The Australian National Data Service

1. The Australian National Data Service Ross Wilkinson Feb 26th 2009

2. Role of data Who cares? • The Australian Govt - $24M for ANDS • The institutions – the Code • The disciplines?? …and researchers should care.. With more data online, more can be done Possible now to answer questions unrelated to reasons why data was collected originally Increasing focus on problems across disciplinary boundaries

3. Australian Code for theResponsible Conduct of Research • It describes the responsibilities of institutions and researchers in the management of research data and primary materials • Institutions are to retain research data, provide secure data storage, identify ownership, and ensure security and confidentiality of research data • Researchers are to retain research data and primary materials, manage storage of research data and primary materials, maintain confidentiality of research data and primary materials http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/_files/r39.pdf

4. Why should researchers care – and why not? • The code requires them to • The role of data citation • The changing nature of research .. but the costs often outweigh the benefits, so ANDS needs to change the equation

5. Role of data citation – fame! Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate 48% of 85 cancer microarray clinical trial publications with publicly available microarray data received 85% of the aggregate citations Piwowar HA, Day RS, Fridsma DB (2007) Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate. PLoS ONE 2(3): e308. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000308

6. Mapping the Human Genome • Took a large team of scientists 10 years to map the 30,000 genes that describe the human body • In 2007, Craig Venter, published his complete DNA sequence, unveiling the six-billion-letter genome of a single individual for the first time • The work required a large team using new instruments to produce a large dataset – indeed 2 competing large teams! • No single lab could have completed this project with available technology in a reasonable time

7. The Hubble Telescope • The Hubble telescope launched in 1990 • Increasing focus on cross-disciplinary science • Observations are proposed, and if accepted, data is collected and made available to the proposers – who then write a research paper • Each year around 1,000 proposals are reviewed and approximately 200 are selected, for a total of 20,000 individual observations • The data is stored at the Space Telescope Science Institute • There are more research papers written by “second use” of the research data, than by the use initially proposed

8. How? ANDS has been structured as four co-ordinated inter-related service delivery programs: • Frameworks • Utilities • Seeding the Commons • Capability Development Plus service development funded through NeAT projects in partnership with ARCS

9. Frameworks Influencing relevant national policies Building common understanding of data management issues and solutions across government, research funding agencies, and research intensive organizations Encouraging move in favour of culturally-relevant default sharing practices

10. Utilities • Building and delivering national technical services to support the data commons • Examples: • Discovery • Both “you come to us” and “we come to you” flavours • Persistent identifier • Collections registry • Mostly outsourced delivery

11. Seeding the Commons Improving and standardising institutionally supported repositories Supporting Australian research data being routinely deposited into stable and sustainable data and preservation environments Working with existing document and data repositories; big focus on content recruitment Will need to provide targeted assistance for things ANDS cares about most

12. Capability Development Assisting researchers to align their data management practices with the needs and outputs of ANDS Assisting communities to do things that increase quantity and quality of data available to the data commons Learning from existing best practices Building culturally-relevant default sharing practices

13. Early Deliverables • A national collections registry service • A national persistent identifier service • A national discovery service • Examplar discoverable data spaces • Water?, Crystallography?, Law?, Biosecurity • Early advise on data capture and management practise • Partner with ITS and ARCS for local repositories and storage • Not a national storage and management facility

14. The Vision

18. ISO2146

20. What do researchers get? • Locally managed data in a repository • Meets required practise, and enables personal re-use • Persistently identified data • Enables data to be a first class research output • Explorable data • Enables data to be explored in the context of the research group, the institute, the collection, the research project • A rich discovery environment • ANDS has to help lower the cost of data provision and increase the benfits of sharing

21. Success in managing the data driven research world: More researchers re-using data more often So we need: • Lower the costs and raise the benefits • Data is seen as a first class research output • Culture change • Partnerships Thanks.