Hi All, 

This is a really useful discussion, just to say as part of the Jisc co-design work on research data we've been consulting with the sector on what work Jisc should take forward. 
The requirement for a repository as a service has emerged, and also for there to be more work on national agreements and framework agreements for storage, preservation, data access and sharing; discussions with stakeholders have confirmed the point Angus makes with regards to HEIs avoiding having to build their own. 

There are still some steps for us to undertake to form the final plan to move forward, but I am pretty confident these issues will form part of the Jisc supported activity over the next two years. As soon as the new Jisc blog and web page for research data is set up we will be able to start sharing the plans - at the moment there is just a brief mention of the co-design work in this area here http://www.jisc.ac.uk/blog/collaborative-approach-to-sector-wide-challenges-15-aug-2014, but Scott Wilson from Oxford University did share his overview of the discussions at the last related consultation meeting we had on this  so this gives you a good idea of some of the areas informing the planning: http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/acit-rs-team/2014/10/08/research-at-risk-report-from-the-jisc-co-design-workshop/ , largely the work will be about building on what we have in place in the UK and as far as possible having shared services, best practice and easy access to solutions. 
[thanks Scott!].  Scott also mentions the Research Data Spring - as he says this will be an activity that is more about new ideas and projects that create new tools and solutions for data curation, depot and re-use - this is due to be announced next week. 

Many thanks, Rachel 

 

Rachel Bruce
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-----Original Message-----
From: Research Data Management discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angus Whyte
Sent: 16 October 2014 18:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Repositories as a service

The demand from institutions to avoid each having to build their own data repository (etc) was very clear when DCC surveyed institutions earlier in the year. DCC colleagues are involved in developing the national Research Data Registry and Discovery Service (RDRDS) though that is about metadata of course, not about managing storage or the policies relating to specific datasets.

We do however want to offer more relevant case studies and support in this area, and to better understand the potential for efficiencies. I'm interested in what the uses cases are for scaling data repository services beyond the institution. By that I mean any services higher level than the bit-level preservation service already provided through the Janet framework agreement with Arkivum.

My assumption is that an institution should want to own and control its data assets (sharing that responsibility with its data producers) but place them where they will get the best 'return' in terms of providing the enhanced description etc need to promote discovery and reuse. Some of the high-level repository services needed to do that might be better managed at the specialist sub-domain level; as Sebastian I think suggests below, a long-tail of specialist niche repositories could offer potential efficiencies to institutions for some functions, while others such as persistent identification make more sense at institutional and national level.

There are different economies of scale that could work if you break down a 'data repository' into different services.  Some might be more economical at research group, institution, regional, national or broader levels.  What examples of repository functions that are above file storage and 'bit-level' preservation, and might be provided by a national or regional service are people looking for?

Angus

--
Dr Angus Whyte
Senior Institutional Support Officer
Digital Curation Centre
University of Edinburgh




On 15/10/2014 22:36, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
> On 15 Oct 2014, at 22:28, John Milner<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>
>> The big sciences and UKDA are excellent, but it's not practical to do this for every discipline group. Therefore we thought that taking lessons learned there and elsewhere into institutions who can then cope with the long tail of research groups is a better strategy.
> the two problems with this approach are that:
>
>    a) the institutional repository has to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach and therefore doesn't offer the specialised (e.g.) APIs and visualisations that the specialist repo might provide
>
>    b) dividing up the data by institution doesn't actually fit the needs of the researcher. most academics seem to be barely aware of what their
> institution is, but identify with a subject grouping instead.
>
> The answer, plainly, is that subject repositories become aggregating caches and not archival data holders; which is fine,
> _if_ the institutions also accept some of the responsibilities for hosting and maintaining subject repositories.
> --
> Sebastian Rahtz
> Director (Research) of Academic IT
> University of Oxford IT Services
> 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431
>
> Não sou nada.
> Nunca serei nada.
> Não posso querer ser nada.
> À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.
>


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