The RUresearch Data Portal: Providing Customized Access for

Specific Types of Data and Primary Users

Mary Beth WeberHead, Central Technical Services

Rutgers University Libraries

NSF Data Management Plan• On January 18, 2011, the NSF stipulated that proposals

submitted for consideration are required to include a supplementary document labeled "Data Management Plan" (DMP) describing how the proposal will conform to NSF’s policy on dissemination and sharing of research results.

• Proposals lacking a DMP won’t be considered.• See the

NSF Grant Proposal Guide, Chapter II.C.2.j and Data Management and Sharing FAQ for more information.

RUcore• RUcore = Rutgers University Community Repository• Three collections: digital collections, research

material, scholarly works• Contains 19,000+ objects• Collections include ETDs, historic maps, grant

supported projects (New Jersey Digital Highway, Video Mosaic Collaborative)

• Special services such as faculty deposit, custom portals, online submissions of ETDs

• Uses Fedora Commons repository architecture• Workflow Management System (WMS) used for object

handling and metadata

Content divided into 3 collections

Faculty research data portal

RUcore: http://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/

http://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/research/

RUresearch Services• Free assistance and advice• Customized search and retrieval portal• Ongoing management and support for data• Fee structure (if applicable) • Robust preservation• Metadata• Access control• Associated information

Assistance and Advice• Design a data strategy and prepare the data

management component of a grant proposal.• Identify the data model: What data is being captured

and how does it interact with other data in the researcher’s environment?

• Design a metadata strategy to best describe data to ensure colleagues and those in related disciplines can find andre-use data.

• Make data discoverable: RUcore offers a custom search portal that can easily be incorporated into a project website

Customized Search and Retrieval Portal

• RUcore portal application enables researchers to select metadata elements to filter searches and display in search results.

• Search and retrieval portal easily incorporated into project websites using iFrames technology or Drupal.

• The Equine Science Center Portal and the Video Mosaic Collaborative are examples of custom portals.

Ongoing Management and Support for Data

• Long-term sustainability of data deposited in RUcore.• Dedicated team engaged in support of RUcore.• RUcore team has contributed significant open source

software to the profession including Open ETD and Open WMS.

Robust Preservation• Data Curation Research Center and a full-time Data

Curator.• Industry best practices for digital file preservation

(multiple backups and restoration); persistent identifiers (handles) that use metadata to continuously locate files; storage of files in multiple formats; use one or more vendor independent non-proprietary canonical formats when possible; original file format is always maintained.

• Excel and CSV are the most commonly used formats for data.

• Investigating XML and RDF for web-based canonical formats.

• Community specific data standards such as DDI for social science and survey data may be used as needed.

Metadata• Hybrid metadata schema that draws on MODS,

Premise and local standards.• Ability to display and export records in different

standards, including those used by a given research community (DDI, Darwin Core, PBCore, etc.).

• Design customized metadata specific to a given project’s needs.

Metadata (continued)

Access Control• Rights statement explaining how others may use a

given researcher’s work. • Can provide an embargo period for data for a specified

time period. Embargo note will indicate that data currently isn’t available.

Associated Information• Data that’s collected and shared with others (grant

proposals and methodology, lab or experiment notes, images, video, etc.) during the research process.

• Capturing can be more complex than storing and providing access to data itself.

Research Data Lifecycle• Build relationships between data objects within the

repository architecture. Fedora open source repository architecture creates a compound object that pulls together data and associated information.

• Capture associated objects in digital form and store in the repository as part of the compound digital object package. They’re preserved with the data. • Provide context by organizing associated objects and

making them available in a meaningful way. Rights metadata and events in the life cycle of an object are used to document the “who, what, where, when and why” of context about research and its supplementary materials.

PROJECT

Experiment

Trial Data Analysis

Data Collection Hierarchy

Associated objects:Design documents;Grant proposal;Hypothesis;Methodology;Grant award;IRB protocol;

Research Data Lifecycle

Publication

Associated objects:Field notesLab notesData correctionsInstrument calibrations

Associated objects:Code bookSoftwareArticle, dissertation, etc.

RUcore metadata uses an event based metadata to track various events in the lifecycle of an object.

• Each lifecycle event is situated in a specific time and place.

• Events can be displayed in portals

• No limit to the number and type of events that can be added.

Data-centric View of Events

Custom Portals

•Offer customized searching that’s configurable, easy to use, tailored to an expert user group, and available to a lay audience through RUcore.•Equine Science Center•Video Mosaic Collaborative provides access to videos to support teaching and research.

Equine Science Center

http://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/portals/equine/

Customized searching based on data

Search on “draft crosses” produces 31 results

Choice of video formats

Ability to view complete metadata record

Complete metadata record has four parts: descriptive, source, technical, rights.

Descriptive metadata

Source metadata

Rights metadata

Technical metadata

http://videomosaic.org/

Customized search terms based on data

Search on the term “pizza” produces a results set. Videos are accompanied by transcripts and other associated objects.

Transcript that accompanies VMC video

Student work that accompanies VMC video

Analytic that accompanies VMC video

What is an Analytic?• Single resource constructed of a series of events

constructed by the researcher• Provide connections between disparate resources along one

or many threads of research in ways that might have never been conceived.

RUcore Analytic Tool• An annotation tool that enables a researcher to

structure a video into meaningful events that can be analyzed using a structured conceptual taxonomy and through free-text annotations. Multiple analytic events, across one or more videos, can be combined to create units.

RUcore analytic tool

http://videomosaic.org/viewAnalytic?pid=rutgers-lib:35294

Ability to share videos using various social media.

Additional Resources • Data news: RutgersData

http://rutgersdata.wordpress.com • LibGuide: http://libguides.rutgers.edu/data • Data Management:

http://libguides.rutgers.edu/datamanagement