The Importance ofGood Data Management

David De Roure

DAMES

LifeGuide

eStat

PolicyGrid

Obesity e-Lab

DReSS

OeSS

Genesis

Genesis

Rural communities

Creative Industries

Social Inclusion

Entertainment

Healthcare

highwire

Horizon

Media

Finance

Web Science

Current Nodes

e-Social Science

DE Hubs

DE DTCs

GeoVUE

MoSeS

MiMeG

CQeSS

HUB

NeISS

ncrm

m

m

m m

mmm

m

m

NCRM phase 2

Harnessing advances in digital technology and practice to achieve world-class social

research with maximum impact

www.digitalsocialresearch.net

We’re not starting from scratch

First?

“because good research needs good data”

…unless it can be found and it can be used

Data may as well not exist…

So avoid WORN archives (WORN = Write Once Read Never)

New forms of data, new challenges

data

method

http://www.myexperiment.org/

The Executable Thesis

new data

new results

executablethesis

PhD Student

A national facility for building better software• Better software enables better research• Software reaches boundaries in its

maturity cycle that prevent improvement, growth and adoption

• Providing the expertise and services needed to negotiate to the next stage• Software reviews and refactoring, collaborations

to develop your project, guidance and best practice on software development, project management, community building, publicity and more…

The Software Sustainability Institute

Thinking about projects in developmental stages, to allow funders – and the project leaders themselves – the opportunity to evaluate progress or potential along the way

1. We’re not starting from scratch– Best practice is out there and evolving

2. The social life of data– Find it and reuse it or may as well lose it

3. New forms of data, new challenges– Institutional secure data?

4. Data is only part of the story– Beyond the PDF, software too

5. Address incentives and reward structures– Can’t share vs won’t share

Summary

david.deroure@oerc.ox.ac.ukblogs.nature.com/eresearch

@dder

• Digital Social Research– http://www.digitalsocialresearch.net/

• Linked Data– http://linkeddata.org/

• National Centre for Research Methods– http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/

• myExperiment Project– http://wiki.myexperiment.org/

• The Software Sustainability Institute– http://software.ac.uk/

• Ithaca report– http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/funding-for-sustainability

Links