Abstract
In the United States, research funded by the government produces a significant portion of data. US law mandates that these data should be freely available to the public through ‘public access’, which is defined as fully discoverable and usable by the public. The U.S. government executive branch supported the public access requirements by issuing an Executive Directive titled ‘Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research’ that required federal agencies with annual research and development expenditures of more than $100 million to create public access plans by 22 August 2013. The directive applied to 19 federal agencies, some with multiple divisions. Additional direction for this initiative was provided by the Executive Order ‘Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information’ which was accompanied by a memorandum with specific guidelines for information management and instructions to find ways to reduce compliance costs through interagency cooperation. In late 2013, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to conduct a project to help IMLS and its constituents understand the implications of the US federal public access mandate and how needs and gaps in digital curation can best be addressed. Our project has three research components: (1) a structured content analysis of federal agency plans supporting public access to data and publications, identifying both commonalities and differences among plans; (2) case studies (interviews and analysis of project deliverables) of seven projects previously funded by IMLS to identify lessons about skills, capabilities and institutional arrangements that can facilitate data curation activities; and (3) a gap analysis of continuing education and readiness assessment of the workforce. Research and cultural institutions urgently need to rethink the professional identities of those responsible for collecting, organizing, and preserving data for future use. This paper reports on a project to help inform further investments. Â
Highlights
Research data is a valuable resource for a variety of stakeholders across all sectors of society
Additional direction for this initiative was provided by the Executive Order ‘Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information’ (9 May 2013), which was accompanied by a memorandum (OMB m-13-13) with specific guidelines for information management and instructions to find ways to reduce compliance costs through interagency cooperation
Our analysis focused primarily on the results of four specific competency-based projects within the digital curation and preservation community, three of which were developed in the US: the Digital Curation Curriculum (DigCCurr) Matrix from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Digital Curator Vocational (DigCurV) Education Europe Project Curriculum Framework, the Preparing the Workforce for Digital Curation report’s distinct and essential knowledge and skill areas, and the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) Staffing for Effective Digital Preservation report’s skills survey instrument
Summary
Research data is a valuable resource for a variety of stakeholders across all sectors of society. An Executive Directive titled ‘Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research’ (22 Feb 2013), requires federal agencies with annual research and development expenditures of more than $100 million to create public access plans by 22 August 2013. The directive applies to nineteen federal agencies, some with multiple divisions. Additional direction for this initiative was provided by the Executive Order ‘Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information’ (9 May 2013), which was accompanied by a memorandum (OMB m-13-13) with specific guidelines for information management and instructions to find ways to reduce compliance costs through interagency cooperation. There has been substantial activity – much of it within academia and the cultural heritage sector – to both define and support the competencies required for digital curation. Building on the 21st Century Librarian program that it began in 2003, IMLS issued a 2006 call for grant proposals to develop educational programs in digital curation and has since funded numerous projects and programs in this space (Ray, 2009)
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