Keeping Research Data Safe 2

by Neil Beagrie, Brian Lavoie and Matthew Woollard

Data has always been fundamental to many areas of research but in recent years it has become central to more disciplines and inter-disciplinary projects and grown substantially in scale and complexity. There is increasing awareness of its strategic importance as a resource in addressing modern global challenges and the possibilities being unlocked by rapid technological advances and their application in research (NAS 2009).

The first Keeping Research Data Safe study funded by JISC made a major contribution to understanding of long-term preservation costs for research data by developing a cost model and indentifying cost variables for preserving research data in UK universities (Beagrie et al, 2008). The Keeping Research Data Safe 2 (KRDS2) project has built on this work and delivered the following:

• a survey of cost information for digital preservation, collating and making available 13 survey responses for different cost datasets
  
• the KRDS activity model has been reviewed and its presentation and usability enhanced
• cost information for four organisations (the Archaeology Data Service; National Digital Archive of Datasets; UK Data Archive; and University of Oxford) has been analysed in depth and presented in case studies
• a benefits framework has been produced and illustrated with two benefit case studies from the National Crystallography Service at Southampton University and the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex

View the report from JISC

Copyright HEFCE 2010