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Research Data Access and Preservation Summit Panel 2 - Promoting Re-Use of Scientific Collections

Research Data Access and Preservation Summit Panel 2 - Promoting Re-Use of Scientific Collections Some responses to the questions posed... John Harrison SHAMAN Project University of Liverpool john.harrison@liverpool.ac.uk. How do you handle organization of collections today?.

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Research Data Access and Preservation Summit Panel 2 - Promoting Re-Use of Scientific Collections

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  1. Research Data Access and Preservation Summit Panel 2 - Promoting Re-Use of Scientific Collections Some responses to the questions posed... John Harrison SHAMAN Project University of Liverpool john.harrison@liverpool.ac.uk

  2. How do you handle organization of collections today? • We created a highly structured hierarchy of directories within our storage system (currently iRODS) • Allows logical separation, but association of: • Collection data • Supporting documentation (context, provenance) • System • Policies • Software code • Configurations, Workflows • Discovery mechanisms (indexes)

  3. What are the biggest issues with building collections for new communities? • Scalability; quantity of data is increasing rapidly • More important to select, and prioritize data with most potential to be useful to future generations. • Mechanisms for identifying useful items in large reference collections become more important.

  4. When new communities access existing data collections, what new access capabilities are required? • It's difficult to generalize; depends a great deal on expectations of the community in question. • Viewing the data will be essential for all communities • One important aspect of our approach has been to develop a display technology, independent of the originating application • Emulation, but with a layer of abstraction from the operating system (Java Virtual Machine) • Provides a platform for development of new and unforeseen capabilities for interaction with legacy (potentially obselete) file formats.

  5. What level of description is required to meet the expectations of new communities? • Impossible to say for certain. Expectations evolve as technology develops. • Best we can do: • Rigidly adhere to most stringent and well documented standards of today. • Preserve the means for future generations to interpret these descriptions by preserving documentation on the standard • Tag libraries + Schemas for XML • Ontologies

  6. Is long-term sustainability enabled through re-purposing of collections? • Theoretically, yes; only time will tell for sure • Best change of achieving sustainability by using open standards to describe: • Digital objects, their structure and associations • Metadata (digital objects and the archive as a whole) • Data management policies and processes

  7. Are there other driving purposes behind promoting re-use of collections? • Data may provide insights into unforeseen areas. • e.g. results of drug trials might inform future drug development in the pharmaceutical industryIn such a highly regulated industry, the ability to get back to raw data to ensure authenticity is very important!

  8. Which institutions can be approached for sustaining re-purposed collections? • So far, it seems to be mainly memory institutions that are looking at issues of digital preservation (Libraries, Archives, Museums) • Anyone with significant data should be thinking about issues surrounding preservation of their knowledge/information assets. • In the future, funding bids should consider the costs of preserving the results of their research. • I think inevitably many organizations will end up out-sourcing digital preservation.

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