JISC

The aim of this project was to provide exemplars of Data Audit Framework adapted to the current needs of data curation activities in University of Edinburgh, and to find what data the research community has, where it is located, and who is (or is not) responsible for it.

Executive Summary

The Data Audit Framework (DAF) Implementation projects – along with the Data Audit Framework Development project (DAFD) led by DCC/HATII - were conceived in response to recommendations made by Liz Lyon in the seminal JISC-commissioned report Dealing with Data (2007).

'A framework must be conceived to enable all universities and colleges to carry out an audit of departmental data collections, awareness, policies and practice for data curation and preservation.'

Liz Lyon (2007)

The DAFD project developed the methodology starting in April, 2008, and the Edinburgh project started in May 2008, as one of four JISC-funded projects to test the framework through implementation. The Edinburgh project finished end of November, 2008.

To be able to clearly address the issues in managing research data assets within the University we set out to implement the Data Audit Framework across three colleges, therefore a range of disciplines.

Our overall approach consisted of an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with research active staff across three colleges. In terms of the methodology we used the spreadsheetbased Data Audit Framework methodology developed by the DAFD project team in advance of the online tool.

The methodology was implemented in four stages:

1. Planning the audit
2. Identifying and classifying assets
3. Assessing management of data assets
4. Reporting and recommendations

The key outputs from the project were five case studies – the final ‘audit’ reports for each research unit audited. These were the School of Divinity, Economic and Social History, Centre for Integrative Physiology, Brain Imaging, and the Institute for Astronomy. None of the audits was a comprehensive survey of research data but they proved to be a good starting point to auditing research data holdings and investigating data management practices within the University.

The project achieved its aim in terms of providing exemplars of Data Audit Framework activity in a UKHE institution. In addition to carrying out the data audits and writing up the case studies, project staff engaged in a number of dissemination activities such as speaking at the DAFD launch and other events, writing newsletter and journal articles, and writing the Lessons Learned document. The interest in this activity can be seen by the great volume of questions that accompanied the project manager’s presentations about ‘lessons learned’ at two events (lasting over twenty minutes in both cases).

While further awareness-raising with the University and UKHE more generally is still important, staff require pragmatic assistance in the form of guidance on best practice, research unit or school procedures, College or University-wide infrastructure and policy, and identifiable forms of support for data curation in the form of expert support staff, web pages, and discipline-specific guidelines, as well as short, focused, training opportunities.

Fuzziness persists, in terms of defining the data types and currency of data to be audited, and particularly in identifying the locus of responsibility for further curation beyond the goals of using data as a means to the end of publication. If those conducting the audits are not considered to be the data owners, then there is a question about who the audit is being done for.

The DCC should continue to support the online DAF tool, and support and development for this should continue to be funded by JISC. Take-up should be monitored (there is evidence of interest from the US) and coupled with further strategic and pragmatic efforts to build infrastructure and support for data curation in UKHE.