Author Archives: Pauline Ward

About Pauline Ward

Research Data Support Assistant Library and University Collections University of Edinburgh

DataVault – larger deposits and new review process notifications

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New deposit size limit: 10TB

Great news for DataVault users: you can now deposit up to a whopping ten terabytes in a single deposit in the Edinburgh DataVault! That’s five times greater than the previous deposit limit, saving you time that might have been wasted splitting your data artificially and making multiple deposits.

It’s still a good idea to divide up your data into deposits that correspond well to whatever subsets of the dataset you and your colleagues are likely to want to retrieve at any one time. That’s because you can only retrieve a single deposit in its entirety; you cannot select individual files in the deposit to retrieve. Smaller deposits are quicker to retrieve. And remember you’ll need enough space for the retrieved data to arrive in.

We’ve made some performance improvements thanks to our brilliant technical team, so depositing now goes significantly faster. Nonetheless, please bear in mind that any deposit of multiple terabytes will probably take several days to complete (depending on how many deposits are queueing and some characteristics of the fileset), because the DataVault needs time to encrypt the data and store it on the tape archives and into the cloud. Remember not to delete your original copy from your working area on DataStore until you receive our email confirming that the deposit has completed!

And you can archive as many deposits as you like into a vault, as long as you have the resources to pay the bill when we send you the eIT!

A reminder on how to structure your data:
https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/research-data-service/after/datavault/prepare-datavault/structure

 Ensuring good stewardship of your data through the review process

Another great feature that’s now up and running is the review process notification system, and the accompanying dashboard which allows the curators to implement decisions about retaining or deleting data.

Vault owners should receive an email when the chosen review date is six months away, seeking your involvement in the review process. The email will provide you with the information you need about when the funder’s minimum retention period (if there is one) expires, and how to access the vault. Don’t worry if you think you might have moved on by then; the system is designed to allow the University to implement good stewardship of all the data vaults, even when the Principal Investigator (PI) is no longer contactable. Our curators use a review dashboard to see all vaults whose review dates are approaching, and who the Nominated Data Managers (NDMs) are. In the absence of the Owner, the system notifies the NDMs instead. We will consult with the NDMs or the School about the vault, to ensure all deposits that should be deleted are deleted in good time, and all deposits that should be kept longer are kept safe and sound and still accessible to all authorised users.

DataVault Review Process:
https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/research-data-service/after/datavault/review-process 

The new max. deposit size of 10 TB is equivalent to over five million images of around 2 MB each – that’s one selfie for every person in Scotland. Image: A selfie on the cliffs at Bell Hill, St Abbs
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Walter Baxter – geograph.org.uk/p/5967905

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Pauline Ward
Research Data Support Assistant
Library & University Collections

DataVault user roles let you share access to archived data

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The Edinburgh DataVault is a secure long-term retention solution for research data.

Thanks to the hard work of our software developers in the Digital Library and EDINA, the Edinburgh DataVault now facilitates five different user roles. This means busy PIs can delegate the work of depositing and retrieving data, to members of their team or other collaborators within the University. It also allows PIs to nominate support staff to deposit and retrieve data on their behalf, or grant access to new members of their team.

Diagram representing a PI and two postdocs using the roles of Owner and Nominated Data Manager to share access to data in the DataVault

There are five user roles:

  • Data Owner
    Usually the Principal Investigator. Can add/remove other users to their vault(s).
  • Nominated Data Manager (of a given vault)
    Can view and edit metadata fields, deposit data and retrieve any deposit in the vault. May add/remove Depositors to the vault.
  • Depositor (of a given vault)
    Can view the vault contents, deposit data and retrieve any deposit in the vault.
  • School Support Officer
    Acting on behalf of the Head of School, may view all vaults and associated deposits belonging to the School.
  • School Data Manager
    Assigned only with the express permission of the Head of School, may view, deposit into and retrieve data from any vault belonging to the School.

Full details of the permissions associated with each role:
Roles and permissions

Support staff who need to view reporting data for their School, or admin access to their School’s vaults, should attend our training – Edinburgh DataVault: supporting users archiving their research data.

Further information on why and how to use the DataVault is available on the Research Data Service website:
DataVault long-term retention

If you have any questions about using DataVault please don’t hesitate to contact the Research Data Support team at data-support@ed.ac.uk.

Pauline Ward, Research Data Support Assistant
Library and University Collections
@PaulineData

“Archiving Your Data” – new videos from the Research Data Service

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In three new videos released today, researchers from the University of Edinburgh talk about why and how they archive their research data, and the ways in which they make their data openly available using the support, tools and resources provided by the University’s Research Data Service.

Professor Richard Baldock from the MRC Human Genetics Unit explains how he’s been able to preserve important research data relating to developmental biology – and make it available for the long term using Edinburgh DataShare – in a way that was not possible by other means owing to the large amount of histology data produced.

 

Dr Marc Metzger from the School of GeoSciences tells how he saves himself time by making his climate mapping research data openly available so that others can download it for themselves, rather than him having to send out copies in response to requests. This approach represents best practice – making the data openly available is also more convenient for users, removing a potential barrier to the re-use of the data.

Professor Miles Glendinning from Edinburgh College of Art talks about how his architectural photographs of social housing are becoming more discoverable as a result of being shared on Edinburgh DataShare. And Robin Rice, the University’s Data Librarian, discusses the difference between the open (DataShare) and restricted (DataVault) archiving options provided by the Research Data Service.

For more details about Edinburgh’s Research Data Service, including the DataShare and DataVault systems, see:

https://www.ed.ac.uk/is/research-data-service

Pauline Ward
Research Data Service Assistant
Library and University Collections
University of Edinburgh

Research Data Service use cases – videos and more

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Earlier this year, the Research Data Service team set out to interview some of our users to learn about how they manage their data, the challenges they face, and what they’d like to see from our service. We engaged a PhD student, Clarissa, who successfully carried out this survey and compiled use cases from the responses. We also engaged the University of Edinburgh Communications team to film and edit some of the user interviews in order to produce educational and promotional videos. We are now delighted to launch the first of these videos here.

In this case study video, Dr Bert Remijsen speaks about his successful experience archiving and sharing his Linguistics research data through Edinburgh DataShare, and seeing people from all corners of the world making use of the data in “unforeseeable” ways.

Over the coming weeks we will release the written case studies for internal users, and we will make the other videos also available on Media Hopper and YouTube. These will address topics including data management planning, archiving and sharing data, and adapting practices around personal data for GDPR compliance and training in Research Data Management. Staff and users will talk about the guidance and solutions provided by the Research Data Service for openly sharing data – and conversely restricting access to sensitive data – as well as supporting researchers in producing meaningful and useful Data Management Plans.

The team is also continuing to analyse the valuable input from our participants, and we are working towards implementing some of the helpful ideas they have kindly contributed.