Opening up research
librarians as leaders and collaborators
for change
Wendy White, Dorothy Byatt, Simon Coles
26 June 2015
Leadership culture
2
Governance that promotes cultural change
Influence & expertise
Associate Deans Research
PVC Research and DVC
PI representation
Listening & learning
External advice e.g. from UKDA and NERC
Data Centres on data steering group
Research
Services working collaboratively
Library with defined leadership role
Decision making
Disciplinary and thematic exemplars
Imaging, Data visualisation, Crystallography
and Data publication
Activity networks
Formal & Informal
3
Roles
Head of Research Engagement
• Networks, partnerships, policy
Associate Director of Library
Technology and Digital Initiatives
• Socio-technical, innovation, co-design
Director Office of Scholarly
Communication and Publishing
• Lifecycle, sharing for reuse, impact
See also: ARL, CARL, LIBER, COAR Task Force on Librarians’ Competencies in Support of EResearch and Scholarly Communication
https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/support-and-training/task-forcecompetencies/
Conference image Richard Scott https://www.flickr.com/photos/49085121
4
Bridge all strategic themes
Impact
Education
Research
Enterprise
Student experience
Staff experience
5
Strategy example -what are we leading?
10 year roadmap for research data management
• Policy framework implemented
• Working institutional data repository
• One stop shop for advice and guidance
• Agreed sustainable business model for active and archival
storage
• Expectation of early adopter disciplines, but institutional
roll out
6
10 Year Roadmap 3-6 years
• Able to respond to granular variation in discipline needs
• Comprehensive and affordable back up service for all
• Robust data management across whole lifecycle
• Infrastructure and workflows to support commitment to
open data and data publication
• Embedded RDM training
• Pilots with consortia
7
10 Year Roadmap 6-10 years
• Coherent and flexible RDM support and engagement for all
disciplines across the full lifecycle
• Agile plans for continual improvement - respond effectively
to new tools and opportunities
• Innovative open data publication
• Active participation in regional and national framework
agreements, continual input to building capacity and skills
8
Education strategy: training to curriculum development
PGR Directors
Module & course
profiles
Content
People
Level
Supervisors
Themes
Workshops
Labs
Online
Programme &
Module Leaders
PGR & ECR
researchers
Mode
Time
Point of need
Progression
pathway
Modular
9
Common data focussed PGT & PGR modules
DATA
ANALYSIS
ETHICS
RESEARCH METHODS
10
Networks
11
Policy development  Research engagement
• Encourage
discussion
• Raise
awareness
• Shared ethos
and services,
supports
disciplinary
difference
• Collaboration
key to develop
and
implement
policy
Assign roles,
responsibilities
Decisionmaking
framework,
governance
Commitment to
values,
approach
Promote
services and
guidance for
researchers
• Iterative
approach
• Agile
guidance
12
Share experts, grow experts, support experts
“built around concept of multi-functional team which could
bring together the knowledge and expertise of both
professionals and researchers within a flexible technical and
service framework”
Brown, Mark L. and White, Wendy (2013) Case study 2 University of
Southampton, in Pryor, Graham, Jones, Sarah and White, Angus (eds) Delivering
Research Data Management Services: fundamentals of good practice, Facet.
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/356247/
13
Experts collaborate to grow services
adapted with permission from Martin Lewis (2012) Working with other RDM actors slide 2
(http://www.rluk.ac.uk/content/clarifying-roles-libraries-research-data-management-discussion-day-find-creative-solutions
14
15
Preparing and depositing data – journal
16
17
Change Agents
18
Working collaboratively with PhD and Early
Career Researchers: agents for change
Project key aims and activity:
Imaging Case Studies
• Working to build good research data management practices across all disciplines
throughout the data lifecycle, focusing on cultural change and embedding
activity.
• Implementation of a formal Research Data Management Policy with associated
one-stop-shop guidance and desk-side support for Data Management Planning
• Developing formal and informal support for research data management
• Evolve technical improvement improvements to institutional systems to enhance
management, storage and accessibility
Scott, M. et al (2012) Data lifecycle
Fig.1 Introducing Research Data.
University of Southampton p.4
Supporting PhD and Early Career Researchers to investigate 2D
and 3D imaging requirements across disciplines
Portus Project 3D laser
scanning: Researchers are
producing more and more 3D
data within increasingly diverse
research contexts.
http://www.portusproject.org/
Photo: Gareth Beale, 2012
Multidisciplinary
Working with events through the existing network of
University Strategic Research Groups which focus on
multidisciplinary approaches to tackling leading edge
societal issues, including the Southampton
Multidisciplinary Research Forum for Early Career
Researchers
For example, Twitter Harvesting using ePrints workshop with Web Science DTC
reported on Digital Economy USRG blog
Reflectance Transformation Imaging
capture of brickstamps in Italy. Portus
Project Photo: Hembo Pagi, 2011
Training model
http://digitaleconomy.soton.ac.uk/
Rock Art Libya Photo: Hembo Pagi, 2009
Developing training for PhD students with a Service/PhD
student co-delivery model for Faculties and an organic model
of exploring issues with the Web Science Doctoral Training
Centre through their seminar series and spin-out activities
http://tweets.soton.ac.uk/
Training Materials
Case study based training guide
"We looked at five researchers' work from medicine, materials engineering,
aerodynamics, chemistry and archaeology, and produced case studies
showing the similarities and differences between the data types they
produce. A guide for first year postgraduate students was created containing
the case studies and an introduction to research data management. The
concepts in the guide has been presented as training lectures, ensuring
students start considering the problems associated with research data
management early in their careers. The feedback from students suggest that
being made to think about these issues is necessary and useful, and engaging
them at this stage helps cultivate good practices.“ Mark Scott
Scott, M et al (2012)Medical Data Fig. 5 & 6
Introducing Research Data. University of
Southampton p.9
“The Datapool 3D and 2D Raster case studies represent a chance to find out how specific kinds
of data are created, used and managed across a large institution such as the University of
Southampton. The Datapool project recognises that effective data management policy stems not
only from ensuring the efficient use of facilities but also from developing
deep understandings of how we work and the role which data plays in our research. This aspect
of the project aims to survey facilities and resources dedicated to working of these 3D and 2D
Raster data and to find out how these resources are used. Through making contact and
interviewing individuals and groups we are developing better understandings of how different
communities work and collaborate and manage their use of digital media.” Gareth Beale and
Hembo Pagi
Future: Build on structure by adding case studies in other
Embedding and working with other data management
developments to aid support for all disciplines
For example,
“The Heterogeneous Data Centre (HDC) project (JISC funded, Materials Data Centre) is delivering a
system to encourage sharing of data sets between materials engineering and medical communities. It
was built for managing materials engineering data ranging from small files (kilobytes) to very large
(gigabytes, for example, microfocus computer tomography data), using a file system for file storage and
a monitoring service to update a metadata database when data sets change. An interface for managing
additional data set features has been written in Microsoft SharePoint. The system supports data sets,
data set metadata, relationships and collections of data sets, security (to grant others access to a data
set), plugins at the data set and file levels, search, data set recommendations, and compatibility with
Eprints - the main data catalogue being developed through the DataPool project. The generic approach
we have adopted is enabling us to use it in a wider range of application areas such as Medicine.” Mark
Scott
Portus Project 3D laser scanning: Researchers are producing
more and more 3D data within increasingly diverse research
contexts. http://www.portusproject.org/
Photo: Gareth Beale, 2012
disciplines, for example, English
Future – “Across all disciplines”
Technical testing
Further expand support across all disciplines - ? Embed digital data experts in
disciplines as nodes for multidisciplinary knowledge transfer
Agents for change - Informing and piloting new developments, developing new
case studies
A group of PhD researchers from Music, Physics, Medicine, Geography
and Archaeology engaged with user testing for data deposit and
management. First test was the SharePoint development with a mixture
of structured feedback through a template and informal iteration and
mapping to their research questions. Lots of discussion and lunch
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/library/research/researchdata/
DataPool
Building Capacity, Developing Skills, Supporting Researchers
http://datapool.soton.ac.uk/
Acknowledgements:
Authors: Byatt, D., Beale, G., Earle, G., Pagi, H., Scott, M., Coles, S., White, W.
References: Scott, M., Boardman, R., Reed, P., & Cox, S. (2012) Introducing Research Data Faculty
of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton
(http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/338816/ )
Embedded
Librarians
http://www.itutility.ac.uk/
20
PIs as change agents
identity, outputs, equipment
• Academic lead, library co-ordination
• Systems
ePrints - equipment.data
- Gateway to Research
• Challenges
- Legal issues
- Academic buy-in
- Technical integration
• Jisc consortial ORCID membership
Collaborating for change - new methodologies
• New multi-disciplinary approaches (Halford, Pope, Wheal Halford,
Susan, Pope, Catherine and Weal, Mark J. (2013) Digital futures? Sociological
challenges and opportunities in the emergent semantic
web. Sociology, 47, (1), 173-189.doi:10.1177/0038038512453798 )
• Data infrastructure literacy & activism (Gray, The Politics of Open
Data: Past, Present and Future” at the Data Power conference at the University
of Sheffield, 22nd June 2015 http://www.slideshare.net/jwyg/the-politics-of-opendata-past-present-and-future )
• Citizenship, privacy, cybersecurity (Snowden, Facebook)
 About relationship between data, information and knowledge
 About access, exchange and analysis
 About libraries
Impact pathways
Publishing: involvement and innovation
23
Active engagement with publishing
May/June 2015
Jisc partners with
Open Library of
the Humanities
• Work actively with new
publishing models
• Get involved in roles,
boards
RLUK joins
Association of
European
University Presses
• Libraries leading on
University Press
developments – many open
CODATA Data
Science Journal
• Get involved as authors,
editors, peer reviewers in
our areas of expertise
24
Visualising the Laboratory Notebook:
A New Approach to Publishing Supplementary Information
S. J. Coles1, G. J. Tizzard1 and J. Kuras2
Introduction
1UK
National Crystallography Service, School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK, 2 Chemistry Central, Springer, London, UK
Supplementary Information supporting academic publications is not uniform across journals, is generally not 100% representative of the work undertaken, is not structured or comprehensive and therefore is often not fully considered in review. In chemistry articles where characterisation
techniques are applied widely, crystallography is the exception in that there are universally agreed processes and protocols for presenting the scientific findings and the supporting data. Crystallography can therefore lead the way!
Five 4-substituted methylidene oxindoles were synthesized by the Knoevenagel condensation of oxindole with para-substituted aromatic aldehydes and characterized in the solid state by x-ray crystallography and also by a range of other techniques.1 This class of compounds has
demonstrated anticancer properties, and inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2) and platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR), linked with angiogenesis.
All the experimental and analytical characterisation data for these syntheses was recorded in an electronic lab notebook (ELN) using the LabTrove system developed at the University of Southampton.2 The ELN is also a completely open lab notebook which allows other users to view and
share data thus aiding dissemination and reproducibility.
Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN)
Assignment of a Digital Object Identifier
• Supporting data in an article is often hidden in large and confusing PDF documents, and is summarised into a less useful form (e.g.
peak assignments, rather than the spectra), thus reducing experimental reproducibility.
• Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a system for identifying data in the digital environment by assigning a unique character string to a data
object.
• Opening up lab notebooks and supporting data means those interested and skilled in the techniques can see exactly what was done,
and assess quality and validity.
• Provides a system for persistent identification, management and linking of data.
• Each major data set within the ELN is assigned a digital object identifier (DOI). The primary dataset selected for DOI assignment is each
oxindole compound.
• This takes us back to the reasons for publishing research – so that others can take what has been done and build on it.
• Exposing the observations and recordings of the researchers who conducted the work at the time it was
performed, begins to address the problem of availability of supporting information. By combining these
observations and interpretations with related data held in information management systems and
repositories, and linking these with the article, there is potential for a much richer and more useful
system for handling data supporting the publication.
• All synthesis and characterisation data relating to each oxindole is tagged together,
assigned a have
DOI –an
which
means it to
can
bethe
referenced
journal articles.
• University ofand
Southampton
arrangement
use
DataCitefrom other
service
at the British Library to generate their own DOIs - the first UK academic institution to
use DataCite for minting DOIs.3
• The Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN)
plays a key role here by establishing
authenticity, adding structure to the record
and having the capacity to readily be
made open.
• The LabTrove system developed at the University of Southampton provides a highly
flexible electronic notebook
and data management system, for the capture of information
and its use in a collaborative environment.4
• Automatically captures information from instruments to enhance and improve the collective
utilisation and interpretation of data generated.
• Provides for user added semantics, and this can be used in linking
processes, data, and analysis; and facilitates the use of
templates (describing the way experiments or other
processes should be recorded, and enabling
the links between e.g. reactants, equipment,
products and resulting data).
• Additionally, DOIs are assigned to each
crystallographic record in the eCrystals repository.5
• Crystallographic data deposited in the eCrystals archive is maintained by the
Southampton Chemical Crystallography Group and the EPSRC UK National
Crystallography Service.
Visualisation
• A navigable array of images of the data in the ELN provides a bridge between
the article and the open ELN to guide readers to and then through the supplementary information.
• Represented as a zoomable table in the article, with the
supporting data for each oxindole compound in a
separate cell.
• Microsoft Silverlight Deep Zoom used as proof of concept, and the Deep Zoom
file of images is embedded in the paper.
• Using the scroll wheel the reader can zoom in and out of the high resolution Deep Zoom
image viewing the data within the article itself.
• Clicking on an image in the table links directly to
the full data in the relevant section within the
open ELN.
• Within the open ELN, full characterisation is available for
each oxindole compound through IR, 1H and 13C NMR,
DSC calorimetry and XRD.
• For the NMR spectra, the ASCII, FID and JCAMP-DX files can be down
and self-extracting fully interactive spectra can be viewed.
References & Acknowledgments
1 The
full paper ‘Synthesis and solid-state characterisation of 4-substituted methylidene oxindoles’ is published at Chemistry Central Journal, 2013, 7:182, http://journal.chemistrycentral.com/content/7/1/182. Full author list: Graham J Tizzard, Simon J Coles, Mark Edwards, Romanus
Oforbike Onyeabo, Mark Allen and John Spencer; 2 http://poc.labtrove.soton.ac.uk/synth_methyl_oxin/group/Condensation%20Products; 3 https://www.datacite.org/; 4 http://www.labtrove.org/; 5 http://ecrystals.chem.soton.ac.uk/.
We would like to thank the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for funding the UK National Crystallography Service and Jisc for supporting the development of eCrystals. Further thanks go to Ed van Daele, Mohamed Zougam and Dalmeet Singh Chawla for technical
Data visualization with granularity
Simon Coles, Andy Milstead
26
Unlocking theses data
• Survey of institutions and case studies looking at current practice and
ideas for future practice
• Aim for workflows which capture data to promote reuse as well as
thesis text
• Relationships between objects and identifiers - DOIs and ORCID
• Aligned with British Library for integrated national and institutional
services
http://unlockingthesisdata.wordpress.com
Other great Jisc dataspring projects http://researchatrisk.ideascale.com/
with wide community
input in UK
27
Open access for impact
Global and nodal
engagement
29
Shared Service Engagement
Shared
Services
Enthusiast
Community
Engagement
Further Innovation
Organisational
Commitment
Communities of Practice
Informal groups
Standards/Profiles
Aggregated Services
Research Data Alliance
CASRAI, OPDs
UK Research Data
Discovery
30
Research Facilities and
Equipment Sharing
DATA SHARING LANDSCAPE IN ACADEMIA
Sharing knowledge and
outputs with industry
providers (e.g. user groups
and knowledge networks)
Sector technology and
standards e.g. ePrints,
Pure, Agresso, Kit
Catalogue, CERIF,
CASRAI and ORCID
Knowledge exchange
through UNIQUIP
network
UNIQUIP
Project
(Network,
standards and
outcomes)
Project deliverables feeding
into data.ac.uk
Support for sector
technology and standards
development
JISC
GW4
Regional consortia
projects contribution
to project
M5
Strategy & policy
drivers
Academia
N8
SES5
Contributing to or
searching equipment data
RCUK
Accessing “data”
know how
Creating visibility
of research
outputs
data.ac.uk
equipment.data.ac.uk data sharing
National equipment sharing web and
development
portal
community
Data and
technology
standards sharing
(creating added
value datasets)
RCUK
“Gateway to
Research”
Project
Input from development
projects into Gateway to
Research portal (e.g. G4HE,
CERIF in Action, CASRAI UK
Dictionary)
31
Organisational Profile Documents
32
Alex Dutton, Oxford Chris Gutteridge, Southampton http://openorg.ecs.soton.ac.uk/wiki/Profile
Open Data Service
Developed in IT Services, collaborative user engagement and promotion, Local partnerships (e.g. City
Council), global users
33
Librarians advance Open
Science as…
Confident experts, but listening and
learning
Visionary, but adaptable and pragmatic
Leaders & trusted partners
34