Responding to Reality: Evolving Curation Practices and Infrastructure at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hoa Q Luong,Genevieve Schmitt,Colleen Fallaw,Heidi Imker,Susan M Braxton

doi:10.7191/jeslib.2021.1202

Hoa Q Luong, Genevieve Schmitt + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.2021.1202

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Abstract

Objective: The Illinois Data Bank provides Illinois researchers with the infrastructure to publish research data publicly. During a five-year review of the Research Data Service at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it was recognized as the most useful service offering in the unit. Internal metrics are captured and used to monitor the growth, document curation workflows, and surface technical challenges faced as we assist our researchers. Here we present examples of these curation challenges and the solutions chosen to address them. Methods: Some Illinois Data Bank metrics are collected internally by within the system, but most of the curation metrics reported here are tracked separately in a Google spreadsheet. The curator logs required information after curation is complete for each dataset. While the data is sometimes ambiguous (e.g., depending on researcher uptake of suggested actions), our curation data provide a general understanding about our data repository and have been useful in assessing our workflows and services. These metrics also help prioritize development needs for the Illinois Data Bank. Results and Conclusions: The curatorial services polish and improve the datasets, which contributes to the spirit of data reuse. Although we continue to see challenges in our processes, curation makes a positive impact on datasets. Continued development and adaptation of the technical infrastructure allows for an ever-better experience for the curators and users. These improvements have helped our repository more effectively support the data sharing process by successfully fostering depositor engagement with curators to improve datasets and facilitating easy transfer of very large files.

Highlights

The National Science Board’s 2011 report stated, “A core expectation of the scientific method is the documentation and sharing of results, underlying data, and methodologies,” and data sharing is considered as a “critical national need” in (National Science Board 2011)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced its requirement to have a data management plan included for each grant proposal submission
While the unit offers different data management services, for the purpose of this paper we only focus on the data curation service provided to all datasets submitted to the Illinois Data Bank, which was launched in 2016 to support research with high degrees of transparency and professionalism

Summary

Introduction

The National Science Board’s 2011 report stated, “A core expectation of the scientific method is the documentation and sharing of results, underlying data, and methodologies,” and data sharing is considered as a “critical national need” in (National Science Board 2011). The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced its requirement to have a data management plan included for each grant proposal submission. In 2013, a memorandum from the Office of science and Technology Policy (OSTP) indicated efforts to increase public access to research data generated from federally funded projects (OSTP 2013). Data sharing has shifted from sharing among personal networks to making data publicly available. Posting data on personal or project websites is no longer adequate, but because not all disciplines have established disciplinary repositories, there is a demand for institutional repositories (Heidorn 2011). There are incentives for data sharing/data publication. The availability of data repositories has been shown to help biological scientists develop community norms around data sharing (Kim and Burns 2016)

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