under: project posts | Tags: environmental assessment, implementation plan, jiscmrd, Project CAiRO, RDM policies, technical analysis 1 CommentAs mentioned in the recent ‘5 months in‘ blog post, the Implementation plan was originally part of the Environmental Assessment report, but has been removed for greater clarity and is outlined below. Each section will be further elaborated upon and is expected to change and adapt as we continue to explore, create, and develop our model for the visual arts.
1. Working groups
To continue to build on relationships established through the environmental assessment phase, working groups will be established at each institution to inform and support the creation of policies and technical infrastructure for managing research data. Stakeholders will include: IT, Research Office, Researchers, Library staff, FOI staff. It was particularly interesting to hear at the recent JISCMRD event on policies (12th-13th March, Leeds) that other institutions from the first round of JISCMRD funding had found the role of working groups beneficial on an ongoing basis.
2. Institutional Research Data Management (RDM) Policies
The creation of four high-level aspirational institutional RDM policies suitable for the visual arts. Kaptur will reference the Digital Curation Centre Research Data Policy Briefing Document (PDF), the University of Edinburgh RDM policy (PDF), and existing complementary policies at the partner institutions such as Guides to Good Research, Records Management, Data Protection, Research Ethics, and Freedom of Information (FOI). A discussion paper will be produced leading to draft policies which will be revised according to feedback.
3. Technical infrastructure
A Technical Analysis report is in progress and expected by the end of April. In the meantime, findings from the Environmental Assessment report suggest a need for a secure, UK-hosted (or locally hosted) cloud storage system due to the interviewee’s needs to access their research data from home as well as work locations.
For example, one of the interviewees suggested it would be helpful if the institution would consider setting up something like a “cloud” storage facility which is synchronised with the researchers’ laptops and offers a “kind of active directory structure” (Designer-Researcher, Institution D).
4. Training/support
There is a need for awareness-raising of RDM using suitable terminology and support for researchers and repository staff. We are seeking to re-use existing materials where possible, e.g. the Project CAiRO Managing Creative Arts Research Data (MCARD) training module.
One of the findings from the Environmental Assessment report was that interviewees recommended the library positively across all four institutions. We would seek to involve the library in this area of the project, although it should be noted that the original project plan was aimed more directly at dealing with visual arts researchers themselves rather than training other staff.
When interviewees were asked about training and support that the institution could provide, the idea of seeing how others archive their research data was particularly appealing:
“Like somebody opening their wardrobe and saying how you organise your clothes […] I love that, that kind of thing.”
(Artist-researcher I, Institution A)
Another interviewee mentioned that they would like more information on how to archive digital materials; particularly working online and collating information from different websites and digital resources (Art Historian, Institution D).
5. Business Cost and Sustainability Plans
This is to ensure that the work carried out by Kaptur is maintained at the institutions after the lifetime of the project; benefits will be measured using Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) toolkit (previous blog post on KRDS).
#jiscmrd programme launch – Commonalities
Posted: December 15, 2011 Filed under: events, project posts | Tags: CARDIO, DAF, DMP Online, JISC Incremental, jiscmrd, programme launch, Project CAiRO, start-up Leave a commentSimon Hodson, JISCMRD Programme Manager, has asked all projects to do a short blog post about commonalities.
Kaptur has previously highlighted the commonalities with the first round of JISCMRD programme funding (2009-11) and how we plan to use training materials produced by Project CAiRO and also have spent time looking at JISC Incremental. The commonalities identified so far from the JISCMRD Programme launch are:
1. Disciplinary
The session on the last day put a few of the projects together in an ‘Arts and Humanities’ group. Some of the projects that are particularly relevant to us are:
- data.bris – Simon Price, Project Manager and Stephen Gray, Digital Projects Support Officer (formerly Project CAiRO Project Manager)
- Sustainable Management of Digital Music Research Data – similar approach to us with their interviews
- iridium – covering a range of subject areas including the arts
- REWARD – a six month project at UCL (Archaeology)
- Research Data @Essex
2. Pilot infrastructure
Kaptur is one of 17 projects in Strand A of the JISCMRD programme (Simon Hodson’s blog post on this) – we are therefore seeking to both learn lessons from more experienced projects in this strand (who had previous JISCMRD funding or links) and also find out how similar pilot projects are approaching things.
- Managing Research Data: a pilot study in Health and Life Sciences – a pilot project at University of the West of England (UWE are also a member of the Kultur II Group and have a ‘kulturised’ EPrints research repository!)
- DataFlow – keeping an eye on Data Management Rollout at Oxford (DaMaRO) – although DataFlow is in the ‘Cloud’ there does also appear to be an option to have a local Web server.
- SWORD-ARM – SWORD & Archaeological Research data Management
3. Approach
- During the Programme Launch there was a lot of talk about DCC tools including DMP Online, DAF, and CARDIO – look out for a future blog post about our environmental assessment methodology.
- Also keen to learn lessons from the MaDAM project, which is now MiSS (MaDAM into Sustainable Service) – http://www.miss.manchester.ac.uk/ (great URL!)
- Research360@Bath looks good too!
Please let me know if I have overlooked any projects that are relevant to Kaptur – we are interested in engaging with other projects and welcome feedback!
Links
- JISCMRD02-Commonalities Google spreadsheet
- Google Reader “Research data management” bundle created by Jez Cope