Digital Curation: A How-To-Do-It Manual

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Chapter 15: Using and Reusing Data

Chapter 15 notes the DCC Curation Lifecycle Model's Sequential Actions Access, Use, and Reuse and Transform. Access, Use and Reuse describes the activities applies to ensure that data are accessible to designated users and to reusers, on a day-to-day basis, usually (but not necessarily) in the form of publicly available published information; and applying robust access controls and authentication procedures where applicable. Transform refers to the process of creating new data from the original data.

15.1 Checklists

These checklists indicate what is needed to promote data sharing and reuse, such as appropriate metadata, legal permissions, providing tools that allow collaboration, and applying access controls and authentication procedures.

• 15.1.1 Methods for Sharing Data

  (Source: based on University of Edinburgh. 2009. Methods for Data Sharing
  www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/research-support/data-library/research-data-mgmt/data-sharing/data-sharing-methods)

Informal methods: sharing data where risk is low and trust high (e.g., with co-researchers or co-authors, within an organization)

• Using centrally administered, authenticated access:
• Shared network file server
• Wikis
• Online collaboration tools or groupware (e.g., Google Docs)
• Proprietary software (e.g., Microsoft Sharepoint)
• Computer 'grid' network via custom data applications
• Social networking sites for researchers (e.g., myExperiment)
• Direct sharing:
• Email attachments
• Posting files on a website
• Posting files on an ftp (file transfer protocol) server
• Removable storage devices, e.g., flash drive, CD or DVD
• Social networking sites
• File sharing sites
• Bluetooth networking

Formal methods: sharing or publishing data more widely (e.g., as required by funders or publishers)

• Prepare dataset:
• Anonymization
• 'Clean' the data
• Document or annotate the data to improve its understandability
• Perhaps reformat the data, so that it can be re-used in another research context
• Share the data:
• Post on a public website or wiki
• Post on a publisher's website
• Upload to a distributed, dynamic database (discipline-specific, e.g., a protein or gene database)
• Deposit in a central data archive (e.g., the UK Data Archive, ICPSR)
• Deposit in a local data repository

• 15.1.2 Controlling Access to Data

  (Source: based on University of Edinburgh. 2009. Access and Restrictions
  www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/research-support/data-library/research-data-mgmt/data-sharing/access)

Options for restricting data include:

• Requiring an agreement to follow stated terms of use
• Attaching a legal license to the data
• Requiring password-protected registration and contact details (e.g., email address)
• Requiring authenticated registration for users from specific institutions (e.g., members of a university)
• Requiring an acceptable written statement about how the data will be used
• Publishing only a metadata record (e.g., title, author, abstract) with access to the dataset requiring registration and approval
• Limiting the number of concurrent users of the data
• Limiting access to certain Internet Protocol (IP) addresses
• Limiting access to computers in a specific physical location (e.g., reading room)
• Limiting physical access to a secure non-networked server (a data enclave)

15.2 Templates

15.3 Links

• 15.3.1 Access and Reuse Checklist

  DCC. 2010. Curation Checklists: Checklist Access and Reuse
  www.dcc.ac.uk/training/train-the-trainer/dc-101-lite-materials

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