RDMF VI ‘Meeting Funder Imperatives’

Winning the grant and delivering the plan: a researcher’s view of data management plans as enablers or barriers. David Beavan

Outline

•  Projects at the University of Glasgow •  Barriers and enablers

–  Project planning –  Active phase –  Post funded phase

•  Conclusion

Projects at the University of Glasgow

•  Digital Humanities in the School of Critical Studies –  English Language, English Literature, Scottish Literature,

Theology and Religious Studies

•  Major funder is the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Also ESRC, Leverhulme, Mellon, JISC etc.

•  Experience in developing projects –  From data management plan assistance and advice –  Playing an active role in the management of the project –  Contributing my skills and knowledge directly to the project

Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech (SCOTS)

•  EPSRC and AHRC funded •  Five year project, completed in 2007, but still active •  Four million word resource of Scots/English texts and

speech from 1945 to present •  Research areas

–  Scope the current use of Scots in various genres –  Grammatical differences of Scots vs. Standard Scottish English –  Variant spelling rules and automatic detection/normalisation

•  www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk

Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing (CMSW)

•  AHRC funded •  Three year project, currently in final phase •  Four million word resource of Scots/English writing from

1700 to 1945 •  Research areas

–  Investigate orthographic and phonologic changes over time –  Development of Literary Scots and its ideological implications –  Variant spelling rules and automatic detection/normalisation

•  www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/

Project planning – barriers

•  Seen as an unwelcome distraction from the articulation of the main research goals

•  Unfriendly and foreign terminology is off putting •  Difficult to consult with individuals, guidelines or standards •  Tempted to hand over to a specialist at the last minute

or worse… •  Written in haste with no appreciation of what is required

Project planning – enablers

•  Data created by the project is valued and respected •  Life beyond project anticipated •  Confidence that the research is achievable •  Data management plan coherent with the overall project

plan, even if it is called an ‘appendix’ •  Support professionals engaged at an early stage to assist

in the writing of data management plans •  Research goals shaped and enhanced by technology

Active phase - barriers

•  Time sunk into fleshing out and establishing –  Standards, guidelines, protocols, workflows, monitoring etc.

•  If data has high entropy (less structured, many special cases) standardised workflows are restrictive

•  Too many constraints stifle creativity, researchers feel like a slave to the machine

•  Slow to react to changes or new circumstances –  Much effort has been sunk into processes, reluctant to change

Active phase - enablers

•  Progress monitoring and projections easily produced •  Data exchange is efficient and effective

–  Data is documented and well understood and expressed –  Additional analysis methods etc. can be easily adopted

•  Further exploitation of resource and or data •  Access to communities and advice groups who share

approaches, technologies and practises •  Resource savings by establishing common platforms

Post funded phase - barriers

•  Last minute push to finish project can lead to severe departures from the data management plan

•  Resources must be spent to take stock, organise and archive the data and supporting documentation

•  Temptation to allow resource to continue as is, despite future plans

Post funded phase - enablers

•  Preservation and Sustainability –  Deposit into institutional/content specific repositories –  Mitigate against technological obsolescence through wise format

choices and documentation

•  Multi-faceted re-use –  Resource can later be enhanced horizontally and vertically –  Data combined with other sources or absorbed into third-party

resources

•  Learning from successes and mistakes

Conclusion

•  Starting to plan early pays off, often stimulates and informs other research facets

•  Support is often available, but not always well advertised •  Working with supporting professionals works when viewed

as sharing responsibilities and playing to strengths, not an admission of defeat

•  Remain flexible, plans do change •  Ensure procedures do actually help reach research goals