QUT's Practical Data Management Guide

Queensland University of Technology has just published "Practical Data Management: A Legal and Policy Guide". This is a very useful resource for researchers and repository managers with an interest in managing legal rights in data.

The guide provides a detailed introduction to copyright covering what it protects, who owns it and how is relevant for data available in digital repositories.  It then considers other legal aspects of data management such as moral rights, confidential information and privacy. After looking at data management policies that all research projects should have in place, it covers what data management plans (DMP) should cover :

• ownership of the data to be generated
  
• who is responsible for managing the data
• address the legal controls applying to collection or use of the data 
  
• security to protect the data collected
• the long-term preservation of the data

It is highlighted that " [a] data management plan will need to be consistent with the research institution's IP policies and data management policies"
 

Spatial Data Visualization Tools Briefing Paper - DataShare

The JISC funded DataShare project has just published the second part of the briefing paper Data Visualization Tools: Spatial Data in a Web 2.0 Environment and Beyond by Stuart Macdonald. The paper describes an incredible collection of spatial mash-up and geo-browser tools and shows examples of academic research use of some of these technologies.

The vision proposed is that "by opening up their code to repository developers (e.g. through APIs) numeric and spatial data tools could be utilised further within this environment to engage potential depositors, to enhance output, and to provide analysis and visualisations as part of ‘value-added’ functionality."

This is a must read for anyone interested in Geo Web or Geo 2.0!

 

New JISC report on role and skills of data scientists

I wrote a summary of this report for DISC-UK DataShare 

"In my opinion, this is another very useful report that, amongst other things, calls for urgent action from research funders, universities and the library community to not only train future professionals in this field but to develop ways to recognise their work. I am very pleased to see the strong emphasis on libraries and data librarians and I am looking forward to see how the recommendations can be addressed. "  

 You can read the full summary at : http://jisc-datashare.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-report-skills-role-and-career.html