Research Data @ Essex Final Report

The Research Data @Essex project, funded under the JISC Managing Research Data Programme, piloted the development of a research data management and sharing infrastructure for the University of Essex. We developed an institutional research data repository, Essex Research Data (built on the EPrints institutional repository software; and in collaboration with the EPrints team at Southampton released the data repository App ‘ReCollect’ via the EPrints bazaar. This App allows institutions to set up their own EPrints-based data repository. Extensive in-house customisation was done to make the EPrints software - initially developed for hosting research publications - more suitable for storing and presenting research data. Development has focused on expanding the EPrints metadata profile to allow the capture of detail necessary for describing a wide diversity of research data collections, while also meeting standards relevant to UK Higher Education. The metadata profile adopted is based on DataCite (2012) and the European INSPIRE metadata schema (INSPIRE, 2009), and is compliant with the international specification Data Documentation Initiative 2.1. (DDI, 2011), used by the UK Data Archive and every social science data archive around the world. In addition, the user interface was adapted to showcase complex collections consisting of many files and associated metadata, alongside a refined deposit workflow. Work also included the evaluation and selection of suitable licensing agreements for research data; methodologies for attaching persistent identifiers to the data collections, including DataCite Digital Object Identifiers; and the development of a user guide for preparing and depositing research data in such institutional repository. The project team, led by the UK Data Archive, included staff from Information Systems & Services (ISS), the Research and Enterprise Office (REO) and Records Management at the University of Essex. We worked closely with four of the university’s research-rich departments: Biological Sciences, Essex Business School, Language & Linguistics and Computing & Electronic Systems. This involved evaluating current research data management and sharing practices, as well as ingesting representative sample data into the pilot repository, including proteomics and bio-imaging data, socio- linguistic data, artificial intelligence data and management research data. Close working with researchers ensured ample testing and polishing of the software. Besides the repository development, the project also developed an institutional data management policy for the university and a roadmap for compliance with the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) policy framework on research data. Data management guidance and training are also provided for the university’s research community.