We were very excited to be visiting the lovely city of York for the Digital Preservation’s event “From Planning to Deployment: Digital Preservation and Organizational Change”. The day promised a mixture of case studies from organisations who have or are in the process of implementing a digital preservation programme and also a chance for Jisc to showcase some of the work they have been sponsoring as part of the Research Data Shared Services project (which we are a pilot institution for).
On 5 April we invited Libby Bishop to give a workshop on how to share qualitative data. Libby is well known in the Research Data Management (RDM) world as the Manager for Producer Relations at the UK Data Archive (University of Essex) although she introduced herself as a “maverick social science researcher”.
Here at Lancaster University we are very excited to be part of a group of pilot institutions taking part in Jisc’s Research data shared services project. This aims to provide a flexible range of services which suit the varied needs of institutions in the HE sector help achieve policy compliance for deposit, publication, discovery, storage and long term preservation of research data. It’s an ambitious project but one that there is an undoubted need for and we are trying to work with Jisc to help them achieve this goal.
Last week we were invited down to Jisc London HQ to learn about the progress of the project and – just as importantly – share our own thoughts and experiences on the process.
Continue reading Jisc Research Data Shared Services March 2017
The below is a very quick summary of things that I found interesting, remarkable or funny at IDCC17. But before I start, a big thank you to Kevin Ashley and his team for organising such an interesting event with a varied programme! And thanks for all the conference pictures on Flickr!
The first Data Conversations happened on Monday, 31st of January 2017. Below is a quick overview of the action. You can find slides of four talks below.
The event was opened by Professor Adrian Friday from the Data Science Institute (DSI) who emphasised that the DSI is all about collaboration between disciplines which is also the spirit of Data Conversations. In fact the 25 attendees came from a range of Departments: Biological and Life Sciences, Chemistry, Computing, Educational Research, History, Law, Lancaster Environment Centre, Politics, Psychology and others.
Continue reading First Data Conversations 30 January 2017 – Summary of event & slides
Well… it’s probably quite hard to get to the truth of the matter but here at Lancaster we are trying to find out what researchers really think. This is crucial for developing and improving our services and vital for delivering the service our researchers want.
We are one of the organisations taking part in the JISC RDM Shared Services pilot and you can read their take on the work being done here. With JISC’s help we undertook a researcher survey to find out a bit more about the kinds of research data which were being produced, how the data were (or weren’t) being managed and researcher attitudes towards their data.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Pericles/DPC Conference: Acting on Change at the Wellcome Institute in London. The theme of the conference was moving forward with digital preservation; in other words taking steps beyond just the technical tools and looking outward instead of inward. There were excellent keynotes and panel sessions and useful and thought-provoking workshops. PERICLES (Promoting and Enhancing Reuse of Information through the Content Lifecycle) is a EU funded four year project which seeks to address the issues of managing digital preservation in an ever changing world.
Continue reading Acting On Change: Pericles/DPC Conference and DPA Awards London 2016
I attended the first Research Data Alliance workshop held in sunny Birmingham which was designed to bring together practitioners from across the UK to find out more about the work of the RDA. It was also a chance to see how we might be able to contribute and benefit from what the organisation has to offer. Despite already being a member of the RDA Interest Groups for Archives and Records Professionals, I confess to having been more of a casual observer than an active participant. So it was a brilliant opportunity to find out more about exactly what the Research Data Alliance is, how it works and what it hopes to achieve.
Continue reading Research Data Alliance UK Workshop, Birmingham 2016
The conference attracts some of the leading practitioners in the field so it’s a real privilege to be able to hear from and speak to people who are leading in research and development – creating tools, developing workflows and undertaking research into all aspects of digital management and preservation.
It will take a while to digest everything – there was so much to learn! – but I thought I would gather together some “highlights” of the session while still fresh in my mind.
Continue reading iPres 2016 – International Digital Preservation Conference Bern, Switzerland
I was delighted recently to welcome colleagues from across the UK to Lancaster University for an Archivematica UK User group meeting. It was the hottest day of September here in Lancaster and while the campus did look lovely I did recommend our wonderful campus ice cream shop* to help cool down.
Archivematica UK User Group is an informal group made up of people considering, testing or using Archivematica, a digital preservation system. Those who attended are at all different stages of development and have a wide range of collections that they manage. What unites us all is a desire to tackle digital preservation as best they can with the resources they have available and to share experiences with others in the digital preservation community.
What Archivematica is: an open-source digital preservation system.
What Archivematica is not: a magic bullet that will solve all your digital preservation needs.