Abstract
This paper presents a brief literature review and then introduces the methods, design, and construction of the Data Curation Profile, an instrument that can be used to provide detailed information on particular data forms that might be curated by an academic library. These data forms are presented in the context of the related sub-disciplinary research area, and they provide the flow of the research process from which these data are generated. The profiles also represent the needs for data curation from the perspective of the data producers, using their own language. As such, they support the exploration of data curation across different research domains in real and practical terms. With the sponsorship of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, investigators from Purdue University and the University of Illinois interviewed 19 faculty subjects to identify needs for discovery, access, preservation, and reuse of their research data. For each subject, a profile was constructed that includes information about his or her general research, data forms and stages, value of data, data ingest, intellectual property, organization and description of data, tools, interoperability, impact and prestige, data management, and preservation. Each profile also presents a specific dataset supplied by the subject to serve as a concrete example. The Data Curation Profiles are being published to a public wiki for questions and discussion, and a blank template will be disseminated with guidelines for others to create and share their own profiles. This study was conducted primarily from the viewpoint of librarians interacting with faculty researchers; however, it is expected that these findings will complement a wide variety of data curation research and practice outside of librarianship and the university environment.
Highlights
BackgroundDespite the recent increase of interest in data curation, defined in general terms by Lord, Macdonald, Lyon, & Giaretta as “managing and promoting the use of data”
The investigation described in this paper begins to address the gap indicated by the RIN report and builds on the efforts identified above by profiling researchers and their data in order to inform data curation activities in academic libraries
Additional research is needed to identify similarities and distinctions across methods, research areas and sub-disciplines, but this study offers a view of some of the complexities that have a bearing on sharing and data publishing activities
Summary
Despite the recent increase of interest in data curation, defined in general terms by Lord, Macdonald, Lyon, & Giaretta as “managing and promoting the use of data”. Responding to emergent changes in scholarly communication and recent reports on Cyberinfrastructure and e-Science, there have been a number of university-based initiatives to address both local and field-wide knowledge gaps on research practices and related data management problems. The investigation addressed three areas: how data are shared or made available to others, current roles of primary research data in scientific production and communication, and quality assurance practices Significant to this investigation, the RIN (2008) report identifies several gaps in the curation knowledge base, recommending the need to take “full account(s) of the different kinds of data that researchers create and collect... Significant to this investigation, the RIN (2008) report identifies several gaps in the curation knowledge base, recommending the need to take “full account(s) of the different kinds of data that researchers create and collect... and make clear the categories of data that they wish to see...shared with others”
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