Metadata Stores Community News #4 (19/06/2012)

Apologies for any cross-posting 1. Call for collaboration. At a round table in Sydney on the 25/05/2012 (Minutes available on request) collaborative groups were formed. You are invited to participate or form a group.

• ReDBox collaboration: contact Vicki Picasso - Vicki.Picasso@newcastle.edu.au - A teleconference is pending.
• Change Management: contact Susan Robbins - S.ROBBINS@uws.edu.au
• Optional Deliverable 8: contact Neil Anderson - Neal.Anderson@sydney.edu
• Integration with data capture: contact Peter Sefton - P.Sefton@uws.edu.au

2. QCIF agrees to provide ReDBox Software support to any Australian research institution that has or want to deploy ReDBox. Prtess to see schedule of fees and the terms and conditions.

3. Project contacts have now been included in the comparison. The NLA will use these contacts (please contact me if any detail or contact is not correct) Press to open Google Spreadsheet.

4. Featured question: What is the road map for updating these ARC and NMHRC Activity Records? ANDS is negotiating with NHMRC and ARC to provide an automatic process for updating these records (Coverage currently 2000-2010). This project is still at the early stages. In the meantime, anyone who needs to add new collections to a recent grant (e.g. approved in 2011) then please email Amir Aryani [amir.aryani@ands.org.au], and he will add the grant activity record to RDA, and give you the key to use as the related object.

5. Our latest featured profile is Flinders University - Press to see the Vimeo interview with Amanda Nixon.

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Flinders University successfully completed one Data Capture project and two Seeding the Commons Projects in 2011. As part of the Data Capture project, a metadata store running on ReDBox software was installed and delivered RIF-CS metadata covering all ANDS-funded Flinders projects to Research Data Australia. Flinders continues to support ReDBox, is represented on the ReDBox Product Reference Group and plays an active part in the ReDBox User Group.

The metadata store has been strongly identified within Flinders as a deliverable of the previous Data Capture project and as such, has not yet been integrated into University systems and workflows.

Flinders University seeks to automate the collection of research datasets metadata wherever possible. The Metadata Stores project will investigate two models for enabling this and implement the model best suited to Flinders needs. The first model involves the migration of data from 'sources of truth' into ReDBox. The second model would include the development of a Data Management Planning tool, similar to that in operation at Curtin University. Such a tool would be prepopulated with data from sources of truth. Successful completion of the Data Management Plan would trigger access to a collaborative research project site, and migration of metadata to ReDBox.

The project will produce a workflow and infrastructure to encourage the registration and description of research datasets. Depending on the model chosen, the outcome could be either an easy to use research data registration process that will give Flinders important management information for further work to develop support; or a data management planning workflow that will enable researchers to not only register and describe their datasets, but also arrange sound data storage.

Less tangibly, the project will raise awareness of good research data management practice amongst researchers and professional staff, increase capacity within the Library to support researchers in managing their data and provide the University valuable information about research datasets produced at Flinders that could be used to identify emerging research areas or opportunities for collaboration.

For more details please contact Amanda Nixon: amanda.nixon@flinders.edu.au.