Peter Burnhill Director, EDINA JISC National Data Centre, University of Edinburgh, Scotland UK

1. Roles & Responsibilities We Must All Be Curators Nowfrom Ingest to Service Delivery, in Data Library & National Data Centre Peter Burnhill Director, EDINA JISC National Data Centre, University of Edinburgh, Scotland UK 10 October 2006

2. Three different voices / roles • Director, EDINA National Data Centre • serving researchers, lecturers and students across the UK • so something about what EDINA is & what EDINA does • EDINA is funded by the JISC • so something about the JISC & the JISC IE • A time-served data person & fellow professional, from the University of Edinburgh • building on the past, planning for the future • A substitute for another guy … • trying to make sense of what is going on • working towards shared understanding • proposing a framework of verbs & nouns

3. Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) … … of all the UK funding councils for higher and further education Mission: “world-class leadership in the innovative use of ICT for support of education & research” Information Communication Technology Income mix of‘top-slice’ recurrent funding + capital grants

4. Funding Councils, the JISC and EDINA Further Ed funding bodies (Learning & Skills Council) Higher Ed funding councils Research Councils as ‘Partners’ UK National Data Centres NDCs are now HEFCE-related bodies

5. organisational infrastructure for JISC Services • UKERNA – runs Joint Academic Network (JANET) • EDINA & MIMAS – national data centres + • Arts & Humanities Data Service (AHDS) • Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) + • UKOLN; Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS); Digital Curation Centre (DCC); British Universities Film & Video Council (BUFVC); Technical Advisory Service on Images (TASI); Open Source Advisory Service; Nat. Centre for Text Mining; Plagiarism Advisory Service • JISC Legal/Monitoring/…TechDis ; Regional Support Centres; UK Access Management / Athens * most located in universities across UK *

6. What is EDINA? • A National Data Centre, designated by the JISC in 1995/96 • based on Edinburgh University Data Library, est. 1983/84 Missionto enhance productivity of research, learning & teaching in UK higher and further education • part of JISC Information Environment • Keywords have been Accessibility/Outreach/Inter-working/Inter-operability … • range of development projects and 24/7 services • Geo-spatial, about which more later .. • Scholarly communication & Multimedia • films & images; spoken word • Infrastructure for Digital Library • certificates; rights; middleware • SDSS -> UK Access Management Federation • And the name, what’s that stand for? • Edinburgh Data Information Access • ‘Edina’ is the poetic name for Edinburgh …

7. Delivering online services, 24/7 … http://edina.ac.uk http://edina.ac.uk/

9. Biog: as data person these past 25+ years … • Moved to the University of Edinburgh in 1979 • formerly science staff at Social Science Research Council (ESRC), 1974/77 • then medical statistician at Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital, 1978/79 • first as statistician & researcher (& senior lecturer) • with Scottish Education Data Archive, from 1979 • making survey data at Govt-funded research centre (CES) • from design, data creation and documentation, onto analysis • as survey methodologist in Edinburgh Survey Methodology Group • then recruited to do R&D for service delivery • setting up & managing Edinburgh University Data Library, 1984 - • Co-director, ESRC Regional Research Laboratory, Scotland 1986/90 • early days of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) • member of Data Task Force, Inter-Agency Global Env. Change • European Secretary (1993/95); President (1996/2001) of IASSIST • international assoc. for (social science) data librarians and archivists • Now EDINA & IS Directorate at Univ. of Edinburgh Was Set-up Director for Digital Curation Centre, 2003/4 to 2004/5

10. … maybe I’ve been a ‘data curator’ all along • Scottish Education Data Archive, late 1970s – mid ‘80s • Database of surveys of school leavers & cohorts of young people (16-19) • derived data, trend datasets over time, changing classifiers (eg Social Class) • integrating data from different sources, eg census ‘small area’ statistics • made available online but under ‘privileged’ not ‘open’ access’ • Edinburgh University Data Library, mid- ‘80s & on • Wider variety of datasets, obtained from others, often via others • A ‘local’ library of datasets • Easing access to data held elsewhere (eg UKDA) • made available online across ERCC wide area network and beyond • building databases, sometimes with special software, • ESRC Regional Research Laboratory, Scotland 1986/90 • early days of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) • Integrating ‘large-scale’ data, much geographic or geo-spatial • EDINA national data centre, mid-1990s & on • National online access to wider range of reference and source data • obtained under licence • required value-added ‘curation’ • Digimap as but one example

11. Software + application of cartographic skill/rules Software + default rules Value added component one example of ‘data curation’ 11000152100913Playing Field 0901103 120001016400000% 2100000010001004040097130 0% 15000155 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001055810075820 0% 15000156 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001057130076690 0% 15000157 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001060110075460 0% 15000158 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001063260074650 0% 15000159 0321 8010619 0000000% 2100000010001063370071760 0% 15000160 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001066730076700 0% 15000161 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001058910068550 0% 15000162 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001064490069040 0% 15000164 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001055710052730 0% 15000173 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001058730050390 0% 15000174 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001059520050430 0% 15000175 0321 0901103 0000000% 2100000010001056430049210 0% 15000176 0321 0901103 0000000% OS digital data

12. … maybe I’ve been a ‘data curator’ all along • Scottish Education Data Archive, late 1970s – mid ‘80s • Database of surveys of school leavers & cohorts of young people (16-19) • derived data, trend datasets over time, changing classifiers (eg Social Class) • integrating data from different sources, eg census ‘small area’ statistics • made available online but under ‘privileged’ not ‘open’ access’ • Edinburgh University Data Library, mid- ‘80s & on • Wider variety of datasets, obtained from others, often via others • A ‘local’ library of datasets • Easing access to data held elsewhere (eg UKDA) • ESRC Regional Research Laboratory, Scotland 1986/90 • early days of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) • Integrating ‘large-scale’ data, much geographic or geo-spatial • EDINA national data centre, mid-1990s & on • National online access to wider range of reference and source data • obtained under licence • required value-added ‘curation’ • Digimap as but one example • national repositories of digital content: Jorum, GRADE, TheDepot • Digital Curation Centre, 2004 & 2005 • strategic role: ‘data curation’ & ‘digital preservation’ • even wider range of databases (e-science), held by others

13. Authorising Institutions for free-at-point of use HE & FE funding councils Data Providere.g. Ordnance Survey Licensing Agent (JISC Collections) £ £ £ Value-added Service Provider £ Key role for Authentication (is-member of Institution) and Authorisation (is-licensed Institution) end user (staff/student) access Institution (Licence)

14. EDINA as national data centre • http://edina.ac.uk • 50% direct funding from JISC for delivering services • Good reputation for helpdesk, user interfaces, FAQs etc • 24/7,99% uptime • 50% is extra awarded for Development activity • Developing services; developing JISC IE; working with Researchers • Acknowledged project competence for R&D • Strategic role as Geographic Data Centre • For JISC (Digimap etc), for ESRC (UKBORDERS) • Building Spatial Data Infrastructure with NERC and internationally (OGC)

15. Existing Geo-data Services

16. Where are we with GIS? • University of Edinburgh & its Data Library have long run interest & experience • Geography Department (Coppock/Hotson; Waugh/GIMMS) & PLU • first MSc GIS course, and much else • ESRC Regional Research Laboratory for Scotland, 1987- • Launch of UKBORDERS in 1994 • EDINA has continued and extended that for geo-spatial data • JISC eLib project: access to Ordnance Surveymapping, 1996- • Launch of Digimap service, 2000 - • Extension of UKBORDERS, 2001 - • ‘Shared Services’ provision Go-Geo! (geo-data portal) geoXwalk GRADE – Geospatial Repositor for Academic Deposit and Extraction • Not all (only a fraction) of geo-referenced data at EDINA • Strategic importance of interoperability • GI web services • Interested in furthering the use of GI data across disciplines • Geo-parsing & mark-up; geo-finding; geoXwalk (vocabularies)

17. Disciplinary data-centres * Something’s special about the spatial * EDINA role as Geographic Data Centre? Slide ‘borrowed’ from Liz Lyon, & curated ..

18. 2. Getting back to Problem Statement ‘roles & responsibilities’ Some Thoughts, and Questions… • What resources, and how should we share? • What are ‘scholarly resources’? • What is special about scholarship? • What is different about digital? • Who should do what? • A division of labour that leverages • ‘responsibility’ and ‘expertise’ for curation • Means of service delivery • Find our place – in old and new geography • ‘words, numbers, pictures, sounds all to be digital & accessed from afar’

19. Scholarship: Services and Stewardship • Services, in support of scholarship, • Libraries have traditionally focussed on the formal part of scholarly communication • Relevance: searching strategies • new challenges: how to cope with digital everything? • Stewardship • Was ‘Special Collections’, now ‘Collections, inc. the digital’ • Ensuring provenance & continuing access • Digital curation, preservation & archiving • Sharing with future scholarship • Sharing with wider world • Research • What do researchers do, and what do they want/need? • eScience, Data, and ‘scholar workstation’ and the VRE • Learning and Teaching • What do students need? • What do teachers/lecturers need? • e-learning and the VLE (virtual learning environment)

20. Infrastructure to support four ‘demand-side’ verbs discover information object of interest e.g. article referenced in database, A&I, eToC, etc locate organisation offering service e.g. library (union catalogue/OPAC) or document delivery service request use of service via payment of money or privilege of membership access object of interest via personal visit, document delivery, online access based on MODELS workshops (UKOLN/JISC eLib)

21. Simplified workflow Discover Fit for purpose? Locate Access Curate Use ‘Publish*’ *Issue

22. Dataset publishing • Re examine concept of Dataset Publishing (Callahan, Johnson, and Shelley 1996) • analogous to publishing papers • rewards for publishing datasets (e.g. promotion, RAE) • procedures (e.g. standards to use, peer review) & resources to manage procedures • Should minimise time and effort required • need tools to assist in creation, maintenance and dissemination of dataset descriptions • Means of ‘putting’ into a public/community • Deposit and Share are too cosy • to ‘publicate, to issue • Terms of access and use • Open? • Privilege of membership • Payment of money

23. Repositories of digital content • So what is a digital repository? • I like (user) verbs, not (supply-side) nouns … • A repository is a noun that meets a set of (user) verbs/tasks, by supporting delivery of [services] for a given/designated client community: • Put [ingest service] • Keep-safe [storage service] • Get [access service] Motivation: • for the record? preservation; prospect of access • for re-use? curation; current access • Can we say, “Behind every great service, there is a wonderful managed repository”? No, not if access service does not have corresponding ingest service.

24. Repositories & OAIS Reference Model?? In a classic Repository, the DIP is the same as the SIP??In a data centre, and many data libraries, it rarely is.

25. Support for Research & research-led learning • Data, software and facilities • Data as ‘evidence’ • Data curation and digital preservation: continuing access • Data Archives and Data Libraries • Social surveys, and much more • IASSIST • International Association for data professionals (1972 -) • Members in Philippines and Vietnam • Census Programme • Small area statistics [MIMAS] • UKBORDERS (boundaries for thematic mapping) [EDINA] • EDINA Digimap Collection • Topographic mapping data, from national mapping agency • Marine & Geological mapping data • then there is the challenge of scientific visualisation, and observational images and documentary films!

26. Scholarly Communication • Access to commercial services & resources • Consortium licensing • ‘local’ hosting licensed data at National Data Centres (NDCs) • Focus on community-generated resources • Union catalogues (& links to ILL/docdel) - SUNCAT • digital library developments • Open Access repositories • “Put it in The Depot” (www.depot.ac.uk) • Need for Access Control as Middleware development • Shibboleth framework, developed as part of Internet2 • UK Access Management Federation for Education & Research • Managed by UKERNA, based on work by EDINA SDSS • replacing vendor’s UserID & password with community scheme

27. Scholarly Communication Author writes to be recognised by peer community & for institutional Research Assessment Excersise (RAE) purposes … perhaps to be read (content of) article is the ‘information object of desire’ Key User (Reader) Verbs: Discover article of interestLocate service on those articlesRequest permission to use serviceAccess to service/article Reader

28. Scholarly Communication(simple model: focus on article–length work published in journals) Author (article) Publisher article serial issue Licence Libraries and Publishers provide framework … the traditional ‘middleware’/infrastructure’ ... with Licence(s) for electronic (online) and print (on-shelf) £ Library (serial) Reader (article) P.Burnhill, EDINA/JISC, 2005

29. Scholarly Communication & Open Access(Access to article–length work) Forma£ economy ‘Digital Preservation’ ‘Open Access’ Author (article) repositories peer review Publisher article serial issue Licensed Online Access learned society ILL/docdel Licence peer exchange Institutional arrangement E-prints free2web access ££ Library (serial) Reader (article) Informal: ‘invisible college’ and the ‘gift economy’

30. Research Data Generates (curates) data for own purpose, or as part of team … wants/has to ‘put’ it somewhere for use by others (perhaps to be recognised by a peer community) Creator Key User (Researcher) Verbs: Discover data of interestLocate service on that data with documentation on provenance etc Request permission to use serviceAccess to service/data, Evidential value of data in analysis as object of desire’ Researcher

31. Data (simple model) Creator (dataset) Data Centre (database) Licence ... with what kind of Licence(s) for access? £ ?? (Data) Library who provides framework? … the ‘middleware’/infrastructure’ Researcher (data) P.Burnhill, EDINA/JISC, 2006

32. Doing Data Forma£ economy ‘Digital Preservation’ ‘Open Access’ Creator (dataset) repositories peer review Data Centre Authorised Online Access Institutional arrangement learned society Licence peer exchange datasets free2web access ££ Institution Researcher Informal: ‘invisible college’ and the ‘gift economy’

33. All Curators Now … Thank you p.burnhill@ed.ac.uk http://edina.ac.uk http://jisc.ac.uk

34. JISC Information Environment Architecture (Idealised) Technical Infrastructure for ServicesAndy Powell, 2005

35. Disciplinary data-centres * Something’s special about the spatial * EDINA has role as Geographic Data Centre Slide ‘borrowed’ from Liz Lyon, & curated ..

36. Support for Research & research-led learning • Data, software and facilities • Data as ‘evidence’ • Data curation and digital preservation: continuing access • Digital Curation Centre established (Edinburgh-led) • Data Archives and Data Libraries • Social surveys, and much more • IASSIST • International Association for data professionals (1972 -) • Members in Philippines and Vietnam • Census Programme • Small area statistics [MIMAS] • UKBORDERS (boundaries for thematic mapping) [EDINA] • EDINA Digimap Collection • Topographic mapping data, from national mapping agency • Marine & Geological mapping data • I could say very much more about Digimap!! • And then there are images and documentary films!

38. Focus on community-generated resources • ‘traditional ground for libraries’ • Union catalogues (& links to ILL/docdel) – SUNCAT • [SAsk me about SUNCAT] • ‘digital library developments’ • Resource Discovery Network • Inter-operability – not just http, but m2m interfaces • Digitisation • Newspapers, NewsFilm, Manuscripts … • DIWAN: digitising Islamic Materials in UK university collections • New challenge: Open Access repositories • International development – UK active • Institutional Repositories • ‘put it in The Depot’ – www.depot.ac.uk [not yet launched] need Access Management Federation for Education & Research • Shibboleth framework, developed as part of Internet2