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Annotation and Assessment
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      Data Collection, Monitoring and Quality Assurance
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          CR1: Move data from personal to secure alternatives

          CR1 Report [PDF 1Mb]. 

          Overview

          The purpose of Work Package CR1 has been to critically examine those aspects of current research practice that might deter researchers from using the new e-Research frameworks such as DART, and so impede their development. Such aspects could include perceptions of loss of control over data, increased work loads or increased bureaucracy in research management.

          Staff working on Work Package CR1 have contributed information on interim findings to a number of other DART activities and Work Packages. These have included the Portal Workshop held at Monash University in August, various iterations of the portal design process, and Work Packages CR4, CR5 and, to a lesser extent, CR6.

          Given that the purpose of Work Package CR1 was to investigate the barriers to the use of digital repositories and related e-Research infrastructure, in developing the methodology it was decided to take a broad approach that encompassed not only the technological realities but also the attitudes and perceptions of the researchers being consulted.

          To that end, the design of the research methodology was based on the constructivist paradigm, which comes under the interpretivist approach to research and is widely used in the social sciences. Sampling was ‘purposive’, premised on the concept of ‘theoretical sampling’ where subjects are selected on the basis that they represent the major categories of people relevant to the research. Grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967), where researchers immerse themselves in the field and then use an inductive approach to develop categories and theories 'grounded' in the data, was also used.

          The project commenced with a broad literature review, which highlighted a growing recognition that cyberinfrastructures have not yet managed to fulfill their true potential because of institutional, financial, legal, cultural and behavioural issues, and that technical developments will not be able to transform e-Science unless social and technical problem-solving are combined to develop an effective cyberinfrastructure (Arzberger et al 2004, David and Spence 2003). Achieving the aims of an e-Science project therefore not only means solving the technical issues, but also dealing with the organisational and institutional contexts and infrastructures present.

          Isssues

          Overall, the issues affecting the uptake of publication and data repositories as discussed in the literature can be summarised as:

          • Lack of clarity relating to the ownership of data;
          • Existing non-collaborative research cultures;
          • Difficulties in establishing collaborative frameworks;
          • Reluctance to change workflows;
          • A lack of incentives;
          • Difficulty of adequately representing the context of data and so of
          • Sharing it meaningfully; and
          • A lack of resources.

          These findings were used to identify some initial issues and to draw up a list of indicative interview questions. Data collection was then based on a variety of techniques, combining interviews and the development of process diagrams with researchers from a wide variety of disciplines with the embedding of information management professionals (IMs) as participant observers in research teams for a substantial period of time. This approach had the advantage of collecting observational data about the everyday work of the researchers as well as giving researchers the opportunity to think about and voice their thoughts and ideas on data management. We also interviewed university staff whose role is to provide services to researchers - a legal expert, two members of IT services, and an information management specialist – to better understand the options provided to, and constraints imposed on, researchers.

          More specifically, the interviews were run as semi-structured interviews drawing on a comprehensive list of questions covering research processes, collaboration within and between teams and organisations, data sources and data types, current data management including policies and regulations, and internal and external constraints on data re-use and data management. Interviewees were also asked about main publication outlets and existing data and publication repositories in the researcher’s field, and the requirements and restrictions placed on researchers by publishers. Where possible, a sample project was captured using an informal process diagram following the Co-MAP process modeling and analysis method (Kethers 2002), which is particularly geared towards locating bottlenecks and weaknesses in processes.

          CR1

          Conclusions

          The conclusions and recommendations were based on the results of an analysis of all the data thus collected. On the completion of the draft version of the Final Report, it was circulated to all who had taken part in the project, for further validation and comment.