1 st African Digital Curation Conference Social Sciences & Humanities February 2008

Changing Research Environment Mode 2 Research ICTS Communication and Collaboration Information Search and Access Dissemination and publication (self-archiving, open access E-Science Large scale science increasingly carried out through distributed global collaborations enabled by the internet Access to large data collections,largescale computing resources and Require large scale storage, retrieval and transfer

Importance of Data Curation Re-use for new research Compliance: publishers, donors, legislation Validating research results Cannot recreate unique data Cheaper to maintain expensively created data than re-generate Existing data can be enriched Technology obsolescence Open access to publicly funded research (public good) Implementing best practice

What is Data Curation? What should a definition encompass? Preservation Access Storage Data quality Data integrity Re-use Usability E-science Appraisal

What is data curation? archivingpreservation managementappraisal “ … includes but goes beyond that of data archiving and digital preservation, to include the active management and appraisal of data over the life cycle of scholarly and scientific interest” Dr Peter Burnhill, Director, Digital Curation Centre, Edinburgh, UK

What is data curation? 'The activity of managing and promoting the use of data from its point of creation to ensure it is fit for contemporary purpose, and available for discovery and re-use’. E-science Curation Report: Data Curation for e-science in UK, JISC, 2003

Lets Shape our Own Definition