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We are starting up and partnering in a number of new and interesting consultancy projects which run into 2010 as follows:

Dryad is an emerging digital repository for supplementary data underlying published works in ecology, evolution, and related fields being developed by a consortium of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in the US and relevant scientific societies and academic journals. Its goals are to:

• – preserve all the underlying data reported in a paper at the time of publication, when there is the greatest incentive and ability for authors to share their data. This is particularly important in the case of data for which a specialized repository does not exist.

• – lower the burden of data sharing by providing one-stop data-deposition via handshaking with specialized repositories.

• – assign globally unique identifiers to datasets, thus enabling data citations.

• – allow end-users to perform sophisticated searches over data (not only by publication, but also by taxon, geography, geological age, biological concept, etc).

• – allow journals and societies to pool their resources for one shared repository.

• – enable bidirectional search and retrieval with data repositories from related disciplines.

The strategic priorities for Dryad emerged from a May 2007 workshop on “Data Preservation, Sharing, and Discovery: Challenges for Small Science in the Digital Era“, at which a variety of stakeholder journals and societies were represented.

I am pleased to announce that Charles Beagrie Limited will be working with the Dryad project team to develop a business plan and sustainability for the Dryad repository. Neil Beagrie and Julia Chruszcz will lead the consultancy with research support from Peter Williams. Further information on Dryad, the partners and the latest developments can be found on the Dryad website.

I2S2 – The  Infrastructure for Integration in Structural Sciences (I2S2) Project  is funded under the Research Data Management Infrastructure strand of the JISC’s Managing Research Data Programme, with a duration of 18 months (Oct 2009 to March 2011). It will identify requirements for a data-driven research infrastructure in “Structural Science”, focussing on the domain of Chemistry, but with a view towards inter-disciplinary application.

Two research data management pilots  will examine the business processes of research, and highlight the benefits of an integrated approach. Both pilots will address traversing administrative boundaries between institutions to national facilities in addition to issues of scale (local laboratory to national facilities, DIAMOND synchrotron and ISIS respectively).

A key component of the infrastructure will be a harmonised Integrated Information Model to include all stages of the Data Life Cycle. A “before and after” cost-benefit analysis will be performed using the Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS2) model, which will be extended to address specific requirements in I2S2. We are looking forward to working with UKOLN (University of Bath and DCC), The Universities of Southampton and Cambridge, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the project.

The latest Volume of Ariadne (issue 60 July 2009) publishes an article based on recent work by Charles Beagrie Limited and Serco Consulting for the UK Research Data Service (UKRDS) Feasibility Study. It should be of interest to an international as well as UK audience as may of the issues addressed apply to research and research data  issues in any national context.

Research Data Preservation and Access: The Views of Researchers present findings from a UKRDS survey of researchers’ views on and practices for preservation and dissemination of research data in four UK universities (Bristol, Leeds, Leicester, and Oxford) and place them in the wider UK and international context.

A preliminary report from the Survey was included in the UKRDS Interim Report . Elements of the Survey and its findings were also incorporated in the Final Report of the UKRDS Feasibility Study submitted to HEFCE . However space constraints precluded presentation of all the data and findings in full in these reports and they were mainly included in a separate unpublished appendix. This article therefore aims to publish more of this material and set it in its context  with updates from more recent published studies.

A landmark development has been announced with the merger of DSpace Foundation and Fedora Commons. Both are major players in digital preservation and open source content management systems particularly in the Higher Education sector. Both have been collaborating closely in recent years and the two organisations have now merged to form the new organisation DuraSpace.

DuraSpace will continue to support its existing software platforms, DSpace and Fedora but in addition is planning a number of new developments. The first new technology to emerge will be a Web-based service named “DuraCloud” – a hosted service that takes advantage of the cost efficiencies of cloud storage and cloud computing, while adding value to help ensure longevity and re-use of digital content. The DuraSpace organisation is developing partnerships with commercial cloud providers who offer both storage and computing capabilities to deliver this service.

I agree wholeheartedly with Cliff Lynch Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) who is quoted in the press release as follows:

“This is a great development. It will focus resources and talent in a way that should really accelerate progress in areas critical to the research, education, and cultural memory communities. The new emphasis on distributed reliable storage infrastructure services and their integration with repositories is particularly timely.”

For further information on DuraSpace see the new website and press release .

A potentially important development in digital curation is the creation of a new International Society for Biocuration.

The mission of the Society will be to:

1. Define the work of biocurators for the scientific community and the public funding agencies;
2. Propose a discussion forum for interested biocurators, developers, scientists and students.
3. Organize a regular meeting where biocurators will be able to present their work and discuss their projects.
4. Lobby to obtain increased and stable funding for biocuration resources that are essential to research;
5. Build a relationship with publishers and establish a link between researchers and databases through journal publishers
6. Organize a regular workshop where new biocurators, or interested students can be trained in the use of the common tools needed for their work.
7. Provide documentation on the use of common database and bioinformatics tools.
8. Provide ‘Gold Standards’ for databases, such as the use of unique, traceable identifiers, use of shared tools, etc.;
9. Share documentation on standards and annotation procedures with the aim of developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
10. Foster connections with user communities to ensure that databases and accompanying tools meet specific user needs;
11. Maintain a biocurator job market forum.

The new Society will have its official launch at the 3rd International Biocuration Conference 16-19 April 2009 in Berlin.

JSTOR and Ithaka have recently announced the merger of their organisations. The new combined enterprise will be called Ithaka and will be dedicated to helping the academic community use digital technologies to advance scholarship and teaching and to reducing systemwide costs through collective action.

JSTOR was founded in 1995 by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as a shared digital library to help academic institutions save costs associated with the storage of library materials and to vastly improve access to scholarship. Today, more than 5,200 academic institutions and 600 scholarly publishers and content owners participate in JSTOR.

Ithaka was started in 2003 with funding from the Mellon Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation. It is probably best known for incubating and hosting Portico its digital preservation service for e-journals and e-books. Ithaka is also the organisational home to NITLE, a suite of services supporting the use of technology in liberal arts education and has produced a number of influential reports including the 2007 “University Publishing in A Digital Age” and the 2008 “Sustainability and Revenue Models for Online Academic Resources.”

The merger makes sense in containing expenses at a time when endowments are under severe pressure. JSTOR and Ithaka already work closely together (for example over the Portico service) and share a common history, values, and a fundamental purpose. During 2008, the Ithaka-incubated resource Aluka was integrated into JSTOR as an initial step, further strengthening ties between the organisations. JSTOR will now join Portico and NITLE as a coordinated set of offerings made available under the Ithaka organisational name. In addition to JSTOR, Portico, and NITLE, Ithakas existing research and strategic services groups will be important parts of the enterprise.

Kevin Guthrie will remain President of Ithaka and Michael Spinella from JSTOR will become Executive Vice-President. The board will be composed of Ithaka and JSTOR Trustees, with Henry Bienen, President of Northwestern University, serving as Chairman and Paul Brest, President of the Hewlett Foundation as Vice Chairman.

Early in 2008 there was a lot of excitement around the announcement that Google was about to launch a free service for hosting research datasets as noted in our blog posting Google to host research datasets twelve months ago.

Less widely reported so far – and I had missed it until I saw it in the Open Access News – was the report by Wired that Google has withdrawn the proposed service first known as Palimpsest (and later re-named Google Research Datasets).

Unfortunately the proposed service seems to have fallen prey to the credit crunch. The issue of sustainable funding for long-term services for datasets and the challenges of doing this in the current commercial environment are thrown into stark relief. For further information and comment see the Wired blog Google shutters its Science Data Service.

I am pleased to forward the announcement that the final report for the UK Research Data Service (UKRDS) Feasibility Study Project has been submitted and an International Conference on the UKRDS Feasibility Study will be held at The Royal Society, London on Thursday, 26 February 2009.

Booking for this international conference of senior policymakers, funders, scientists, IT managers, librarians and data service providers has now opened: Attendance at the conference is free. Places are limited, so early booking is advised.

The UKRDS feasibility study was commissioned to explore a range of models for the provision of a national infrastructure for digital research data management. It has brought together key UK stakeholders, including the Research Councils, JISC, HEFCE, British Library, Research Information Network, Wellcome Trust, researchers, and university IT and library managers, and it builds on the work of the UK’s Office of Science and Innovation e-infrastructure group. It also takes into account international developments in this area.

The UKRDS final report is due to be released soon and makes important recommendations for investment in this key part of the UK national e-infrastructure.

The study has been funded by HEFCE as part of its Shared Services programme, with additional support from JISC, Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and the Russell Group IT Directors (RUGIT). It has been led by the London School of Economics, with Serco Consulting as lead consultants supported by Charles Beagrie Limited and Grant Thornton as sub-contractors.

I find it difficult to gauge the impact of different JISC studies other than ancedotally and as an author of JISC-funded reports I often wonder what the take-up has been, so I was intrigued to see a brief new section in the latest Autumn 2008 issue 23 of JISC Inform devoted to the Top five publications…

I understand from colleagues this represents a snapshot of the top five monthly downloads when Inform went to print (i.e. October 2008). Downloads probably peak during the first few months of publication so I have added month of publication as an additional factor/caveat in to the rankings which were as follows:

Top five publications..

1. What is Web 2.0? TechWatch report (March 2008)
2. Great expectations of ICT: JISC briefing paper (June 2008)
3. Keeping research data safe: Charles Beagrie report (May 2008)
4. Shibboleth – connecting people and resources: JISC briefing paper (March 2006)
5. Information behaviour of the researcher of the future (‘Google Generation report’): CIBER report (January 2008).

JISC is quite a large specialist publisher: there have been 28 JISC Reports and 24 JISC Briefing Papers published in 2008 alone so far, so there is stiff competition to get into the listings and I was chuffed to see Keeping Research Data Safe at No. 3.

It was even nicer to hear that the listings had a new Number 1 in November: the Digital Preservation Policies Study (October 2008) was the runaway no. 1 with over 2,500 downloads.

Christmas must have come early this year 🙂

I have been reading through the report of a recent (July 2008) survey investigating preservation strategies amongst members of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP). It makes interesting reading and overall is a very worthwhile report. The report is available as a free pdf download from the ALPSP website.

The responses came from 68 publishers out of a total ALPSP membership of 240 (just over 23%) so results need to be treated with some caution and the respondents may be less representative than a true sample.

Key Findings were:

1. The majority of ALPSP publishers who responded to the survey believe long-term preservation to be a critical issue: 91% either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Long-term preservation is an issue which urgently needs to be addressed within the industry.” 9% were neutral; no-one disagreed.

2. ALPSP publishers are strongly motivated to engage with preservation because of its critical importance to their customers, with over 90% of respondents citing this as a major motivating factor: a heartening response for those in the library community.

3. Although 68% of publishers reported understanding of preservation issues within their organisation to be either ‘good’ or ‘reasonable’, the survey also revealed a wide range of concerns suggesting an overall lack of confidence, at least for the present. The survey revealed a strong desire amongst almost all publishers for the development of ‘best practice’ and industry standards.

4. There is some confusion surrounding the nature and extent of publisher participation in long-term preservation schemes, with high numbers of respondents declaring their organisation to be participating in one or more initiatives and yet the schemes themselves reporting substantially lower numbers presently taking part.

5. Publisher views on who should take responsibility for long-term preservation also reveal some interesting contradictions: despite presently supporting a range of preservation schemes, a significant majority of publishers indicated they would in fact prefer other groups and institutions to take this responsibility on. National libraries in particular were a popular choice.

6. Finally, the survey revealed most publishers are clear about the distinction between ensuring long-term access and ensuring long-term preservation, with the majority believing they have clear responsibility for long-term access. A worryingly high number however admit to either not trusting their present strategy or not currently having any strategy to deliver here.

Issus which particularly struck me were:

Key finding 4 – the high number of publishers (77%) who thought they were participating in one or more preservation schemes but in fact were/had been involved in time-limited trials which had lapsed, etc. The reality check showed the need to clarify which schemes publishers are truly and fully supporting.

Key findings 5 and 6 – there is still lack of clarity and understanding of digital preservation in terms of continuing/perpetual access (archiving guarantees and ongoing access rights of subscribers to paid content) and legal deposit (public good archiving for the long-term with limited access rights for non-subscribers). The issues can overlap in some services being offered by national libraries and both are “digital preservation” but the different user groups and rights mean it is helpful for them to be distinguished.

Perhaps a final key finding that could be added is that there is a significant and urgent opportunity to work with publishers on developing digital preservation strategies and practice. Whilst a majority of ALPSP publishers in the survey feel they have a responsibility for long-term (continuing/perpetual) access a substantial number do not have strategies in place to support this. The report suggests a strong need for an industry-wide working group, perhaps modelled on project COUNTER or project TRANSFER, through which publishers, librarians, preservation organisations and intermediaries, can map out the road ahead for digital preservation. The urgency is underlined by the fact that 75% of the respondents concurred with the survey statement question that “It is inevitable that, at some point in the future, access to some scholarly e-journals will be permanently lost due to a lack of preservatrion strategy”.

I have been tracking national research initiatives in Australia, Canada, UK and USA in various blogs over previous months. Another potentially very important national initiative can now be added to the list from Germany.

An alliance of scientific organisations in Germany which includes all the majors players such as Deutsche Forschungsgemeinshaft (DFG, the German Research Foundation), Fraunhofer Society, Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, and the Max Planck Society, have signed a joint national e-infrastructure policy initiative with six priority areas focusing on:

• National licencing of e-journals;
• Open Access;
• National hosting strategy for preservation of e-journals;
• Preservation and re-use of primary research data;
• Virtual research environments; and
• Legal frameworks (focusing on copyright law and equalising VAT treatment on print and electronic publications).

The Alliance agreed to coordinate the activities of the individual partner organisations and to expand on the ideal of the innovative information environment by means of a Joint Priority Initiative from 2008 to 2012 with the following goals:

• to guarantee the broadest possible access to digital publications, digital data and other source materials;
• to utilise digital media to create the ideal conditions for the distribution and reception of publications related to German research;
• to ensure the long-term availability of the digital media and contents that have been acquired from round the world and their integration in the digital research environment;
• to support collaborative research by means of innovative information technologies.

Further information on the initiative is now available to download as a PDF in English or you can brush up your language skills (as I did or at least tried to) and read it in the original German 🙂