Jonathan Markow
Chief Strategy Officer
DuraSpace
Elaine L. Westbrooks
Associate Dean of Libraries
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Kathy Notter
Director of Shared Computing Services, Information Services
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
DuraCloud “Direct-to-Researcher” (DTR) (Markow)
DuraSpace, with grant funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has been working on a project (DuraCloud DTR) to provide enhanced cloud-based storage for research data. An open source software platform optimized for the needs of researchers will deliver durable storage and flexible management of data. The application, building on the DuraCloud project, will provide preservation services in a secure environment that safeguards privacy. In addition, researchers will be able to provide secure access to data curators and institutional data management staff to ensure that project data may be preserved for future use. DuraSpace aims to differentiate the DTR platform from commodity cloud storage by providing features unique to the needs of researchers, such as integration with institutional authentication services, fine grained access control, repository infrastructure for organizing project data, bit integrity checking and replication services, and workflows that support researcher/curator interactions. This session will discuss the project in more detail and will report on the current status of work.
UNL Data Repository: Partnerships Between IT and Libraries for Seamless Data Archiving (Westbrooks, Notter)
In response to the National Science Foundation (NSF) mandate for researchers to include data management plans in grant proposals, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) secured hardware to set up a data archive that provides a safe place for UNL researchers to archive their data. The university information technology unit, Information Services, partnered with the Libraries to create a seamless system where researchers can easily enter metadata, express rights, and indicate how long the data should be retained via a simple ‘click-through’ website that requires little human intervention. The Libraries’ data curation committee built the user interface to ensure that the libraries get all of the necessary information to archive the data in perpetuity. In addition, the archive’s interface was designed to encourage researchers to consider not only the option of open data but also the possibility of depositing their scholarly output in the University’s institutional repository. Information Services is responsible for securing the payment for the data and maintaining the hardware while the Libraries is responsible for the data life-cycle management. This partnership demonstrated how two units effectively used their strengths to create a low-maintenance service that benefits everyone at UNL and supports the drive to increase sponsored research at UNL.
http://lib10058.unl.edu/unldr/
http://libraries.unl.edu/datacuration