Archive for the ‘team-r&d’ Category

Free Conference Showcasing JISC-funded RIM Projects

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

A few places remain for the free conference showcasing the work of the second round of JISC-funded Research Information Management projects. It will be held at the Manchester Conference Centre on Tuesday 20 September 2011.

The JISC Research Information Management (RIM) Projects Final Event has been organised by JISC and UKOLN and aims to present the work of the following JISC-funded Research Information Management Strand 2 final projects:

  • Brunel Research Under a CERIF Environment (BRUCE) – Brunel University
  • CERIFy – UKOLN, University of Bath
  • Integrated Research Input and Output System (IRIOS) – University of Sunderland
  • Measuring Impact under CERIF (MICE) – Centre for e-Reseach (CeRch), Kings College London

The day will start with an overview of the strand, including its aims and objectives. This will be followed by a sneak preview of each of the projects’ findings, where each of the projects will seek to persuade delegates to come to their sessions. After the break, four parallel sessions will be held involving all projects; these sessions will be repeated in the afternoon. Therefore delegates will have an opportunity to visit at least two project sessions during the day.

Following the afternoon project sessions, there will be a number of presentations from projects that are building on the Research Information Management strand (e.g. from RMAS, Research Council, etc). The day will end with a plenary discussion focusing on the way forward.

Further information on the JISC Research Information Management (RIM) Projects Final Event is available, including a draft programme and a booking form.

KRDS Digital Preservation Benefits Analysis Toolkit Version 2

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

The JISC-funded KRDS-I2S2 Digital Preservation Benefits Analysis Tools Project is pleased to announce a new version of the KRDS-I2S2 Toolset (version 2). The worksheets, guidance documentation and exemplar test cases can be downloaded from the Project Web site.

The Toolkit consists of two tools: the KRDS Benefits Framework (Tool 1); and the Value-chain and Benefits Impact tool (Tool 2). Each tool consists of a detailed guide and worksheet(s). Both tools have drawn on partner case studies and previous work on benefits and impact for digital curation/preservation. This experience has provided a series of common examples of generic benefits that are employed in both tools for users to modify or add to as required.

The KRDS Benefits Framework (Tool 1) is the “entry-level” tool requiring less experience and effort to implement and can be used as a stand-alone tool in many tasks. It can also be the starting point and provide input to the use of the Value-chain and Impact analysis.

The Value-chain and Benefits Impact analysis (Tool 2) is the more advanced tool in the Toolkit and requires more experience and effort to implement. It is likely to be most useful in a smaller sub-set of longer-term and intensive activities such as evaluation and strategic planning.

The combined Toolkit provides a very flexible set of tools, worksheets, and lists of examples of generic benefits and potential metrics. These are available for use in different combinations appropriate to needs and level of expertise.

Guides for the toolkit and each individual tool and case studies of completed examples of the worksheets provide documentation and support for your own implementation. They are also available from the Project Web site.

DevCSI Repository Hackathon/Challenge at Repository Fringe 2011

Friday, July 15th, 2011

DevCSI will be organising a free Repository Hackathon/Challenge at Repository Fringe this year between Wednesday 3 and Thursday 4 August 2011, in Edinburgh.

Its purpose is to encourage repository developers, repository managers and experts in the domain, many of whom are attending RepoFringe11, to come up with ideas, and then for some to work on these prototypes during a ‘hackathon’. The ideas/prototypes will be presented to an audience and the best ones will receive prizes.

We are looking for entries that reflect the conference theme this year, Repositories Building Bridges & Social Innovation.

Further information about the Hackathon is available. To book for Repository Fringe 2011, a booking form is also available.

The CERIFy Data Surgery

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

The CERIFy Project has produced a report on the recent CERIFy Data Surgery held for project partners in Bath. Details about site visits, the resulting user requirements, project perspectives and the CERIF Standard as well as the business case for CERIF, are available in a news feature on the UKOLN Web site.

JISC Digital Preservation Benefits Analysis Tools Project: Dissemination Workshop

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Registration is now open for the workshop to disseminate the Digital Preservation Benefits Toolset and accompanying materials such as user guides and factsheets to the research community. The event, organised by UKOLN, will take place in London on 12 July 2011. Full details are available in the latest news feature on the UKOLN Web site.

CERIFy Data Surgery Will Report

Friday, May 13th, 2011

This two-day invitation-only event will be held in Bath over 19-20 May as part of the  CERIFy Project and will facilitate discussion of data, CERIF mappings and general networking for all project partners. Although this event is only open to the CERIFy Project partners, the discussions and workshop outputs from this data surgery will be made publicly available after the event. Please check the CERIFy Project Web site for further information. These outputs will be announced through this channel as well as the project Web site.

The CERIFy Project is funded by JISC from February to July 2011 to investigate how the CERIF Standard (Common European Research Information Format) for Current Research Information Systems (CRISs) could be used more widely within the sector in order to manage research data, to increase such engagement to a critical mass, and to support an emerging community of practice in Research Information Management (RIM).

CERIFy is working with four pilot UK HE institutions and one international commercial organisation (Thomson Reuters), which do not as yet have working CRIS systems based on the CERIF data format. The project will evaluate, test and demonstrate CERIF in a practical, ‘end-to-end’ process of people-centred organisational modelling, requirements elicitation, data analysis, data mapping, data exchange, and software demonstration, together with a programme of training, support, evaluation and dissemination.

Data Management Planning at ICED11

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

A paper written by the ERIM Project team has been accepted for presentation at the 18th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED11), to be held over 15-18 August 2011 in Copenhagen. The paper, Data Management Planning in Engineering Design and Manufacturing Research by Mansur Darlington, Alex Ball, Tom Howard, Chris McMahon and Steve Culley, will explain how the project characterised the nature of engineering research data and developed a modelling technique for visualising its context.

The ERIM Project is a JISC-funded collaboration between the Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Bath, and UKOLN in its capacity as part of the UK Digital Curation Centre.

I2S2 Benefit Use Cases

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

The I2S2 Project is pleased to announce the availability of two benefit use cases.

The Infrastructure for Integration in Structural Sciences (I2S2) Project is identifying requirements for a data-driven research infrastructure in ‘Structural Science’, focusing primarily on the domains of Chemistry and Crystallography. A key aim of I2S2 has been to develop use cases that examine the business processes of research, identify the costs and benefits of the integrated approach proposed by I2S2, and explore perspectives of ‘scale and complexity’ and ‘research discipline’ throughout the data lifecycle. During the course of the project, the complementary but often different perspectives of researchers and central facilities in terms of benefits were also recognised as significant and built into the use cases.
The I2S2 Cost/Benefit Use Case 1 (National Crystallography Service) traverses administrative boundaries between institutions and addresses issues of scale (local lab to mid-range national facility to national Diamond synchrotron) and provides a central service perspective of benefits. I2S2 Cost/Benefit Use Case 2 (Prof Martin Dove, University of Cambridge) applies the approach to Mineral Sciences and interactions between individuals, collaborative research groups and facilities, and provides a researcher’s perspective of benefits.

Each use case forms the source material for the Benefits Case Studies contributed by the project to the Managing Research Data Programme Benefits Synthesis Report.

Data Infrastructure Challenges, I2S2 Project Workshop, 5th May 2011, Leicester

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

The Infrastructure for Integration in Structural Sciences (I2S2) Project is pleased to announce a half-day workshop exploring research data management challenges in a range of contexts. This workshop, entitled Data Infrastructure Challenges: Working across Scale, Disciplinary and Institutional Boundaries, will take place on 5 May 2011 at the University of Leicester.

The half-day workshop will examine data integration and interoperability across different degrees of scale (from local laboratory to national data service to large-scale facility such as Diamond and ISIS), data flows between disciplines, and data exchange across and within institutional boundaries. There will be a particular focus on demonstrating the cost-benefits of effective data management and the relevance of different roles within organisations. A programme of expert speakers will share the experiences and outcomes from a range of pioneering JISC-funded projects, followed by panel discussion.

Full programme and registration details can be found on the I2S2 events page.

This workshop is to be co-located with the 6th Research Data Management Forum.

Digital Preservation Benefit Analysis Tools

Monday, March 21st, 2011

UKOLN is pleased to announce the launch of a new project focusing on development of a digital preservation benefits analysis toolset.

The Digital Preservation Benefit Analysis Tools Project is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and will run from 1 February to 31 July 2011.

The project  aims to test, review and promote combined use of the Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) Benefits Taxonomy and the Value Chain and Impact Analysis tool first applied in the I2S2 Project  for assessing the benefits and impact of digital preservation of research data. We will extend their utility to and adoption within the JISC community by providing user review and guidance for the tools and creating an integrated toolset. The project consortium consists of a mix of user institutions, projects, and disciplinary data services committed to the testing and exploitation of these tools and the lead partners in their original creation. We will demonstrate and critique the tools, and then create and disseminate the toolset and accompanying materials such as user guides and factsheets to the wider community.

The project plan and project outputs will be available from the Project Web site in due course. A dissemination event to mark the conclusion of the project will be held in central London on 12 July 2011. (Further details and registration will be announced in May.)

The project partners are UKOLN and the Digital Curation Centre at the University of Bath, the Centre for Health Informatics and Multi-professional Education (CHIME) at University College London , the UK Data Archive (University of Essex), the Archaeology Data Service (University of York),  OCLC Research, and  Charles Beagrie Limited.