ERASMUS work placement visitor from Germany

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Robin Rice

Judith Daehne My name is Judith Dähne (Daehne). I am the Research Data Support Officer of RheinMain University of Applied Sciences.

When I started to think about research data management (RDM) around 2015, MANTRA provided my first opportunity learn about RDM and how to handle data correctly. I also discovered DMPonline, delivered by the Digital Curation Centre, and it therefore seemed to me that Edinburgh was somehow the cradle of RDM.

When I heard of the final opportunity to visit the UK with the EU’s ERASMUS programme (it will stop in May 2023) I was keen to apply for a visit with the Research Data Support team of the University of Edinburgh… I am really happy that I landed this wonderful opportunity of a short job shadowing visit.

I attended several meetings and training sessions of the Research Data Service team. I am impressed how much support and aid is provided for the researchers. The infrastructure of storage and exchange like DataStore, DataSync, DataShare, DataVault forms the technical basis of the support.

Even more important, in my opinion, is the personal backing and advice of the data management team.You might just ask your questions by pressing one of the “Contact us” buttons and there you find email and phone numbers of the research data team at your finger tips.

And the team really takes care over every single dataset that is loaded in DataShare: how to enhance the metadata and how to make it more visible for the scientific community. Not many institutional repositories are curated in such a detailed way – I will take home some precious tips and workflows!

One sticking point, however, is the same as with us: How do we make the services known? How do we reach as many researchers as possible? And how can the transformation to more open science then succeed? Perhaps to just carry on with talking and teaching seems the only way…

Robin, Simon and Judith enjoy a working lunch at Howie’s

Research data are a social good and data management supports the verification and replication in science. Ultimately transparency, openness and good data management strengthen the credibility of science and help to counter climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists. To emphasise this argument, like here in Edinburgh, is also a very important take home message for me.

I would like to thank Robin & her team for sharing their knowledge and their hospitality! I hope we stay in touch.

Guest blog post by Judith Dähne
RheinMain University of Applied Sciences

Edinburgh Open Research Conference – Call for Contributions

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Kerry Miller

The University’s Library Research Support Team and grassroots organisations Edinburgh ReproducibiliTea and Edinburgh Open Research Initiative (EORI) are joining forces to launch the first Edinburgh Open Research Conference. Which will be held in the John McIntyre Conference Centre and Online on the 27th May 2022. If you would like to participate in this exciting new event then This Call for Contributions is your invitation to get involved.

Introduction

Open research (a.k.a. “open science” or “open scholarship”) refers to a collection of practices and principles around transparency, reproducibility and integrity in research.

As an active member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and a signatory of DORA, Edinburgh is committed to making open research the new normal by supporting and encouraging the adoption of good open research practice throughout the University. This represents a significant change in the way research will be conducted, and how the next generation of researchers will be trained. That is why we are launching this new conference.

You will hear about the work the University is doing to support your move towards Open Research, but more than that it will be a chance for you to discuss the challenges and opportunities that Open Research will bring to your work, and to network with colleagues from other disciplines and institutions who will be facing those too.

We are also excited to announce that our keynote speaker for this conference will be Professor Stephen Curry from Imperial College London, who also is the Chair of DORA.

The conference will be free to attend and is open to those within the University of Edinburgh as well as external attendees, from all disciplines, backgrounds, and roles. In particular, we are hoping to welcome undergraduate and postgraduate students to this event.

The schedule will consist of talks, workshops and poster sessions, both with internal and external presenters.

Further Information about the conference can be accessed from the Edinburgh Open Research Conference 2022 | The University of Edinburgh webpage which will be updated regularly.

How to Contribute

If you would like to participate in this conference submit an abstract of maximum 500 words using the submission form at http://journals.ed.ac.uk/eor/index. Please make sure your contribution is accessible to those from different disciplines and backgrounds.

The deadline for contributions 31 March 2pm, except for posters which is 15 April 2pm.

Visit the Edinburgh Open Research Conference 2022 | The University of Edinburgh for more details on the themes and types of contribution.

Dealing with Data 2019- Call for Contributions Deadline Extended

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Kerry Miller

*We have had several requests for an extension to the submission deadline, so, we have decided to extend it until 12 noon on Friday 11th October!*

Dealing with Data 2019 will take place on the 27th of November in the Informatics Forum. This year our theme is “Collaboration Across the Nations: Managing, sharing and securing research data across space and time” and we are now inviting contributions from research staff and students at the University of Edinburgh.

In previous years DwD has attracted over 100 attendees from across the university to hear contributions by research staff and students at all stages of their careers and from diverse disciplines. You can view the presentations from 2017 & 2018 now on MediaHopper (https://media.ed.ac.uk/channel/Dealing+With+Data+2017+Conference/82256222)

The full Call for Contributions is below. If you have any questions please get in touch using on dealing-with-data-conference@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk

Dealing with Data Conference 2019 – Call for Contributions

Date: Wednesday 27^th November 2019

Location: Informatics Forum, George Square, Central Area

Theme: Collaboration Across the Nations: Managing, sharing and securing research data across space and time

Possible Contributions: Presentation; Lightning talk; Poster; Demonstration of a tool or method supporting collaboration; Stall or exhibit, panel.

Call for contributions:

Collaboration is vitally important to academic and commercial research in all areas as it enables the pooling of resources to answer increasingly complex, or interdisciplinary research questions.

The effective collection, processing, and sharing of research data is integral to successful collaborations, but it can also present many challenges. In particular the practicalities of co-ordinating data management across large multi-centre collaborations, sharing large data, or handling sensitive data, can present difficulties if not planned for appropriately.

Dealing with Data 2019 is your opportunity to share with the UoE research community how you have addressed these issues to build successful collaborations, or the lessons you have learned which will enable you to be more successful in the future.

Contributions should be aimed principally at an academic audience, but the programme will seek to represent a wide range of scholarly disciplines.

Possible themes may include (but are by no means limited to):

Data sharing within research groups or labs;
Challenges of data sharing across the University or with external partners;
Managing and securing sensitive data across distributed research projects;
Interdisciplinary issues;
Tools for enabling or simplifying collaborative data collection, management or analysis;
Data sharing at scale;
Interoperability of (meta)data;
Legal and licensing issues;
Credit and contributions for data use and reuse, including after a project has ended.

For all contributions please send an abstract detailing the content and proposed format (maximum 500 words) to dealing-with-data-conference@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk by Friday 11th october. Posters should be A0 in size, portrait orientation.

Proposals will be reviewed, and the event programme announced by Friday 25^th October 2019.

Dealing with Data is an annual event sponsored and organised by the Research Data Service to provide a forum for University of Edinburgh researchers to discuss how they are benefiting from, or experiencing struggles with, the fast-changing research data environment.

Kerry Miller

Research Data Support Officer

New training: Assessing Data Quality and Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data

Posted on May 7, 2019 by rsander3

The Research Data Service, in collaboration with the UK Data Service, are running workshops on the theme ‘Assessing Data Quality and Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data’. These hands-on sessions introduce the key elements of data quality and disclosure risk, and include practical demonstrations of two tools to evaluate the quality (QAMyData) and disclosure risk (sdcMicro) of numeric research data.

Workshops will run across two days, with sessions on different days for researchers interested in social survey data (10^th June) and health data (11^th June).

Session 1: Assessing Data Quality in Numeric Data

This workshop will introduce the key elements of data quality assessment, including file checks, and undertaking data and metadata checks. Attendees will gain hands-on experience using QAMyData, a purpose-built configurable tool to quickly and automatically detect some of the most common problems in survey and other numeric data (SPSS, STATA, SAS & csv files).

Session 2: Assessing Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data

This workshop will provide an introduction to statistical disclosure control (SDC), covering: types of Identifiers; de-identification and anonymization; types of disclosure; SDC approaches; k-anonymity and l-diversity. The workshop introduces sdcMicro, a practical R package for measuring disclosure risk in numeric data. The session will give attendees hands-on experience using sdcMicro to assess disclosure risk and apply SDC methods to anonymize numeric data, while evaluating the balance between disclosure risk and data loss.

These sessions are available to research staff and students and can be booked using the links below:

Assessing Data Quality in Numeric Data (Social Survey Data) – 10th June 0930-1200, Lister Learning and Teaching Centre, Room 1.16 (Central Area) https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34939

Assessing Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data (Social Survey Data) – 10th June 1330-1700, Lister Learning and Teaching Centre, Room 1.16 (Central Area) https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34941

Assessing Data Quality in Numeric Data (Health Data) – 11th June 0930-1230, Microlab 1, Chancellor’s Building (Little France) https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34940

Assessing Disclosure Risk in Numeric Data (Health Data) – 11th June 1300-1700, Microlab 1, Chancellor’s Building (Little France) https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34942

Bob Sanders
Research Data Support
Library & University Collections

Edinburgh Research Data Blog