Managing research data at scale: addressing the growing data challenge together
David S.R. Jung1, Ai-Lin Soo1,6, Adele Haythornthwaite2, Helena Lynn3, Andreas Mertin4, J Max Wilkinson5, Nichola Burton5, Rhys Francis6, Frankie Stevens7, Kwun Lun (Jacky) Cho1, Luc Betbeder-Matibet1 1UNSW Sydney, Sydney Australia2University of Sydney, Sydney Australia3University of Melbourne, Melbourne Australia4University of Technology Sydney, Sydney Australia5ARDC 7eResearch Services, Tween Heads Australia
Abstract
The sector is currently grappling with significant data growth and the risks of managing research data at scale. Underlying this challenge are two problems: 1) there is low institutional maturity in the ability to assess this digital corpus that prevents extracting and acting on insights. 2) there is a limited understanding of institutional obligations and best practices of selective research content disposal and retention. This forms the basis of two, parallel, ARDC-funded projects that commenced in March 2023 (Business Intelligence & Reporting and Retention & Disposal). The expected output of the first project is a common taxonomy and reporting format for research data that satisfies local institutional needs while enabling sector-wide aggregation of data for benchmarking. The second project aims to develop a set of agreed best practices throughout the project lifecycle to decide on the retention and disposal of research data. This BoF session seeks wider sector input on the project outputs. The session also brings the two independent projects into the common perspective of tackling the issue of uncontrolled growth of digital content associated with research activities.
In this session, project outputs will be presented, then the floor will be opened to topics arising such as:
1. How does one practically implement the project outputs at their institution?
2. What is the long-term sustainability plan for the project outputs?
Biography
David Jung is a project manager at UNSW and has provided technical, policy, and strategic advice on research data management to researchers and administrators alike in a number of previous roles. He currently leads two parallel projects that aim to develop a taxonomy for institutional research data reporting and aligned best practice guidelines for safe and effective research data retention and disposal. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1611-7644
Ai-Lin Soo is a Project Officer at the UNSW ResTech Services Team as well as the Operations Manager for the Ai for Law Enforcement and Community Safety (AiLECS) Lab at Monash University. She applies her project management skills to support a diverse range of activities in areas such as research data management and operational governance. Ai-Lin is also heavily involved in the Research Data Culture Conversation (www.researchdataculture.org) as the RDCC coordinator and product manager of the Macro View.
Dr Adele Haythornthwaite is the Manager, Research Data Governance at The University of Sydney, and aims to further develop research data policy and strategy to the benefit of researchers and the wider community. She is particularly interested in working ‘across silos’ to encourage and promote better data practices and research integrity and excellence outcomes.
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4123-1204
Dr Helena Lynn is the Program Manager of Research Data Management at the University of Melbourne. Having previously worked in research, research support and university-wide strategic ventures, she now leverages her broad experience to lead and implement the University of Melbourne’s research data management strategy. Over the past 3 years, the RDM Program has delivered new infrastructure, policies, resources and support, to enable UoM researchers to easily and safely manage research data in a complex regulatory and technological environment.
Andreas Mertin has provided RDM support to the UTS research community in numerous roles, from promoting RDM best practice as a data librarian, to advising on tools and infrastructure as an eResearch Information Analyst. He is currently the Research Data Management Specialist in the Data Analytics and Insights Unit at UTS, where he drives data governance and information management activities in research practice and works to extend the Data Risk Framework across the UTS Research domain.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5808-4783
Dr J Max Wilkinson
Max has a comprehensive background in research data management, research data governance and research infrastructure operations. For the last 3 years he has worked with the Australian Research Data Commons as a research data infrastructure architect, designing a scalable and sustainable investment model for nationally significant research data collections. Prior to this, he has worked with the National eScience Infrastructure (NeSI), Council of New Zealand Research Librarians (CONZUL), AgResearch, eResearch2020 and NZ Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. He lived and worked in the UK for two decades, most recently as Head Of Research Data and Network Services at University College London, the Datasets Programme Manager at the British Library and Informatics coordinator at Cancer Research UK. He received his PhD in Molecular Nephrology from UCL in 2003.
ORCID: 0000-0001-7899-1842
Dr Nichola Burton is a research data specialist at the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). Nichola leads the Institutional Underpinnings program, which brings together Australian universities to identify common challenges, share expertise and build collaborative solutions. She also works to connect ARDC’s projects and partners with expertise in the area of sensitive data, and co-chairs the Australian Sensitive Data Interest Group and the international Research Data Alliance Sensitive Data Interest Group.
ORCID: 0000-0003-4470-4846
Rhys was an academic researcher in parallel and distributed computing through the 1980s. Then, from 1990 through to 2005 his roles extended into strategic leadership in information and communication technologies for the CSIRO. From 2006 Rhys facilitated the development of a national investment plan in eResearch infrastructure for the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy that shaped the foundations of the national e-infrastructure landscape visible in Australia. Today Rhys is part of the team developing the Australian BioCommons that is accelerating the adoption of digital technology in Australian life science research and also facilitates the Research Data Culture Conversation (researchdataculture.org).
Dr Frankie Stevens is a consultant in Digital Research services, specialising in the application of advanced information and communication technologies to the practice of Research. Frankie’s activities have centred on enhancing research through the use of advanced expertise in both Scientific and Information & Communication technologies. Her leadership role in developing strong relationships between research communities, local, state and national eResearch infrastructure initiatives has involved broad awareness raising and promotion of expert capabilities for the Australian Research Sector. She is on the Technical Advisory Board for the Global Research Data Alliance, and the Executive Council of the Australian EResearch Organisations (AeRO). orcid.org/0000-0002-2556-473X
(Jacky) Kwun Lun, Cho is a program manager (research infrastructure) at UNSW and has been involved in the design, implementation and review of RDM policy, practice and support services at UNSW across several previous roles. He is currently involved in the implementation of instrument data storage service and the development of UNSW’s next strategic uplift in enterprise research data storage.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7591-100X
Luc Betbeder-Matibet is a nationally recognised subject matter expert in eResearch, University Research Data Management and shared computational infrastructure services for researchers. He has held director-level roles for 15 years in ICT and eResearch. Luc is the Director Research Technology Services at UNSW, a shared services function that he established which is responsible Research Computing and Research Data. He is an Adjunct in UNSW Faculty of Medicine Centre for Big Data and has been a Visiting Scientist with the Visual Analytics Team in CSIRO Data61. Recently Luc has been working with colleagues to count how much Research Data there actually is in Australia. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4065-5784