Learn to cost, plan, manage and share social science data effectively

There are still places available for Planning, Appraising, Ingesting and Documenting Social Science Data, a one-day workshop at the UK Data Archive (University of Essex, Colchester) on 27 November 2013.

When it comes to dealing with the ever increasing commitments of research data, the UK Data Service continues to see institutions struggle with the challenges of domain specificity, in particular, how to treat social science data.

How do we help our local researchers cost, plan and manage social science data effectively and following best practice? How do we then appraise, ingest, curate and make accessible that mixed bag of data that a social scientist might have created? How can we effectively demonstrate the impact of sharing?

In this workshop UKDS will showcase our collaborative support and training materials that are being used to support:

• research support staff who face dealing with ensuring compliance with data management responsibilities set out in almost all research applications (as well as persuading them it's the right thing to do)
• institutional repository managers now charged with appraising, ingesting, describing and managing social science research data created by local academics.

The day includes hands-on work getting your hands dirty with data!

The workshop is best suited for those who are actively working with storing and sharing data for use in social science research, or plan to in the near future. This course is unlikely to be suitable for undergraduate or postgraduate students unless working specifically in a data archiving environment.

Course fees include all workshop materials plus refreshments and lunch:

· £30 for UK students

· £60 for UK academic staff (including research centres), ESRC researchers, voluntary and public sectors staff
· £150 for commercial and international participants

For a full programme and booking information: http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/news-and-events/eventsitem/?id=3556

DANS video promoting data sharing

DANS, the Netherlands Data Archiving and Networked Services, has published a video to promote storing and sharing data within the research community. The video is available in Dutch and English, and shown on the DANS Youtube channel. The title of the English video is 'Sharing data: good for science, good for you': http://youtu.be/HJbo-OAaJ1I

"Scientific research produces data. The lifetime of these data varies greatly. Stored on a hard disk or USB stick they are likely to be lost in the near future together with the storage medium. Luckily, there is another, more sustainable option, which benefits science.'

In this video Dutch historian Martijn Kleppe (Erasmus University Rotterdam) explains why he opened up his big photo database for other researchers to use, and quantitative data analyst Manfred te Grotenhuis (Radboud University Nijmegen) speaks about the treasures in data archives that are waiting to be discovered by researchers.

Both scientists made use of the online archiving system EASY from DANS (Data Archiving and Networked Services) in the Netherlands. As an institute of KNAW and NWO, DANS promotes sustained access to digital research data."

How to set up and run a data service: the challenges of social science data

A once-a-year opportunity for data archivists to go behind the scenes and learn first-hand from specialists at the UK Data Archive is happening on 28 and 29 November 2013.

Over two days participants will learn about the strategies and practices used in the Archive's daily work, with a focus on storing and sharing social science data, including microdata, aggregate, qualitative and historical data.

The Archive has over 40 years’ experience in selecting, ingesting, curating and providing access to data. We are a designated Place of Deposit for The National Archives and are internationally acknowledged experts in this field.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) will be supporting fully funded scholarships to attend this workshop.

Applications to join this event are now being taken. Further details and booking can be found at: http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/news-events/events.aspx?id=3543

HMRC consultation on data sharing

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is seeking views on the department sharing non identifiable information for the creation of general, aggregate and anonymised datasets, and on proposed safeguards.

The consultation also covers the potential benefits, costs / risks and necessary safeguards for proposals to share VAT registration data, either publicly or under controlled conditions for specified purposes, for example, credit rating. Views are welcome on the principles underlying these proposals and on the suggested approaches to implementation.

The consultation will run until the 24th September 2013. You can find out more information and download the consultation documentation from https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/sharing-and-publishing-data-for-public-benefit.

Training resources: Sharing, Preservation and Licensing of Data

The Research Data MANTRA project has announced publication of their final learning unit - Sharing, Preservation and Licensing: 

http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/preservation.html
(It may be necessary for you to refresh your browser to view it.)

Topics covered, through the usual combination of text, illustrations, videos and quizzes include:

About the unit
Story of a thwarted data user (case study from Clinical Psychology)
Why share data?
Sharing your research data
Data sharing: Benefits
Data sharing: Barriers
Data fabrication and fraudulent practices
Long-term data preservation: the risk of loss
Preservation and trusted repositories
Open data licensing
Open Data Commons
ODC Guide
Summary