Coming full circle

The ins, outs and upside downs of Digital Research Services and lessons learned in the process.

I’ve spent the past three months working as a Researcher-in-Residence for Digital Research Services (DRS) at the University of Edinburgh, marking a transition from the completion of my PhD in which I stumbled my way through digital techniques, to the next exciting step in my career pathway as a training fellow for the Centre of Data, Culture and Society. This progression was greatly assisted by the experiences I acquired during my time with DRS, brief though it was. In particular, through reflection, awareness and facilitation of digital services and the research lifecycle in general, I developed a greater understanding of what digital research can offer, but also the roadblocks we’re slowly overcoming to get everyone there.

I came into this role as an emerging scholar in digital humanities, still getting to grips with the possibilities out there and slowly recognising the value the digital world harbours – a value I had previously dismissed or simply wasn’t aware of during my undergraduate studies. It is of course very easy to stand safely on solid ground, and reject the gleaming digital world over on the other side. Yet, over the weeks I’ve spent with DRS, I’ve seen various toolkits and techniques come past that could have been so useful, if I’d only known or gone looking for them. More than once, I’ve had a ‘wait, you can do that?’ moment when investigating different options available to the academic community. We are very fortunate to have so many amazing resources available right at our fingertips, thanks to the wide range of services the University provides access to, and I can strongly encourage anyone pondering the choice to go digital to give it a try! After all, there’s nothing to lose, and in the process you might discover that there are more effective ways to share your data with others (i.e. DataShare), safer and more secure ways to store and archive it (e.g. DataStore or DataVault), and faster and more reliable methods to analyse it that won’t destroy your personal device (meet Eddie or Eleanor some time).

This however alludes to the second major realisation I acquired, which is the importance of outreach and engagement to bring researchers over to the digital side. There’s no escaping the fact that researchers won’t go looking for digital assistance if they’re unaware that it’s available in the first place. This has been a major part of my role over the summer, and I’ve come to appreciate just how difficult this is within an organisation that is as multi-layered, complex and vast as the University service support system. Not only do we want to highlight our services to the target users themselves, but we also want to facilitate beneficial bridges between various organisational teams within the University network and DRS. Yet incorporating our events, trainings and seminars into their training centres, Learn pages and SharePoint sites is no small task! Nonetheless, by doing so we can provide the missing links or training that research communities are seeking, and augment pre-existing frameworks to develop a more holistic programme, that addresses needs across the diverse spectrum of applied research. This goal has been gaining traction, so watch this space (or rather, your inboxes) for more information in the coming academic year.

Finally, the third major insight I acquired concerned the current lack of digital equity within the research community. There is a certain reluctance that particular research communities or individuals have towards digital techniques. Yet, why people would avoid using tools that could make their research easier, faster, replicable and more statistically powerful? After all, despite the higher risk, most of us would opt for motorised transport these days rather than a horse and cart. Through cross-disciplinary discussions and peer-to-peer feedback, it became clear this reluctance didn’t stem from dislike or disinterest, but rather a lack of the right skillset and knowledge to approach digital tools. I myself was fortunate to have had enough of a digital background to take the necessary steps for my own PhD project, as some of the foundational stepping-stones had already been laid for me. For those coming from zero however, this is not so much a step as a leap of faith, and nobody likes ending up stuck in the mud. Adequate information and tailored training that speaks to these concerns, introduces researchers to the tools available, and guides them through digital services is a keystone in our aim to create a ‘DRS for everyone’. This will also be reflected in the calendar of DRS events for the upcoming academic year, and if you’re curious or keen to develop your digital skillset, then make sure to check out our webpage, and social media (X and LinkedIn) for updates and information about these events.

And so finishes my three months with DRS. A great opportunity to bring a little more attention to this fantastic service within the University, a chance to help other academics push their research into new territory, and a catalyst for changing the way I will approach research in the future. In the process, I can only hope this position has facilitated a few more bridges between various CAHSS communities within the University and the world of digital research on the other side. Hopefully, with time there will be fewer wet socks and more digital successes in the future.

Sarah Van Eyndhoven
Researcher-in-Residence
Digital Research Services

Community of Edinburgh Research Software Engineers (CERSE): Reflections on the 7th meeting

In this blog Dr Eleni Kotoula, Lead Research Facilitator at the University of Edinburgh, writes about the CERSE and their most recent event.

What is CERSE?

CERSE is a community like no other! It offers an excellent opportunity for Research Software Engineers  (RSE) to get support and recognition for their work. In addition to Research Software Engineers, the CERSE welcomes those interested in the development, use, support or management of research software. Hence, researchers, research support and research data professionals can get involved, expand their network and broaden their understanding of research software engineering. To find out more, have a look at the CERSE Meeting Handbook.

A summary of CERSE’s 7th meeting

Members of the CERSE community across Edinburgh came together earlier this month in the Bayes Centre for the first post-pandemic meeting. After a long break from activities, the organisers from the University of Edinburgh Digital Research Services, EPCC, Sofware Sustainability Institute and the Centre of Data, Culture and Society were keen to resurrect meetings.

Mario Antonioletti opened the meeting, briefly referring to the RSE movement and its previous meetings in Edinburgh. Mike Wallis, Research Services Lead at the University of Edinburgh, gave an overview of the Edinburgh Compute and Data Facility, highlighting data storage, cloud and high performance computing services. Andrew Horne provided an update on EDINA’s ongoing project for the development of Automatic Systematic Reviews. Then, Mario Antonioletti presented EPCC and services such as Archer2 and Cirrus, as well as the important work of the Software Sustainability Institute. After the short talks, Felicity Anderson, PhD candidate in Informatics and Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, led an ice-breaking activity, followed by a networking session. All presentations are available here.

Next steps

The CERSE community has the potential to grow and flourish in a region so rich in research-intensive institutions and academic excellence. We aim to continue by alternating face-to-face and virtual meetings monthly. To do so, we need active participation from those interested in the RSE community. There are different ways to get involved; attending meetings, talking about your relevant work or volunteering to help organize one of the following meetings. For us in Digital Research Facilitation, CERSE offers the opportunity to meet and connect with researchers, RSEs, IT and research support staff. Moreover, we share the same passion for best practices in data-intensive and computational research. That’s why we have been heavily involved in supporting this community in practice and strongly encourage those interested to join us. We are looking forward to meeting you in one of the following CERSE meetings, either in person or online.

How to get involved?

Join the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) mailing list: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ed-rse-community

Follow the CERSE on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cerse7

Join the RSE: https://society-rse.org/join-us/

Dr Eleni Kotoula
Digital Research Facilitation

It Is Our Mantra

Last week I was honoured to accept an invitation to speak at the Library Technology Conclave at Somaiya Vidyavihar University in Mumbai, India, organised by Informatics Limited and the University. A prelude the day before the event included a half-day “Research Data Management (RDM) Basics” tutorial for about 50 attending librarians, which I delivered based on adaptations of our Research Data Support team’s training materials for PhD students and staff. The training exercises, developed from a few other external librarian training sessions I’ve done, focused on building librarians’ confidence in supporting researchers with data management planning and data sharing. Doing the training in person helped me to overcome communication barriers and foster deeper engagement than could have happened online only.

Lighting the flame of the conference

Lighting the flame of the hybrid conference

The conference was on the theme of “Research Data Management and Stewardship: Building Blocks for Open Science,” with a number of eminent librarians, scientists, and educators speaking in keynotes and on panels in six thematic sessions, in-person and remotely. There was a palpable sense of urgency to the proceedings, as those in the room were concerned that India’s scientific institutions, without funder mandates, national open infrastructure, nor observable changes in cultural norms for RDM and Open Science, might be left behind, given this emerging new, more transparent way of conducting research. Questions focused not on the What or Why of Open Science, but how to instigate behavioural change of scientists and researchers, and how librarians could create demand for new services such as data repositories and quickly skill themselves up.

I have some empathy for their position. A decade or so ago I attended conferences which felt more like hand-wringing than change-making, with endless talk of carrots and sticks (and carrot-stick jokes), with researchers explaining over and again their reluctance to be ‘scooped’ by giving access to their data. I am not sure what caused the tipping point to talking about the potential of data sharing and open science to the exciting reality of it happening, but it seems to have come round (more or less). I do still harbour concerns that our own researchers will be left out of participation in the shared infrastructure that is the European Open Science Cloud because of Brexit-related barriers here.

Robin with attendeesOne talk that piqued my interest involved a survey of librarians in Gujarat about RDM and their capacity to deliver new types of service, by Dr. Bhakti Gala. As the Indian LIS (library and information science) curriculum was apparently seen to not be delivering RDM training to any great extent yet, the researcher had asked how the librarians had acquired knowledge of RDM. She said that about half the librarians who had pursued self-training had learned from the free, online MANTRA course (which stands for Research Data Management Training), offered by the University of Edinburgh.

The Chair of the panel, Prof Shalini Urs, with whom I had had a conversation over dinner with about the name of the course, said [naming me, as I sat in the audience] that I would be happy to hear that was the case, to which I of course smiled and nodded. Alluding to our prior conversation about whether the name was a cultural [mis-]appropriation or not, she looked me in the eye and said, “It is Our MANTRA, now.” Which is, of course, the great thing about Openness.

University of Edinburgh’s new Research Data Management Policy

Following a year-long consultation with research committees and other stakeholders, a new RDM Policy (www.ed.ac.uk/is/research-data-policy) has replaced the landmark 2011 policy, authored by former Digital Curation Centre Director, Chris Rusbridge, which seemed to mark a first for UK universities at the time. The original policy (doi: 10.7488/era/1524) was so novel it was labeled ‘aspirational’ by those who passed it.

"Policy"

CC-BY-SA-2.0, Sustainable Economies Law Centre, flickr

RDM has come a long way since then, as has the University Research Data Service which supports the policy and the research community. Expectation of a data management plan to accompany a research proposal has become much more ordinary, and the importance of data sharing has also become more accepted in that time, with funders’ policies becoming more harmonised (witness UKRI’s 2016 Concordat on Open Research Data).

What has changed?

Although a bit longer (the first policy was ten bullet points and could fit on a single page!), the new policy adds clarity about the University’s expectations of researchers (both staff and students), adds important concepts such as making data FAIR (explanation below) and grounding concepts in other key University commitments and policies such as research integrity, data protection, and information security (with references included at the end). Software code, so important for research reproducibility, is included explicitly.

CC BY 2.0, Big Data Prob, KamiPhuc on flickr

Definitions of research data and research data management are included, as well as specific references to some of the service components that can help – DMPOnline, DataShare, etc. A commitment to review the policy every 5 years, or sooner if needed, is stated, so another ten years doesn’t fly by unnoticed. Important policy references are provided with links. The policy has graduated from aspirational – the word “must” occurs twelve times, and “should” fifteen times. Yet academic freedom and researcher choice remains a basic principle.

Key messages

In terms of responsibilities, there are 3 named entities:

  • The Principle Investigator retains accountability, and is responsible as data owner (and data controller when personal data are collected) on behalf of the University. Responsibility may be delegated to a member of a project team.
  • Students should adhere to the policy/good practice in collecting their own data. When not working with data on behalf of a PI, individual students are the data owner and data controller of their work.
  • The University is responsible for raising awareness of good practice, provision of useful platforms, guidance, and services in support of current and future access.

Data management plans are required:

  • Researchers must create a data management plan (DMP) if any research data are to be collected or used.
  • Plans should cover data types and volume, capture, storage, integrity, confidentiality, retention and destruction, sharing and deposit.
  • Research data management plans must specify how and when research data will be made available for access and reuse.
  • Additionally, a Data Protection Impact Assessment is required whenever data pertaining to individuals is used.
  • Costs such as extra storage, long-term retention, or data management effort must be addressed in research proposals (so as to be recovered from funders where eligible).
  • A University subscription to the DMPOnline tool guides researchers in creating plans, with funder and University templates and guidance; users may request assistance in writing or reviewing a plan from the Research Data Service.

FAIR data sharing is more nuanced than ‘open data’:

  • Publicly funded research data should be made openly available as soon as possible with as few restrictions as necessary.
  • Principal Investigators and research students should consider how they can best make their data FAIR in their Data Management Plans (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable).
  • Links to relevant publications, people, projects, and other research products such as software or source code should be provided in metadata records, with persistent identifiers when available.
  • Discoverability and access by machines is considered as important as access by humans. Standard open licences should be applied to data and code deposits.

Use data repositories to achieve FAIR data:

  • Research data must be offered for deposit and retention in a national or international data service or domain repository, or a University repository (see next bullet).
  • PIs may deposit their data for open access for all (with or without a time-limited embargo) in Edinburgh DataShare, a University data repository; or DataVault, a restricted access long-term retention solution.
  • Research students may deposit a copy of their (anonymised) data in Edinburgh DataShare while retaining ownership.
  • Researchers should add a dataset metadata record in Pure to data archived elsewhere, and link it to other research outputs.
  • Software code relevant to research findings may be deposited in code repositories such as Gitlab or Github (cloud).

Consider rights in research data:

  • Researchers should consider the rights of human subjects, as well as citizen scientists and the public to have access to their data, as well as external collaborators.
  • When open access to datasets is not legal or ethical (e.g. sensitive data), information governance and restrictions on access and use must be applied as necessary.
  • The University’s Research Office can assist with providing templates for both incoming and outgoing research data and the drafting and negotiation of data sharing agreements.
  • Exclusive rights to reuse or publish research data must not be passed to commercial publishers.

Robin Rice
Data Librarian and Head, Research Data Support
Library & University Collections