A demonstration of the UK research data discovery service which is providing an aggregation of research data from our universities and a range of national subject based data centres, so that UK research data can be discovered, so providing a range of benefits including re-use. Prior to the demo there will be a short presentation on the work of the project to date - background, participants, progress, use cases, requirements and future plans.

1. UK Research data discovery service -
demo
Christopher Brown

2. Landscape
https://researchdata.ands.org.au/
http://b2find.eudat.eu/
http://www.openresearchdata.ch/
http://etsin.avointiede.fi
http://www.europeandataportal.eu/
http://data.bnf.fr/
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

3. From pilot to project
Building on the pilot work (phase 1) to lay the firm foundations for a UK Research Data
Discovery service that enables the discovery of UK research data and meetsJisc’s customer
requirements. Includes a test service, service operation plan and business case for its delivery
into the future.
» Project page – http://jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/uk-research-data-discovery
» Project blog – http://rdds.jiscinvolve.org/wp/
» #jiscRDDS
Phase 2 (Mar 2015 – Sept 2016)
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

4. Project team
» Catherine Grout – Project director (Jisc)
» Christopher Brown – Project manager (Jisc)
» Mark Winterbottom –Technical developer (Jisc)
» Dom Fripp – Metadata developer (Jisc)
» Ade Stevenson -Technical innovations coordinator (Jisc Manchester)
» Veerle van den Eynden – Data centre engagement (UKDA)
» Diana Sisu – HEI engagement (DCC)
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

5. Participating pilots – user engagement
» University of Hull
» University of St Andrews
» University of Glasgow
» Oxford Brookes University
» University of Edinburgh
» University of Oxford
» University of Southampton
» University of Leeds
» University of Lincoln
HEIs
» Archaeology Data Centre
» Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre
» ISIS/ICAT - STFC
» UK Data Service
» VisualArts Data Centre
» NERC
Data Centres
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

6. Governance structure – user input
» User group
› Provide feedback on the project progress and deliverables, ask questions and
share experience
» Technical and metadata advisory group
› Looking at the service from a technical standpoint and advising on the
development of the metadata schema
» User group – researchers
› As the overall aim of the project is production of a service to provide improved
discoverability of research data for reuse in research, it is critical that we provide
a mechanism for researchers to interact with and feedback on the development
of the service
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

7. Benefits – Why?
» Increased visibility and transparency of research data helps:
› Promotion of HEI/Data Centre’s research
› Re-use and sharing of data
› Validation of research
» Discovery is an important layer in research data infrastructure
» Reducing the barrier to participation in research by making the data discoverable
» Satisfying RCUK mandates and policies for open access to publicly-funded research
– providing a sector wide solution (will be part of Research Data Management
Shared Service)
» Potential increase in cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional research
» Supporting research across the research lifecycle (as part of Research @ Risk)
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

8. Who’s it for? Gather user stories
MoSCoW prioritisation
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo
Project / research manager
» Reporting to funders
» Find research outputs of my institution
Researcher
» Discover datasets
» Discover related objects / resources
» Find data across disciplines by location
» Find exemplar data to inspire my research
» Targeted search for topical data
» Visual search for data
» Find linked open data
» Understand metadata quality
» Understand data quality
» Show research impact
Machine
» Harvestable registry
» Show relationships between resources
Data repository
» Show repository impact
» Metadata rights respected
» Show licence and rights of data
» Index to external services
» Force refresh of registry content
System manager
» No duplicate records
» Harvest datasets
» Update platform software
Funder
» Return on investment
http://rdds.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2015/05/08/initial-workshop/

9. Metadata – a core schema
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo
Research data discovery service

10. Project to service
» Engage with participants through workshops and online meetings
» Gather user stories for a Discovery Service
» Choice of CKAN software following evaluation (CKAN and ANDS)
» Statement of Requirements - prioritised and refined through advisory groups
» Alpha site - http://ckan.data.alpha.jisc.ac.uk/
» System testing and gathering feedback
» Develop business case for service
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

11. Current issues
» Quality and completeness of metadata exposed by different HEIs and Data Centres
» Diversity in mandatory and optional metadata fields
» Open access, licences and copyright
» Access to external data source may require a log in
» Updates of harvested metadata to handle deletions/changes
» Usability of the discovery service
» Ensure functionality matches requirements
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

12. Current focus
» Alpha -> Beta (http://ckan.data.alpha.jisc.ac.uk/)
› Agile, rapid development of functionality against requirements and system testing
» Metadata (http://bit.ly/1QZVMCo)
› Finalising the core metadata schema with participants / advisory groups / research
community
» Scope of datasets (http://bit.ly/1Yy4MSy)
› Ensuring there is agreement on what datasets are harvested
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

13. Timeline 2015
Milestones 2015
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo
April-June July September-October November December
» Project plan
» Grant letters
» Initial Workshop
» Advisory Groups
» User Stories
» Metadata format
defined
» Prototype RDDS
development
» Call for proposal
(Inst’al Implem)
» Test harvesting
» RDDS initial
testing
» RDDS
prototyping
» User Stories refined
» Advisory Groups setup
(Tech and Metadata,
User, Researcher)
» Technical
Evaluation
Report
» CKAN installation
» Requirements
defined
» Data Centre
Reqs Report
» HEI Reqs
Report
» Use Cases
» Requirements
gathered
» Use stories ->
Use Cases
(refined/prioritised)
» High level evaluation
» CKAN selected as
platform
» Reqs defined from
use cases
» Metadata standard
format of service
defined
» Service proto
» Call for HEIs to pilot
inst’al impl.
» Test metadata defined
and harvested
» Iterative development
» Initial testing

14. Timeline 6
Milestones 2016
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo
January February-March April-May June-August September
» RDDS
prototyping
» RDDS testing
» Metadata format
/ standards
» Data Centre / HEI
Pilots
Implementation
Reports
» Service
Operational Spec
» Localised
implementation
and report
» Iterative development
» Testing
» Metadata format
defined, supported
formats agreed, export
format.
» Business Case
» Working service
software
implementation
» Metadata Tech
Report
» Metadata
Records/Stores
» Institutional
Implementation
Reports
» Metadata records
harvested from pilots
» Pilots have metadata
stores for harvesting
» HEI/Sector/Use cases
reports (Inst. Imp)
» Options and costs for
running a sustainable
service
» Implementation as a
service ready for
deployment
» Implementation
reports from Data
Centres and HEIs
» Spec on running as a
service
» Localised institutional
implementation /
deployment

15. Demo
Alpha site - http://ckan.data.alpha.jisc.ac.uk/
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo

16. jisc.ac.uk
UK Research Data Discovery Service
Contact
Christopher Brown
Senior Co-design Manager (Research)
christopher.brown@jisc.ac.uk
@chriscb
3/03/2016 UK Research Data Discovery Service - Demo