Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
December 20, 2025
New research data storage
The latest BITS magazine for University of Edinburgh staff (Issue 8, Autumn/ Winter 2013) contains a lead article on new data storage facilities that Information Services have recently procured and will be making available to researchers for their research data management.
“The arrival of the RDM storage and its imminent roll out is an exciting step in the development of our new set of services under the Research Data Management banner. Ensuring that the service we deploy is fair, useful and t transparent are key principles for the IS team.” John Scally
Information Services is very pleased to announce that our new Research Data Storage hardware has been safely delivered.
Following a competitive procurement process, a range of suppliers were selected to provide the various parts of the infrastructure, incl. Dell, NetApp, Brocade and Cisco. The bulk of the order was assembled over the summer in China and shipped to the King’s Buildings campus at the end of August. Since then IT Infrastructure staff have been installing, testing and preparing the storage for roll-out.
How good is the storage?
Information Services recognises the importance of the University’s research data and has procured enterprise-class storage infrastructure to underpin the programme of Research
Data services. The infrastructure ranges from the highest class of flash-storage (delivering 375,000 IO operations per second) to 1.6PB (1 Petabyte = 1,024 Terabytes) of bulk storage arrays. The data in the Research Data Management (RDM) file-store is automatically replicated to an off-site disaster facility and also backed up with a 60-day retention period, with 10 days of file history visible online.
Who qualifies for an allocation?
Every active researcher in the University! This is an agreement between the University and the researcher to provide quality active data storage, service support and long term curation for researchers. This is for all researchers, not just Principal Investigators or those in receipt of external grants to fund research.
When do I get my allocation?
We are planning to roll out to early adopter Schools and institutes late November this year. This is dependent on all of the quality checks and performance testing on the system being completed successfully, however, confidence is high that the deadline will be met.
The early adopters for the initial service roll-out are: School of GeoSciences, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, and the Centre for Population Health
Sciences. Phased roll-out to all areas of the University will follow.
How much free allocation will I receive?
The University has committed 0.5TB (500GB) of high quality storage with guaranteed backup and resilience to every active researcher. The important principle at work is that the 0.5TB is for the individual researcher to use primarily to store their active research data. This ensures that they can work in a high quality and resilient environment and, hopefully, move valuable data from potentially unstable local drives. Research groups
and Schools will be encouraged to pool their allocations in order to facilitate shared data management and collaboration.
This formula was developed in close consultation with College and School representatives; however, there will be discipline differences in how much storage is required and individual need will not be uniform. A degree of flexibility will be built into the
allocation model and roll-out, though if researchers go over their 0.5TB free allocation they will have to pay.
Why is the University doing this?
The storage roll-out is one component of a suite of existing and planned services known as our Research Data Management Initiative. An awareness raising campaign accompanies the storage allocation to Schools, units and individuals to
encourage best practice in research data management planning and sharing.
Research Data Management support services:
www.ed.ac.uk/is/data-management
University’s Research Data Management Policy:
www.ed.ac.uk/is/research-data-policy
BITS magazine (Issue 8, Autumn/ Winter 2013)
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/about/news/edinburgh-bits
The New College Strong Room revealed
A guest post from our Museums Studies student volunteers, Charlotte Johnson and Liz Louis.
We are two postgraduate students studying for an MLitt in Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of St Andrews. As part of our course we’re undertaking a practical placement and as such we are very pleased to be working on a project here at New College, in the strong room. When we started, we didn’t know what sort of collection to expect, and we quickly realised that the sheer variety of objects we discovered, would send us on a whistle-stop tour of New College’s history and give us insights into the lives and relationships of the eminent Doctors of Divinity who served here. It is our task to document, research and properly store the collection and we have come across some fabulous items over the last 6 weeks.
Perhaps one of our favourites is a casket and scroll presented to the Rev. John Sinclair McPhail by his parishioners on Skye, on his having served 50 years in the clergy. It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, with wood, silver, purple velvet, raspberry-coloured silk and a hand-painted declaration of their appreciation.
Another interesting piece is a large silver fob-watch which belonged to Thomas Chalmers, one of the leaders of the Disruption which led to the creation of the Free Church of Scotland and first principal of New College; it looks as though it was much used and much loved.
At this point, we don’t know much about any of the items, but each one of them has a story to tell, and our conservation and research efforts will make sure that they don’t stay silent. We wanted to take this opportunity to share some photographs of these treasures with you.
Clerk Ranken
Clerk Ranken was born in 1880, Edinburgh. Educated at George Heriot’s School, he then went to Edinburgh University, graduating BSc (Pure Science) in 1902, then DSc in 1907. He was recipient of both the Hope Prize and Mackay Smith Scholarships. At the age of only 21 he read a paper before the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
As a Carnegie Fellow, he worked with Georg Bredig at Heidelberg University. On his return from Germany he became lecturer in Chemistry at the Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh, and later Assistant Professor in Chemistry. In 1917 he left academia to take up as post with Messrs. T. & J. Bernard, Ltd., the Edinburgh brewers.
We recently became aware, thanks to Dr. Andrew Alexander (Chemistry) that two photographs we had labelled as “Dr. Rubens?” are actually of Ranken and taken (most likely) during his student days.
Chemistry students c1905
The first is a group photograph and we assume it is a group of Chemistry students. The doorway has been identified as one of those leading into the Reid Concert Hall (adjacent to the Medical School, where Chemistry was based). Clerk Ranken is in the front row, furthest left.
Clerk Ranken in Chemistry laboratory
The second shows Ranken in a laboratory. In 1903 the number of Chemistry laboratories had been increased and, although we have yet to place this specifically, it is of a similar style to laboratories known to be known in the Medical School building.
Clerk Ranken died in May 1936. An obituary can be found in the Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 42, Issue 4.
Postgraduate Arts journal launches on hosting service
FORUM, University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts officially launched on Friday 6th December 2013 to coincide with the publication of their seventeenth issue, Rites & Rituals.
FORUM editors (past and present) Victoria Anker, Dorothy Butchard, Laura Chapot and Lizzie Stewart worked in conjunction with Angela Laurins (Library Learning Services Manager) and Robin Taylor (Digital Library Development) to make the transition from the old journal site to the Journal Hosting Service.
This is the first time we have worked with an existing online journal to migrate (with all back issues and their existing URL) to the Journal Hosting Service.
FORUM, which publishes bi-annually exclusively online, aims to create and foster a network for the exchange and circulation of intellectual ideas within the postgraduate community. Founded in 2005, FORUM’s interdisciplinary approach continues to welcome submissions from the global postgraduate community that challenge the boundaries of conventional disciplines.
Forum: http://www.forumjournal.org
For further information please contact: Victoria Anker and Laura Chapot on editors@forumjournal.org
LibQual iPad mini winners
Congratulations to Robin Cathcart and Christina Mackie who won the two iPad minis we offered as prizes for completing the recent LibQual+ survey.
Receiving her iPad mini, Robin thanked the Library team for the ‘amazing’ survey prize and said, “I was happy to fill out your survey, as you all undertake very important work that is truly at the heart of the university. I have always had a great experience with online library services and inside the main library itself here at the University of Edinburgh, and I hope my and other survey responses help you all to continue improving the high-quality services provided across the university”.
Robin is a Network Manager and Research Manager for the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (http://www.ukccsrc.ac.uk/people Twitter: @ukccsrc)
Christina, a third year Biology student who uses the Main Library most often, couldn’t believe her luck and was’ really, really pleased to have won such a ‘lovely surprise’.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the survey. The LibQual report will be published in the New Year.
A game of two halves
One of the photographs in the Alan Greenwood collection depicts a chicken. This is hardly unusual in itself, seeing as Greenwood was director of the Poultry Research Centre. However, a closer look reveals that this is no ordinary chicken: it is coloured and shaped differently on each side: in fact, it looks more like two separate chickens stitched together. This chicken is a ‘halfsider’. Halfsiders – also called bilateral gynandromorphs – are birds whose colour, plumage, size and even gender is different on each side. Halfsiders are most commonly encountered in budgerigars, although they can occur in other birds too, including domestic chickens.
The phenomenon which produces halfsiders is is actually part of a larger phenomenon of ‘mosaicism’. Mosaics are organisms of a ‘patchwork’ phenotype and/or genotype generally only found in domesticated species (although a wild gynandromorphic Northern Cardinal was discovered on the east coast of America in 2009). F.A.E Crew at the Institute of Animal Genetics was one of the first geneticists to write on gynandromorphy in birds, with Greenwood and colleagues continuing to study it at the Poultry Research Centre.
Halfsiders are so interesting for genetics because they contradict the theory that sexual development in birds and mammals follows the same course, with the embryonic cells being ‘unisex’, the gender being determined at around seven weeks by signals sent by hormones. However, chicken cells apparently ‘know’ which sex they are at the time of fertilisation, and scientists have had to propose an entirely separate model for avian sexual development.
Early explanations for how halfsiders happen usually posited gene mutation or embryo damage in the early stages of cell division, or else the loss of a chromosome.. However, a study in 2010 (Zhao, McBride et al) found that halfsider chickens are in fact nearly perfect male:female chimeras comprised of normal female cells (with ZW chromosomes) on one side and normal male cells (with ZZ chromosomes) on the other side. Therefore, halfsiders appear to result from an abnormal ovum containing two pronuclei, fertilised by two sperm, which then results in both a Z and W chromosome–containing nucleus. As the cells develop, and are subject to exactly the same hormones, they respond according to their own chromosomes rather than signals being given out by the gonads, as with mammalian development. This in essence means that the two ‘halves’ develop entirely separately, at the same time.
Although the phenomenon producing halfsiders is genetic in origin, it is not heritable and so cannot be intentionally bred (in any case, gynandromorphs are nearly always sterile). It is estimated that 1 in 10,000 domestic chickens is a gynandromorph.
Library and University 2014 calendar
The new Library and University 2014 calendar is now on sale. This year’s theme is Bygone Edinburgh, with all images coming from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. Highlights include some of the work of Scottish pioneers of photography, Hill and Adamson, and this image taken by an unknown photographer around 1887.
The three gentlemen shown demonstrating the cantilever principle for the Forth Bridge are engineers Sir John Fowler, Kaichi Watanabe and Sir Benjamin Baker.
The calendar is on sale in the Library at the front desk and at the CRC reception on the 6th Floor, priced £8.
Further information on the calendar is available at collections.ed.ac.uk
The four quadrants of research data curation systems
[Reposted from https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/blog/2013/12/06/the-four-quadrants-of-research-data-curation-systems/]
The University of Edinburgh, like many other universities, is currently undertaking extensive work to build infrastructure that supports and enables good practice in the area of Research Data Management. This infrastructure ranges from large-scale research storage facilities to data management planning tools.
One aspect of Research Data Management highlighted in the University’s RDM Roadmap is ‘Data stewardship: tools and services to aid in the description, deposit, and continuity of access to completed research data outputs.’
To help describe how these systems fit together yet how they differ from each other, I use a model with two axes to differentiate what they hold, and who can access them. The first axis is used to differentiate between systems that hold only metadata from those that hold files (typically with some level of metadata), while the second differentiates between private systems and public systems.
Research information and data management and associated systems aren’t a new phenomenon. We have been offering services in these areas for some time. To demonstrate this, we have two existing systems that provide services in two of the areas:
- PURE is our Current Research Information System (CRIS). It is a private system for the University to record the research outputs it generates. It therefore falls into the metadata / private quadrant. (It can hold files, and has a public interface, but this is primarily for Open Access publications rather than research data).
- DataShare is our open research data repository. It holds and curates data (and associated metadata) for public consumption on behalf of the data creators. It therefore falls into the data / public quadrant.
What about the other two quadrants? Are there systems or infrastructure needed to fill these? Is there a case where we need a public store of metadata about research data, or a private store of finished data sets?
The rest of this blog post will argue that there is a need for these, and will describe two pieces of infrastructure that could fill them. Further blog posts will be written that start to unpick the requirements of these systems in more depth.
Public Metadata: Not only is it good practice for a research institution to know what research data it is creating, some research funders require us to do so. In addition the University’s RDM policy requires
“Any data which is retained elsewhere, for example in an international data service or domain repository should be registered with the University.”
The following is an extract from the EPSRC’s expectations for research data management:
“Research organisations will ensure that appropriately structured metadata describing the research data they hold is published (normally within 12 months of the data being generated) and made freely accessible on the internet; in each case the metadata must be sufficient to allow others to understand what research data exists, why, when and how it was generated, and how to access it. Where the research data referred to in the metadata is a digital object it is expected that the metadata will include use of a robust digital object identifier (For example as available through the DataCite organisation – http://datacite.org/).”
This need can be fulfilled by the creation of a Data Asset Register.
Private Data: Whilst some data will be suitable for public sharing, for various reasons some will not, or will need to have access controlled by the data creator. Therefore there is a need for a safe place for keeping data that will be kept secure, both in terms of access and change. Once lodged/archived there, files should only be accessible by the data creator or data manager, and it should not be possible to change files, but only to create newer versions or to remove/delete them.
This need can be fulfilled by the creation of a Data Vault.
Systems however do not live in isolation, and become more powerful, more useful, and more likely to be used if they are able to integrate with each other. With the ever-growing number of ‘systems’ provided by a large research-intensive university, the last thing that a research data management programme wants to do is to introduce further systems that need to be fed with duplicate information. This means that some or all of the components will need to be integrated together.
There are three obvious integrations between these systems, as shown below:
First, because PURE is the master system for holding data and relationships about research outputs (THIS grant, funded THAT piece of equipment, which was used to create THIS data set, that was described in THESE journal articles), records of data sets need to exist within it. However if some or all of these are being created in the Data Asset Register, then they will need to be pushed into PURE. Equally if some data are being registered directly in PURE, it will be useful to pull this out of PURE and into the Data Asset Register.
Secondly, because the Data Asset Register may become the main user interface for entering details of data sets, it could also be the main administrative user interface for uploading files into the Data Vault. If that is the case, then the Data Asset Register and the Vault will need to be integrated.
Finally, for instances where metadata is held in the Data Asset Register, corresponding files are held in the Data Vault, and the data owner decides to make the data openly available, then the Data Asset Register should be able to deposit these as a new item in the Data Repository.
The next challenge will be to describe the requirements for the Data Vault and Data Asset Register. We have some early thoughts about this, and will share these in future blog.
Images available from http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.873617
Related blog posts:
Stuart Lewis, Head of Research and Learning Services, Library & University Collections.
The four quadrants of Research Data Curation Systems
The University of Edinburgh, like many other universities, is currently undertaking extensive work to build infrastructure that supports and enables good practice in the area of Research Data Management. This infrastructure ranges from large-scale research storage facilities to data management planning tools.
One aspect of Research Data Management highlighted in the University’s RDM Roadmap is ‘Data stewardship: tools and services to aid in the description, deposit, and continuity of access to completed research data outputs.’
To help describe how these systems fit together yet how they differ from each other, I use a model with two axes to differentiate what they hold, and who can access them. The first axis is used to differentiate between systems that hold only metadata from those that hold files (typically with some level of metadata), while the second differentiates between private systems and public systems.
Research information and data management and associated systems aren’t a new phenomenon. We have been offering services in these areas for some time. To demonstrate this, we have two existing systems that provide services in two of the areas:
- PURE is our Current Research Information System (CRIS). It is a private system for the University to record the research outputs it generates. It therefore falls into the metadata / private quadrant. (It can hold files, and has a public interface, but this is primarily for Open Access publications rather than research data).
- DataShare is our open research data repository. It holds and curates data (and associated metadata) for public consumption on behalf of the data creators. It therefore falls into the data / public quadrant.
What about the other two quadrants? Are there systems or infrastructure needed to fill these? Is there a case where we need a public store of metadata about research data, or a private store of finished data sets?
The rest of this blog post will argue that there is a need for these, and will describe two pieces of infrastructure that could fill them. Further blog posts will be written that start to unpick the requirements of these systems in more depth.
Public Metadata: Not only is it good practice for a research institution to know what research data it is creating, some research funders require us to do so. In addition the University’s RDM policy requires
“Any data which is retained elsewhere, for example in an international data service or domain repository should be registered with the University.”
The following is an extract from the EPSRC’s expectations for research data management:
“Research organisations will ensure that appropriately structured metadata describing the research data they hold is published (normally within 12 months of the data being generated) and made freely accessible on the internet; in each case the metadata must be sufficient to allow others to understand what research data exists, why, when and how it was generated, and how to access it. Where the research data referred to in the metadata is a digital object it is expected that the metadata will include use of a robust digital object identifier (For example as available through the DataCite organisation – http://datacite.org/).”
This need can be fulfilled by the creation of a Data Asset Register.
Private Data: Whilst some data will be suitable for public sharing, for various reasons some will not, or will need to have access controlled by the data creator. Therefore there is a need for a safe place for keeping data that will be kept secure, both in terms of access and change. Once lodged/archived there, files should only be accessible by the data creator or data manager, and it should not be possible to change files, but only to create newer versions or to remove/delete them.
This need can be fulfilled by the creation of a Data Vault.
Systems however do not live in isolation, and become more powerful, more useful, and more likely to be used if they are able to integrate with each other. With the ever-growing number of ‘systems’ provided by a large research-intensive university, the last thing that a research data management programme wants to do is to introduce further systems that need to be fed with duplicate information. This means that some or all of the components will need to be integrated together.
There are three obvious integrations between these systems, as shown below:
First, because PURE is the master system for holding data and relationships about research outputs (THIS grant, funded THAT piece of equipment, which was used to create THIS data set, that was described in THESE journal articles), records of data sets need to exist within it. However if some or all of these are being created in the Data Asset Register, then they will need to be pushed into PURE. Equally if some data are being registered directly in PURE, it will be useful to pull this out of PURE and into the Data Asset Register.
Secondly, because the Data Asset Register may become the main user interface for entering details of data sets, it could also be the main administrative user interface for uploading files into the Data Vault. If that is the case, then the Data Asset Register and the Vault will need to be integrated.
Finally, for instances where metadata is held in the Data Asset Register, corresponding files are held in the Data Vault, and the data owner decides to make the data openly available, then the Data Asset Register should be able to deposit these as a new item in the Data Repository.
The next challenge will be to describe the requirements for the Data Vault and Data Asset Register. We have some early thoughts about this, and will share these in future blog.
Images available from http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.873617
Volunteer of the Month – November 2013
Emma Smith
Exhibitions Intern and Volunteer
I was the Exhibitions Intern based in the CRC during the summer and I was tasked with the planning, design and curation of an exhibition which would be on display in the Main Library Exhibition Room over the winter. I used this opportunity to design an exhibition which is based on the theme of “cabinets of curiosity” and highlights the breadth of the University’s Collections. I have had a chance to work with a number of the collection curators and other staff within the CRC to help create the Collect.Ed exhibition.
As an undergraduate keen to develop a career in the museums and heritage sector, this has been a fantastic opportunity for me to gain valuable skills and experience in this highly competitive field. I hope that this exhibition will give other students, staff and visitors an opportunity to see some of the amazing items in the University’s collection and will be enjoyed as much as I enjoyed its creation and realisation.
Collect.Ed will be open in the Main Library Exhibition Room until 1 March.
Collections
Hill and Adamson Collection: an insight into Edinburgh’s past
My name is Phoebe Kirkland, I am an MSc East Asian Studies student, and for...
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Projects
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Archival Provenance Research Project: Lishan’s Experience
Presentation My name is Lishan Zou, I am a fourth year History and Politics student....