This workshop at the Bioquarter was attended by 27 research staff representing all three colleges, with a majority of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It began with an introductory presentation from Robin Rice covering the new Data Safe Haven facility of the Research Data Service and and was followed by brief presentations from Lynne Forrest (Research Support Officer on Scottish Longitudinal Study); Fiona Strachan (Clinical Research Manager, Centre for Cardiovascular Science); and Jonathan Crook (Professor of Business Economics). Each speaker shared their experiences of both conducting research using sensitive data and supporting other researchers. Although they work with very different types of data it was easy to identify certain common requirements:

• Easy access to secure data storage and analysis platforms;
• Consistent & comprehensive training and guidance on working with sensitive data;
• Support to meet the necessary requirements to gain access to the data they need;

In the discussion groups that followed, participants were asked about their experiences working with sensitive data, the requirements researchers needed services such as data safe havens to fulfil, and ramifications of the cost recovery model, with regard to including costs in grant proposals.

The major themes that emerged were concerns around training, data governance, and concerns about meeting costs for protecting sensitive data. There was a strong feeling that more and better training was required for all those working with sensitive data. There was also confusion about the number, location, and criteria of different Data Safe Havens now available, and no single place to find clear information on these.

When talking specifically about the Data Safe Haven offered by IS for UoE researchers, the biggest concern was around cost. The standard price was considered high for the majority of grants, which are either small or need to be highly competitive. In some disciplines grant funding is not common and so it is unclear how the costs would be able to be met. The Research Data Service representatives encouraged people to get a bespoke quote and discuss requirements with the team as early as possible, as flexibility on both cost and build specifications (e.g. high performance computing) is built-in.

Some specific points arising from the discussions were:

• One negative experience about working with sensitive data is the length of time needed to get data approvals (e.g. from NHS bodies). Participants wondered if the University could help to speed those up.
• More training was desired in sensitive data management and better ways to structure training for students.
• Learning outcomes need to focus on change of behaviour; with focus on local procedures.
• One participant felt that schools need a researcher portfolio system, some way of keeping track of who has what data. A suggestion was made to have an asset manager in the university, similar to the one in NHS.
• Less than optimal security practices can be observed, such as leaving a clinical notebook in a coffee room. More training is needed but this is not fully covered in either clinical practice courses nor ethics.
• There were concerns around data governance – how to set up gatekeepers for research projects using Data Safe Haven, how long to store things in the DataVault. ACCORD was pointed to for having good structure in data governance.
• Long-running projects (e.g. ten years) would have trouble meeting the annual costs.
• Projects are invested in locally run services and expertise; added value centralised services need to be low-cost.

Overall researchers were in favour of having a Data Safe Haven available for projects that need it, but they would also like to have support to correctly anonymise and manage their data so that they could continue to use standard data storage and analysis platforms. This would mean that only those with the most sensitive of data would need to rely upon the UoE DSH to conduct their research.

Those with a University log-in may read the full set of notes on the RDM wiki.

Kerry Miller
Research Data Support Officer
Library & University Collections

The Parthenon Frieze at Edinburgh College of Art

Running around the walls of the Sculpture Court of Edinburgh College Art is a cast of the Parthenon Frieze, which was first acquired by the college’s predecessor institution, the Trustees Academy in the 1830s.  The sculpture court at ECA was built specifically to house and display this cast.

Earlier this year I began looking at the frieze with a view to creating possible projects around it but, as I compared it with images of both the original marbles (now housed in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the British Museum and the Louvre) and other cast collections, differences began to emerge. Two sections immediately caught my eye – the casts of Sections VI and VII of the East Frieze.

This is a cast of Section VI, as displayed in the Acropolis Museum, taken from the original version displayed in the British Museum.

Compare that with the one at ECA – shown below

The differences in Section VII are also striking.

The original marble, on display in the Louvre, looks like this…

ECA’s cast, on the other hand looks like this!

So why the differences?

From the ECA records, it appears that Section VI was cast while the original was still on the Acropolis, made in 1787 by order of the French ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople, Count Choiseul-Gouffier. This version is also displayed at the Skulpturhalle in Basel, which has a complete set of casts from the Parthenon.

The original slab, taken from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin, is in the British Museum and on its website it displays the following text:

“These figures were sadly mutilated shortly before Lord Elgin’s men arrived on the Acropolis in 1801. They can be reconstructed with the help of casts from moulds taken by the French diplomat Le Comte de Choiseul–Gouffier.”

This would appear to verify that the cast of Section VI is original.  The real mystery was Section VII, not least as yet more versions exist. One, copies of which are in Glasgow School of Art, the Met in New York and Cornell University collections (fig 1), shows the woman second from the right with more hair than the original, while another, from the Caproni Cast Collection in Boston (fig 2), shows a different head on the figure on the left to the one on the ECA version.

Fig 1 – Cornell Cast                           Fig 2 – Caproni Cast

The ECA records suggest that the cast had been restored. Both Sections VI and VII of the ECA originate in the Louvre, though we have no acquisition date. The original slab appears to have been found beneath Parthenon by L. S Fauvel in 1784, a few years later than Section VII, so the question was whether this cast is as it was originally discovered or a later, restored version.  The only known drawing of these pieces showing them in place on the Parthenon was made by Jacques Carrey in 1674 (Fig 3). The drawings made by the architects Revett and Stuart in 1751 for their Antiquities of Athens books, appear to show that this section was already missing from the Parthenon, as there is a sizeable gap in their sketch of the East Frieze. Their drawings were made after the explosion in 1687, which destroyed much of the building.  The accuracy of Carey’s drawings have been questioned but from them it is easy to see differences in the hairstyles of the figures in Section VII.

Fig 3  Drawing by Jacques Cary

The original slab, along with a number of casts, was transported from the Acropolis to Piraeus and then shipped to Marseilles in 1797, from where it was then moved to Paris. On arrival in Paris, however Fauvel was apparently angered to discover that the slab was missing its heads and insisted that they be found, implying that they had been lost in transit. However, in his personal papers, where he describes the find in January 2nd, 1789, Fauvel stated that the bas-relief only had two heads.

The slab was first displayed in what is now the Louvre in 1800 and the earliest drawing made in the museum was published in 1811 in A. L. Millin’s, Monuments antiques inédits ou nouvellement expliqués. No heads were shown. The earliest illustration with heads, didn’t appear until 1827 in Charles Clarac’s catalogue for the museum, Musée de Sculpture Antique at Moderne.  A later edition of this catalogue, printed in 1841, contains the text, “all the heads of this bas-relief are due to a modern restoration.” This illustration is very similar to the cast held by ECA.

Fig 4. – Musée de sculpture antique et moderne Tome 2, première partie 1841 –  Clarac

Half a century later, the 1896 catalogue for the Louvre contained a photograph of the slab with the heads once again absent (Fig 5).

Fig 5 – Musée du Louvre – Catalogue Sommaire – 1896

It appears that some restoration work was carried out around 1820, probably by Bernard Lange, who was then in charge of the Louvre’s restoration workshop, but there no evidence to confirm this. In researching this piece it transpired that the missing heads have long been puzzled over by archaeologists and art historians and indeed were the subject of a presentation made at a conference on the Parthenon frieze held in Basel in 1988. The presenters, Jean Marcadé and Christiane Pinatel, both from Paris, concluded that at some stage plaster heads had been added to the marble slab and that casts had been made, so it seems likely that this is the source of the cast at the College of Art.  Completing broken sculptures was fashionable in the early part of the 19^th century but by the second half this trend was no longer acceptable so the additions would then have been removed. However, they also stated that “the modern parts that were removed at the end of the last century have not been found,” so does this make the ECA version unique? Certainly, having looked at numerous publications and online resources, there are no other images showing a cast with heads and when I contacted Tomas Lochman, the curator at the Basel Skulpturahalle, with an image of the ECA cast, he described it as “really astonishing.”

There is a slim possibility that this cast was made while the slab was still intact on the Acropolis but all the evidence would suggest not. Nevertheless, while it may not be original, the ECA cast may the only one of its kind and therefore, as evidence of 19^th century restoration techniques, still has some value. Moreover, if we scan the section we may be able to verify this once and for all, as each cast has lines running through them, showing how the original mould was created If these run continuously though the figures then it is indeed an original. Time will tell!

Norman Rodger
Projects Development Manager
Library & University Collections

10 October 2019

*UPDATE* – We have just added two new and exciting courses to our training schedule:

• Assessing Disclosure Risk in Quantitative Data (RDS006)
• Assessing Data Quality in Quantitative Data (RDS007)

To find out more about these courses just visit our training page.

Each semester the Research Data Support team puts together a training programme for researchers and research support staff in all schools, and at all points in their career. Our programme this year introduces a number of new courses, including one designed especially for Undergraduates planning their final year dissertation. We have also reviewed and refreshed all of our existing courses to ensure that they are not only up-to-date but also more engaging and interactive.

Full Course list:

• Realising the Benefits of Good Research Data Management (RDS001)
• Writing a Data Management Plan for your Research (RDS002)
• Working with Personal and Sensitive Data (RDS003)
• Data Cleaning with OpenRefine (RDS004)
• Handling Data Using SPSS (RDS005)
• Assessing Disclosure Risk in Quantitative Data (RDS006)
• Assessing Data Quality in Quantitative Data (RDS007)
• Data Mindfulness: Making the Most of your Dissertation (RDS009)
• Introduction to Visualising Data in ArcGIS (RDS011)
• Introduction to Visualising Data in QGIS (RDS012)

Full details of all these courses, with direct booking links, can be found on our training webpage https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/research-data-service/training

Courses can also be found and booked via the MyEd Events page.

We are always happy to deliver tailored versions of these courses suitable for a specific school, institute or discipline. Just contact us at data-support@ed.ac.uk to let us know what you need!

—

Kerry Miller
Research Data Support Officer
Library and University Collections