Current Issue
Past issues of the Bulletin are available here, or through the ASIS&T Digital Library.

This special section of the Bulletin explores issues in research data access and preservation (RDAP) and samples the program highlights and attendees’ reflections of the ASIS&T RDAP13 Summit, the 4th annual meeting, held in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 4-5, 2013. Contributed papers address the value of partnering with publishers and repositories as a way to address the complexity of data curation and explore the issue of data use and reuse from a data curator’s perspective. One article discusses the use, benefits and challenges of altmetrics to track citations of research data. Others tackle the need to develop a standard data infrastructure and describe efforts to promote research data management across institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom. Last, a sampling of the posters presented at RDAP13 reflects the scope of the topic, current progress and advances to come.

data curation
research data sets 
information reuse
digital repositories
altmetrics
information infrastructure
standards

Bulletin, August/September 2013


Research Data Access & Preservation 
 
RDAP13 Summit: Introduction

by Susan Wells Parham, Elizabeth Rolando and Jennifer Doty, Special Section Guest Editors 

The 4th Annual ASIS&T RDAP Summit was held in Baltimore on April 4-5, 2013. In this special section of the Bulletin, we have asked panel organizers, panel speakers, lightning talk presenters and Summit attendees to discuss their experiences at the Summit and to reflect on the remaining challenges and opportunities with respect to research data access and preservation. These authors provide program highlights, while further delving into issues important to the research data curation community. We’ve also included links to presentations and a selection of posters on slideshare, as well as information on how to learn about next year's RDAP14 Summit. Special thanks go to the RDAP13 Summit program committee, panel organizers and program chairs Stacy Konkiel and Jordon Andrade.

Gail Steinhart, co-chair of the panel Partnerships Between Institutional Repositories, Domain Repositories, and Publishers, reflects on the advantages of building partnerships to address the complexities of data curation, noting the specific success of panelists providing direct access to tools and services that support researchers. Nic Weber, organizer of the panel on Data Use & Re-Use, discusses highlights and emergent research themes and issues a challenge to the information science community to continue striving to adequately define the research area of “data use and reuse.” Stacy Konkiel, chair of the Data Citation and Altmetrics panel, provides perspective on recent developments and continuing challenges for accurate citation and tracking of research data. 

Mark Parsons, panelist on Global Scientific Data Infrastructure, and his co-author Fran Berman describe in depth the efforts of the Research Data Alliance to address the data infrastructure challenge, and lightning talk presenter Martin Donnelly writes about the Digital Curation Centre’s efforts to improve institutional research data management in United Kingdom higher education, expanding on his talk given at the Summit. Finally, Jennifer Doty summarizes the poster session, spotlighting some of the unique projects and findings presented at this year’s Summit. 

ASIS&T SIG/DL (Special Interest Group/Digital Libraries) sponsored the Linked Data & Metadata panel and an afternoon break for attendees.

For additional information on the RDAP13 Summit and for plans for the 2014 Summit, please refer to the following resources: 

Congratulations to incoming Summit chair Andrew Johnson. We hope to see many of you in 2014 at the 5th Annual Summit in San Diego, California.
 

Susan Wells Parham is head of scholarly communication and digital curation at the Georgia Institute of Technology Library. She can be reached at susan.parham<at>library.gatech.edu.

Elizabeth Rolando is research data librarian at the Georgia Institute of Technology Library. She can be reached at elizabeth.rolando<at>library.gatech.edu.

Jennifer Doty is a data management specialist with the Emory University Libraries. Her primary focus is developing services and support for the management and curation of research data at Emory. She can be reached at jennifer.doty<at>emory.edu.