Balancing business imperatives and leveraging capability: a model for research data management

This presentation discusses the implementation of a research data management system at two Australian Universities with a strong background in running effective institutional repositories (IRs). We demonstrate how leveraging existing repository infrastructure to implement an institutional metadata store can provide a solution to research data management and underpin new services. Lessons from the IR implementation experience in Australia have influenced our approach and driven the development of the technical architecture to support research data management. These include: Strong library/research office collaboration needed. Open Access is NOT enough; Authority control has been late in coming. NicNames provided a detailed overview of the challenges and a reference implementation of some of the services needed to effect authority control for names; Consistency of terms has not been achieved between repositories: the community is addressing this by the use of ontologies in this next phase of repository development. (Work occurring at QUT/Griffith and Melbourne). Technically, we describe an architecture which has been developed to build on the digital library services provided by the Institutional Repository. Of particular interest is the way in which research data descriptions can flow from the data owners, to university administrators, to the Australian Research Data Commons. We also identify the challenges associated with data quality and information architecture. In addition, implementation models for the University of Newcastle and Swinburne University of Technology are outlined. Reporting on progress to date, strategic drivers and internal resourcing including building capability and utilising existing knowledge and expertise are discussed.