Data Curation Services Research Articles

Understanding the value of curation: A survey of researcher perspectives of data curation services from six US institutions.

Data curation encompasses a range of actions undertaken to ensure that research data are fit for purpose and available for discovery and reuse, and can help to improve the likelihood that data is more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). The Data Curation Network (DCN) has taken a collaborative approach to data curation, sharing curation expertise across a network of partner institutions and data repositories, and enabling those member institutions to provide expert curation for a wide variety of data types and discipline-specific datasets. This study sought to assess the satisfaction of researchers who had received data curation services, and to learn more about what curation actions were most valued by researchers. By surveying researchers who had deposited data into one of six academic generalist data repositories between 2019-2021, this study set out to collect feedback on the value of curation from the researchers themselves. A total of 568 researchers were surveyed; 42% (238) responded. Respondents were positive in their evaluation of the importance and value of curation, indicating that the participants not only value curation services, but are largely satisfied with the services provided. An overwhelming majority 97% of researchers agreed that data curation adds value to the data sharing process, 96% agreed it was worth the effort, and 90% felt more confident sharing their data due to the curation process. We share these results to provide insights into researchers' perceptions and experience of data curation, and to contribute evidence of the positive impact of curation on repository depositors. From the perspective of researchers we surveyed, curation is worth the effort, increases their comfort with data sharing, and makes data more findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

Research Data Preservation Practices of Library and Information Science Faculties


 Digitisation of research data is widely increasing all around the world because it needs more and development of enormous digital technologies. Data curation services are starting to offer many libraries. Research data curation is the collective invaluable and reusable information of the researchers. Collected data preservation is more important. The majority of the higher education institutes preserved the research data for their students and researchers. It is stored for a long time using various formats. It is called research data preservation. Without proper research data management plan and implementation cannot curate the research data. The aim of the study is to identify the Asian Library and Information Science (LIS) faculties’ experiences in the research data preservation and curation during their research. Data management, curation and preservation all are interlinked. For reuse of the research data; data curation is an essential role. For this research, we adopted a survey method and an online questionnaire was shared with 1400 LIS professionals, belonging to the Asian region but the completed study respondents are 125 university faculties from various Asian countries. The study findings are 76.8 per cent generated statistical data followed by 58.4 per cent textual files. By far, the most preferable data analysis tool is Microsoft Excel 82.4 per cent. Moreover, the result shows that generated data is mostly stored by personal computers and laptop hard disks. This study concludes LIS faculties having adequate skills and knowledge on data curation and preservation even though they are expecting more services from their academic institute libraries.

Research data stewardship at the University of Hong Kong

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to look at the journey and experience of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Research Data Management (RDM) practice to respond to the needs of researchers in an academic library.Design/methodology/approachThe research data services (RDS) practice is based on the FAIR data principle. And the authors designed the RDM Stewardship framework to implement the RDS step by step.FindingsThe HKU Libraries developed and implemented a set of RDS under a research data stewardship framework in response to the recent evolving research needs for RDM amongst the academic communities. The services cover policy and procedure settings for research data planning, research data infrastructure establishment, data curation services and provision of online resources and instructional guidelines.Originality/value This study provides an example of an approach to respond to the needs of the academic libraries about how to start the RDS including the data policy, data repository, data librarianship and data curation.

Kebijakan Open Data Penelitian dalam Membangun Komunikasi Ilmiah di Perpustakaan Lembaga Riset

A study was conducted on the role of research institute libraries in supporting open data research policies to improve scientific communication. The study aims to determine the role of libraries in open data research policies to improve scientific communication, and determine the role of libraries in relation to the open data research movement in building scientific communication. The research was conducted using the narrative review method, which is research that is carried out looking for articles related to the study of the role of research institutes libraries in open data research policies to improve scientific communication. namely data management plans and research data sharing processes, ensuring the data can be accessed, storing data in repositories and ensuring data can be accessed within a certain period of time. Libraries are the pioneers of the open data research movement by providing consultancy services for data analysis, research data mining, data curation services, data analysis and visualization, and saving research data over a long period of time. The main support provided by the library in building scientific communication is to create meta data and store data in repositories. Provide training in the management and storage of research data for researchers with the aim that the resulting research data can be used and disseminated for further research

Scaling by Optimising: Modularisation of Data Curation Services in Growing Organisations

After a century of theorising and applying management practices, we are in the middle of entering a new stage in management science: digital management. The management of digital data submerges in traditional functions of management and, at the same time, continues to recreate viable solutions and conceptualisations in its established fields, e.g. research data management. Yet, one can observe bilateral synergies and mutual enrichment of traditional and data management practices in all fields. The paper at hand addresses a case in point, in which new and old management practices amalgamate to meet a steadily, in part characterised by leaps and bounds, increasing demand of data curation services in academic institutions. The idea of modularisation, as known from software engineering, is applied to data curation workflows so that economies of scale and scope can be used. While scaling refers to both management science and data science, optimising is understood in the traditional managerial sense, that is, with respect to the cost function. By means of a situation analysis describing how data curation services were applied from one department to the entire institution and an analysis of the factors of influence, a method of modularisation is outlined that converges to an optimal state of curation workflows.

Research Data Management Implementation at Peking University Library: Foster and Promote Open Science and Open Data

Research Data Management (RDM) has become increasingly important for more and more academic institutions. Using the Peking University Open Research Data Repository (PKU-ORDR) project as an example, this paper will review a library-based university-wide open research data repository project and related RDM services implementation process including project kickoff, needs assessment, partnerships establishment, software investigation and selection, software customization, as well as data curation services and training. Through the review, some issues revealed during the stages of the implementation process are also discussed and addressed in the paper such as awareness of research data, demands from data providers and users, data policies and requirements from home institution, requirements from funding agencies and publishers, the collaboration between administrative units and libraries, and concerns from data providers and users. The significance of the study is that the paper shows an example of creating an Open Data repository and RDM services for other Chinese academic libraries planning to implement their RDM services for their home institutions. The authors of the paper have also observed since the PKU-ORDR and RDM services implemented in 2015, the Peking University Library (PKUL) has helped numerous researchers to support the entire research life cycle and enhanced Open Science (OS) practices on campus, as well as impacted the national OS movement in China through various national events and activities hosted by the PKUL.

Prototyping a collaborative data curation service for coastal science

The growing push for open data resulted in an abundance of data for coastal researchers, which can lead to problems for individual researchers related to data discoverability. One solution is to explicitly develop services for coastal researchers to help curate data for discovery, hosting discussions around reuse, community building, and finding collaborators. To develop the idea of a coastal data curation service, we investigate aspects of the UNESCO International Coastal Atlas Network member sites that could be used to build a curation service. We develop a minimal example of a coastal data curation service, deploy this as a website, and describe the next steps to move beyond the prototype phase. We envision a coastal data curation service as a way to cultivate a community focused on coastal data discovery and reuse.

Conceptualizing Data Curation Activities Within Two Academic Libraries

INTRODUCTION As funders and journals increasingly create policies that require effective data management and data sharing, many institutions have developed research data management (RDM) programs to help researchers meet these mandates. While there is not a standard set of services for these RDM programs, some institutions, particularly those with repositories that accept data deposits, provide data curation services as a way to add value to research data and help make data more accessible and reusable. Stakeholder communities within the field, such as the Data Curation Network (DCN), are also developing guidelines, procedures, and best practices to support and expand data curation practices. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT This paper examines the data curation activities defined by the DCN, and describes an activity undertaken by library staff at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to create a structured model of these tasks to more easily conceptualize and communicate data curation within these two institutional settings. The purpose of this paper is to describe how this model provided a basis for the implementation and expansion of data curation services at each institution and concludes with overall lessons learned. NEXT STEPS As we develop our services, libraries have an opportunity to make the often-invisible work of curation more transparent. This paper aims to provide a point of reference for other libraries as they consider how to scale up their data curation programs as well as contribute to discussions around prioritization of services, program assessment, and communication with stakeholders.

Do the stars align?: Stakeholders and strategies in libraries' curation of an astronomy dataset

AbstractWhen developing university‐based research data curation services, libraries face critical decisions around organization and sustainability that can affect dataset producers' satisfaction with these services. We present a study, involving interviews (n = 43) and ethnographic observation, of how two libraries partnered with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to curate a significant astronomy dataset. Each library took different decisions: one library assigned activities to a unit specializing in digital curation, while the other distributed activities across its existing units. Neither approach proved a silver bullet. While library staff members felt the outcomes largely met their expectations, SDSS leaders expressed mixed opinions. We identify three factors that contributed to these differences in perspective: differing strategic motivations for undertaking this Data Transfer Process, SDSS leaders' misperceptions about libraries, and organizational mismatches. These factors contributed to four differences in perspective between SDSS leaders and library staff: provenance as technical information or as information about social context, dataset as a live research object or as a static object to be preserved, systems and services tailored to the dataset or easily adaptable to other datasets, and obstacles as setbacks or as opportunities. Only those differences that emerged when SDSS collaboration members and library staff communicated frequently were resolved.

YARD: A Tool for Curating Research Outputs

Repositories increasingly accept research outputs and associated artifacts that underlie reported findings, leading to potential changes in the demand for data curation and repository services. This paper describes a curation tool that responds to this challenge by economizing and optimizing curation efforts. The curation tool is implemented at Yale University’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) as YARD. By standardizing the curation workflow, YARD helps create high quality data packages that are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) and promotes research transparency by connecting the activities of researchers, curators, and publishers through a single pipeline.

Library capacity for data curation services: a US national survey

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the landscape of data curation services among public and academic libraries in the USA, with a focus on library capacity for providing data curation services. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted an online survey by employing stratified sampling from the American Library Directory. A total of 198 responses were analyzed. Findings The authors’ findings provide insight into the current landscape of libraries’ data curation services. The survey participants evaluated six capacity dimensions for both public and academic libraries – value, financial, administrative, technical infrastructure, human resources and network. The ratings the participants gave to these capacity dimensions were significantly different between academic and public libraries. Practical implications This study suggests several areas in which libraries will benefit from further developing their capacity to successfully run data curation services. Originality/value This is among the first research study to address the concept of capacity in the context of libraries’ data curation services.

Researchers May Need Additional Data Curation Support

A Review of:
 Johnston, L. R., Carlson, J., Hudson-Vitale, C., Imker, H., Kozlowski, W., Olendorf, R., & Stewart, C. (2018). How important are data curation activities to researchers? Gaps and opportunities for academic libraries. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 6(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2198
 Abstract
 Objective – To identify the data curation activities most valued by researchers at universities.
 Design – Focus group and survey instrument.
 Setting – Six R1: Doctoral Universities in the United States of America that are part of a Data Curation Network (DCN) project to design a shared data curation service.
 Subjects – 91 researchers, librarians, and support staff.
 Methods – The authors used focus group methodology to collect data about valued data curation activities, current practices, and satisfaction with existing services or activities. Six focus groups were conducted at participants’ places of employment. Participants reviewed a list of 35 possible data curation activities, including documentation, data visualization, and rights management. A card-swapping exercise enabled subjects to rank the most important issues on a scale of 1-5, with “most important” activities becoming the subject of a facilitated discussion. In a short paper-based survey, participants also noted whether a data curation practice is in place at their institution, and their satisfaction with the practice.
 Main Results – Twelve data curation activities were identified as “highly rated” services that academic institutions could focus on providing to researchers. Documentation, Secure Storage, Quality Assurance, and Persistent Identifier were the data curation activities that the majority of participants rated as “most important.” Participants identified the data curation practices in place at their institutions, including documentation (80%), secure storage (75%), chain of custody (64%), metadata (63%), file inventory or manifest (58%), data visualization (58%), versioning (56%), file format transformations (55%), and quality assurance (52%). Participants reported low levels of satisfaction with their institutions’ data curation activities.
 Conclusion – Academic libraries have an opportunity to develop or improve existing data curation services by focusing on the twelve data curation activities that researchers, staff, and librarians value but that could be implemented in a more satisfactory way. The authors conclude that their organization, the Data Curation Network, has an opportunity to improve data curation services or to offer new or expanded services.

Operationalizing the Replication Standard

In response to widespread concerns about the integrity of research published in scholarly journals, several initiatives have emerged that are promoting research transparency through access to data underlying published scientific findings. Journal editors, in particular, have made a commitment to research transparency by issuing data policies that require authors to submit their data, code, and documentation to data repositories to allow for public access to the data. In the case of the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS) Data Replication Policy, the data also must undergo an independent verification process in which materials are reviewed for quality as a condition of final manuscript publication and acceptance.
 Aware of the specialized expertise of the data archives, AJPS called upon the Odum Institute Data Archive to provide a data review service that performs data curation and verification of replication datasets. This article presents a case study of the collaboration between AJPS and the Odum Institute Data Archive to develop a workflow that bridges manuscript publication and data review processes. The case study describes the challenges and the successes of the workflow integration, and offers lessons learned that may be applied by other data archives that are considering expanding their services to include data curation and verification services to support reproducible research.

Aspectos de inovação na implantação de um centro de digitalização e gestão de dados da pesquisa

Objetiva prover serviços de curadoria e gestão de dados da pesquisa com inovação em P&D a um centro de digitalização e gestão de dados da pesquisa. Caracteriza o ecossistema de P&D em gestão e curadoria de dados da pesquisa, e observa os tipos de processos de inovação que casam com características desse ecossistema. Propõe e cria um ambiente de inovação para o centro, desenvolvendo uma ferramenta fundamentada em trabalho colaborativo, corpos de conhecimento e processos de inovação. Apresenta resultados obtidos a partir do uso do ambiente.Palavras-chave: Inovação. Dados da Pesquisa. Curadoria Digital. Colaboração. Ciência da Informação.Link: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/eb/article/view/1518-2924.2018v23nespp1

Are Academic Libraries Changing Fast Enough?

Abstract Academic libraries are under a severe pressure of transforming towards a novel form of information organization. Book circulation, learning space and licensing digital content continue to be core services. But the sciences and the humanities are increasingly requesting support for their novel publishing activities. Open Access in science or digital editions in the humanities, and data-intensive operations in research, e.g. data management plans, research software support or data curation and preservation services become mission critical. Thus, in order to stay the central partner for academic information within the institution, libraries need to change. But how fast could libraries possibly change, if the existing services were also to be continued, particularly considering that budget increases are rare? Experiences at the State and University Library Göttingen (SUB) shall elucidate opportunities and challenges.

Aspectos de inovação na implantação de um centro de digitalização e gestão de dados da pesquisa

Objetiva prover serviços de curadoria e gestão de dados da pesquisa com inovação em P&D a um centro de digitalização e gestão de dados da pesquisa. Caracteriza o ecossistema de P&D em gestão e curadoria de dados da pesquisa, e observa os tipos de processos de inovação que casam com características desse ecossistema. Propõe e cria um ambiente de inovação para o centro, desenvolvendo uma ferramenta fundamentada em trabalho colaborativo, corpos de conhecimento e processos de inovação. Apresenta resultados obtidos a partir do uso do ambiente.

Biodiversity Data Curation: South Africa Goes Online

The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) operates several research platforms, which may be used by the broader South African research community (e.g. a marine research vessel and a remotely operated underwater vehicle). SAIAB’s Enterprise-grade data centre, along with expertise in systems administration and biodiversity information management, allow the institute to offer a Biodiversity Information Management Platform. Data hosted by SAIAB is replicated across three data centres, with each centre being at least 250m apart and operating independently. Infrastructure at two data centres replicates in real time, forming a high availability cluster. The third datacentre is dedicated to storing backups. High-capacity tape backup will be added in the near future. As an additional measure, cloud storage is used to store daily extracts of Specify databases, which are retained for one year. In the first instance, the Platform aims to provide SAIAB researchers and associates with biodiversity data curation services. This begins with support for the SAIAB Collections Division, to ensure that voucher specimens, tissue samples and associated media are accurately catalogued and can be easily retrieved. Biodiversity data curation is broader than this. It also means that any biodiversity data/metadata (records of species, events, occurrences/observations and traits) can potentially be curated using Specify Software, and standardised and published (subject to relevant policies) to the GBIF Data Portal using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit. The use of Specify Software to curate biodiveristy data that do not represent voucher specimens (e.g. underwater images and video) is a new research project within SAIAB, which has the potential to be extended beyond SAIAB. A new national initiative, the Natural Science Collections Facility (NSCF), was launched in 2017 to reinvigorate natural science museums across the country, to halt deterioration of specimens and improve capacity for specimen and data curation. In support of the NSCF, the SAIAB platform is offered to natural science museums in South Africa (excluding herbaria, which are all part of or affiliated with SANBI, and therefore accommodated by a different system). Each museum will be provided with a webserver, Specify 7 database, Specify web portal and IPT server. In offering this platform to the broader South African Biodiversity Science community, SAIAB is primarily motivated by the potential for collaborative research in capacity development for biodiversity data curation / information management, using Specify Software. The first research project will examine participating museums’ capacity to use the Specify Workbench sustainably, to import new voucher/occurrence records generated by fieldwork. The requisite training to enhance this potential will be provided. The Natural Science Collections Facility (NSCF) is an important collaborator in the context of enhancing the general state of South Africa’s specimen collections, and the Specify Collections Consortium is an important collaborator, specifically for support.

How Important is Data Curation? Gaps and Opportunities for Academic Libraries

INTRODUCTION Data curation may be an emerging service for academic libraries, but researchers actively “curate” their data in a number of ways—even if terminology may not always align. Building on past userneeds assessments performed via survey and focus groups, the authors sought direct input from researchers on the importance and utilization of specific data curation activities. METHODS Between October 21, 2016, and November 18, 2016, the study team held focus groups with 91 participants at six different academic institutions to determine which data curation activities were most important to researchers, which activities were currently underway for their data, and how satisfied they were with the results. RESULTS Researchers are actively engaged in a variety of data curation activities, and while they considered most data curation activities to be highly important, a majority of the sample reported dissatisfaction with the current state of data curation at their institution. DISCUSSION Our findings demonstrate specific gaps and opportunities for academic libraries to focus their data curation services to more effectively meet researcher needs. CONCLUSION Research libraries stand to benefit their users by emphasizing, investing in, and/or heavily promoting the highly valued services that may not currently be in use by many researchers.

Setting up a National Research Data Curation Service for Qatar: Challenges and Opportunities

Over the past decade, Qatar has been making considerable progress towards developing a sustainable research culture for the nation. The main driver behind Qatar’s progress in research and innovation is Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development (QF), a private, non-profit organization that aims to utilise research as a catalyst for expanding, diversifying and improving the country’s economy, health and environment. While this has resulted in a significant growth in the number of research publications produced by Qatari researchers in recent years, a nationally co-ordinated approach is needed to address some of the emerging but increasingly important aspects of research data curation, such as management and publication of research data as important outputs, and their long-term digital preservation. Qatar National Library (QNL), launched in November 2012 under the umbrella of QF, aims to establish itself as a centre of excellence in Qatar for research data management, curation and publishing to address the research data-related needs of Qatari researchers and academics. This paper describes QNL’s approach towards establishing a national research data curation service for Qatar, highlighting the associated opportunities and key challenges.

ProMusicDB.org: Preserving Legacy With Artist-Centric Professional Music Data Curation

ABSTRACTTypically, curation is performed to preserve legacy of something or someone of significance in art, culture, science, literature, or any other discipline. In most scenarios, it is performed by an expert archivist or historian collecting artifacts and historical references. The more popular and documented the subject, the better the possibility of finding records leading to more comprehensive curation.In the case of music, curation has always been challenging as there are numerous genres, forms and types of music created on a continuous basis across the globe. Music professionals are collaborating and experimenting to produce new music on a regular basis. The activities and performances by each one of them is unique from an art and culture point of view and are, therefore, worthy of preserving.Empowering music professionals to take charge of their own data curation process can be a solution, as when musicians are themselves involved, they can offer first-hand information about every aspect of music they create or are involved in. In addition, musicians can also provide some form of official record to verify their participation. This artist-centric process can help a musician build and organize their complete professional portfolio covering every professional activity with complete metadata about their music career, which they can utilize to market themselves, or track potential income streams.In this article, a case study for ProMusicDB’s Professional Music Data Curation Service will be presented, detailing the process of creating the ProMusicDB profile of veteran artist/professional musician Clydene Jackson.