Moving data around: integrating repositories with research workflows for curating and publishing data

Abstract

The presentation draws on a use case from political science to demonstrate integrated scholarly processes for curating and publishing data. Curation activities are distributed across institutional and national websites, repositories, archives and registries. In workflows which prioritise existing research practice and disciplinary standards, the primary role of the repository is to move the data around – to apply standards and protocols that enable the data to be widely and openly accessible. Researchers provide structured metadata using a template based on the Data Documention Initiative , an international standard for describing data that result from observational methods in the social, behavioural, economic and health sciences. DDI metadata are mapped to standards (RDF, RIF-CS) which enable the institutional repository to disseminate and publish the datasets.The implementation supports researchers in comprehensively describing their research methods and data according to a widely-adopted disciplinary standard, and in depositing the data in a trusted national archive. The integrity of the institutional data repository is increased by its direct integration with the rich descriptions of data in the disciplinary archive. Added value for the institution is derived from the reporting capabilities of the repository, which links to enterprise systems to generate statistics about the University's research assets.