Research data management in the arts and humanities – looking after your research outputs

GUEST BLOG POST FROM LAURIAN WILLIAMSON, RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT CO-ORDINATOR

In April I attended the excellent History DMT (Data Management Training and Guidance) workshop held at the Humanities Research Institute which explored best practice for research data management (RDM) in history. History DMT is an AHRC-funded project, led by the Institute of Historical Research in collaboration with the Department of History, University of Hull and the Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield.

One of major project outputs will be a free online training course dedicated to the research data types that historians are most likely to come across in their research. This training course will be made publicly available in 2014. Delegates were given an opportunity to comment and provide feedback on the content and format of the online training course and I am eagerly looking forward to its launch.

 During the workshop several presentations from researchers highlighted for me the diverse types of research data created and managed by this community, which included:

·         Textual materials

·         Visual sources

·         Oral History

·         Statistical data

I was also a timely reminder that when we (the TUoS RDM Service Delivery Group) are planning for the delivery of researcher-focused RDM services and support the challenge is to ensure that we are catering for different subject disciplines and working practices.

At the start of your research project or activity (whether externally funded or not) you will need to consider the management of your research data. Research data can be textual, numerical, qualitative, quantitative, final, preliminary, physical, digital or print.

Thinking about RDM early on in the research process will allow you to plan for:

·         Organising and structuring your material

·         Storing and backing up your research material

·         Preparing material for analysis, or to share with others

A couple of useful RDM training resources to explore further are listed below. If you would like the RDM team to visit your research group or department to talk about RDM requirements, training, and advocacy please do let us know. Contact us via the RDM helpdesk.

Sound Data Management Training (SoDaMaT) RDM training materials

DataTrain managing research data in archaeology

UK Data Archive tutorials

Faculty of Arts Trip to Boston Spa 22 May

Yesterday Amber Regis, DLC for School of English, and I took 30 PGRs and Faculty of Arts researchers on a special coach trip to Boston Spa. Here we all are looking happy after a successful day in the Reading Room doing our research!

We arrived shortly after 10am and collected our reader passes and locker keys. You are only allowed to take a pencil and notebook into the reading room, so we had to leave our bags in the lockers. Some people had brought their laptops, which can be done by pre-arrangement.

When we went into the lovely peaceful reading room there were our piles of pre-ordered books and journals waiting for us. It is also possible to order more items on the day but they only go down 3-4 times to collect other items, so this needs to be kept in mind when you plan your trip.You can pre-order up to 16 items by checking the British Library catalogue:

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/cdfiles/blopac

You need to pick items with a "Document Supply" shelfmark - other material may be in London at St. Pancras. 

We worked through until 12.30 when most of us went off to the nearby restaurant and had lasagne, chips and garlic bread for £1.75!!! There were vegetarian options too. They also did puddings with custard, sandwiches, biscuits, cold and hot drinks. My coffee was only 75p. What a bargain! There is a card system for paying for lunch. Everyone was most impressed with the catering. You could pop in and out for drinks etc. but the smokers had a short walk to a nearby smoking shelter!

We all finished our research day and handed our books back just before 4pm as the reading room was closing and got back on the bus. We were back in Sheffield for 5.30pm. All in all an excellent experience and everyone enjoyed it- especially the peace and tranquillity and opportunity to concentrate away from email and interruptions.

Did you know that the Library runs a free minibus trip once per month - on the first Tuesday of the month? You can book onto it and pre-order your readings through the Library. For more information see our page here:

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/services/illbus

It is also possible to visit the British Library at Boston Spa under your own steam. If you have a car you can drive to Wetherby. Perhaps you could team up with some other researchers and share driving and petrol costs. If you need to use public transport you can get there by going to Leeds on the train from Sheffield and there is a local bus from Leeds to the British Library at Boston Spa. For more information on visiting the Boston Spa Reading Room have a look at the British Library webpages here:

http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/inrrooms/bspa/bostonspa.html

We hope after this more researchers in the Faculty of Arts will use the Library minibus service.

Trial to Official Publications Online

The Library has a new trial to Offical Publications Online.
This database from The Stationery Office includes access to:

• UK Legislation: including Scottish, Northern Ireland and Welsh Legislation
• Command and House Papers: Green Papers
• White Papers, Annual Report and Accounts, Departmental Reports and Treaty Series
• Parliamentary Publications: Hansard, Bills and Amends and Select Committee Reports

Publications are available online, as soon as they are published and there is early morning delivery of key parliamentary titles.  The trial will be made available until 31st December 2012 . Please tell us what you think of it by using our feedback form.