Home > Resources for digital curators > External > Data Description, Documentation and Standards

Data Description, Documentation and Standards

Cataloguing

Biosharing

Functionality:  CATALOGUES The web-based BioSharing catalogues aim to centralize bioscience data policies, reporting standards and links to other related portals. 1. Providing a “one-stop shop” for those seeking data sharing policy documents and information about the standards and technologies that support them. 2. Exposing core information on well-constituted, community-driven standardization efforts and link to their standards, documentation, training material, news and contact point. 3.
http://biosharing.org/
Suitable for:

PARADIGM Online Workbook

Between 2005 and 2007, the Paradigm project of the Bodleian Library and John Rylands University Library explored the issues involved in the long-term preservation of born-digital private papers in the context of hybrid archives - those that are composed of traditional and born-digital formats. The project accessioned sample archives from contemporary UK politicians and used these to gain practical experience of combining archival and digital curation worflows, standards, tools and technologies. An Online Workbook was created during the project and a print edition has recently been produced.
http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/workbook
Suitable for:

The Moving Image Gateway (MIG)

The Moving Image Gateway (MIG) is a new service that collects together websites that relate to moving images and sound and their use in higher and further education. The sites are classified by academic discipline, some forty subjects from Agriculture to Women's Studies, collected within the four main categories of Arts & Humanities, Bio-Medical, Social Sciences and Science & Technology. Each site has been evaluated and described by the BUFVC's Information Service, which regularly checks and updates the database. Sites are highlighted which have video or audio streaming.
http://bufvc.ac.uk/gateway
Suitable for:

RODA (Repositório de Objectos Digitais Autênticos)

The National Archive Institute of Portugal (IAN/TT) doesn't currently have the needed infrastructures to support the processes of ingestion and management of digital objects produced by the public administration (PA). The initiatives of the eGovernment establish the need to support its activity in information and communication technologies to improve the efficiency, productivity and quality of their public services. In this scenario it is clear that the number of digital objects produced by these institutions will grow, and that their legal value and authenticity should be assured.
http://portal.roda.dgarq.gov.pt/
Suitable for:

IMAPpreserve

Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP) is a non-profit service, education, and advocacy organization committed to the preservation of non-commercial electronic media. IMAP has grown from a New York-based consortium of arts organizations and individuals to a national resource for preservation training, information, and advocacy. IMAP's core constituents include institutions, organizations, and individuals whose diverse media collections are underserved by existing preservation efforts.
http://www.imappreserve.org
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Grainger Engineering Library Information Center - Digital Library Research Projects

A collection of digital library projects under existence at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. These include search tools and resources for digital library development. NOTE: To the best of our knowledge, this project is no longer active.  Please let us know if you have more current information!
http://dli.grainger.uiuc.edu/
Suitable for:

Go-Geo

Go-Geo! is an online resource discovery tool which allows for the identification and retrieval of records describing the content, quality, condition and other characteristics of geospatial data that exist with UK tertiary education and beyond. The portal supports geospatial searching by interactive map, grid co-ordinates and place name, as well as the more traditional topic or keyword forms of searching.
http://www.gogeo.ac.uk/
Suitable for:

UKOLN Interoperability Focus

Interoperability Focus is a national activity, jointly funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils and Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Based within UKOLN, Interoperability Focus works closely with other staff on a range of issues including metadata, distributed systems and public library networking.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/
Suitable for:

Contextual Information

Biosharing

Functionality:  CATALOGUES The web-based BioSharing catalogues aim to centralize bioscience data policies, reporting standards and links to other related portals. 1. Providing a “one-stop shop” for those seeking data sharing policy documents and information about the standards and technologies that support them. 2. Exposing core information on well-constituted, community-driven standardization efforts and link to their standards, documentation, training material, news and contact point. 3.
http://biosharing.org/
Suitable for:

SURFSHARE Guidelines on Selection of Research Data

Report on appraising and selecting research data, prepared by Heiko Tjalsma of Netherlands-based DANS and Jeroen Rombouts of Delft Technical University, for the SURF Foundation. This study shows the latest situation in the area of selecting research data, based on a survey of the literature, interviews with important figures, and the experience gained by DANS and the 3TU Data Centre.
http://www.surffoundation.nl/nl/themas/openonderzoek/cris/Documents/SURFshare_Collectioneren_Selection%20of%20Research%20Data_DANS_3TU_DEFtt.pdf
Suitable for:

PARADIGM Online Workbook

Between 2005 and 2007, the Paradigm project of the Bodleian Library and John Rylands University Library explored the issues involved in the long-term preservation of born-digital private papers in the context of hybrid archives - those that are composed of traditional and born-digital formats. The project accessioned sample archives from contemporary UK politicians and used these to gain practical experience of combining archival and digital curation worflows, standards, tools and technologies. An Online Workbook was created during the project and a print edition has recently been produced.
http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/workbook
Suitable for:

RODA (Repositório de Objectos Digitais Autênticos)

The National Archive Institute of Portugal (IAN/TT) doesn't currently have the needed infrastructures to support the processes of ingestion and management of digital objects produced by the public administration (PA). The initiatives of the eGovernment establish the need to support its activity in information and communication technologies to improve the efficiency, productivity and quality of their public services. In this scenario it is clear that the number of digital objects produced by these institutions will grow, and that their legal value and authenticity should be assured.
http://portal.roda.dgarq.gov.pt/
Suitable for:

SKOS Core

SKOS stands for Simple Knowledge Organisation System. SKOS Core is a model used to describe 'concept' schemas and the relationships between them. For example, glossaries, thesauri, controlled vocabularies. Functionality:  Provides a framework for expressing knowledge organisation systems in a machine-understandable way. Level of Expertise:  Good understanding of the concept of ontologies and descriptive schemas, such as RDF.
http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-skos-core-guide
Suitable for:

Go-Geo

Go-Geo! is an online resource discovery tool which allows for the identification and retrieval of records describing the content, quality, condition and other characteristics of geospatial data that exist with UK tertiary education and beyond. The portal supports geospatial searching by interactive map, grid co-ordinates and place name, as well as the more traditional topic or keyword forms of searching.
http://www.gogeo.ac.uk/
Suitable for:

UKOLN Interoperability Focus

Interoperability Focus is a national activity, jointly funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils and Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Based within UKOLN, Interoperability Focus works closely with other staff on a range of issues including metadata, distributed systems and public library networking.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/
Suitable for:

Description

Biosharing

Functionality:  CATALOGUES The web-based BioSharing catalogues aim to centralize bioscience data policies, reporting standards and links to other related portals. 1. Providing a “one-stop shop” for those seeking data sharing policy documents and information about the standards and technologies that support them. 2. Exposing core information on well-constituted, community-driven standardization efforts and link to their standards, documentation, training material, news and contact point. 3.
http://biosharing.org/
Suitable for:

PARADIGM Online Workbook

Between 2005 and 2007, the Paradigm project of the Bodleian Library and John Rylands University Library explored the issues involved in the long-term preservation of born-digital private papers in the context of hybrid archives - those that are composed of traditional and born-digital formats. The project accessioned sample archives from contemporary UK politicians and used these to gain practical experience of combining archival and digital curation worflows, standards, tools and technologies. An Online Workbook was created during the project and a print edition has recently been produced.
http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/workbook
Suitable for:

Permanence Through Change: The Variable media Approach

Jean Gagnon is Executive Director, The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology, Montreal. Since its founding, the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology has considered the preservation of electronic and digital artworks a pressing matter. But it took some years before we received any project demonstrating a truly innovative approach to this issue. When the Solomon R.
http://variablemedia.net/e/preserving/html/var_pub_index.html
Suitable for:

RODA (Repositório de Objectos Digitais Autênticos)

The National Archive Institute of Portugal (IAN/TT) doesn't currently have the needed infrastructures to support the processes of ingestion and management of digital objects produced by the public administration (PA). The initiatives of the eGovernment establish the need to support its activity in information and communication technologies to improve the efficiency, productivity and quality of their public services. In this scenario it is clear that the number of digital objects produced by these institutions will grow, and that their legal value and authenticity should be assured.
http://portal.roda.dgarq.gov.pt/
Suitable for:

Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA)

In 1999 the European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) initiated a project aimed at the long-term preservation of all kind of photographic materials and defining the role of new technology in collection management. This resulted in Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access (SEPIA). The project was set up explicitly to bring together representatives from different types of institutions that hold photographs: libraries, archives and museums, as well as from research institutes.
http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/sepia/

Go-Geo

Go-Geo! is an online resource discovery tool which allows for the identification and retrieval of records describing the content, quality, condition and other characteristics of geospatial data that exist with UK tertiary education and beyond. The portal supports geospatial searching by interactive map, grid co-ordinates and place name, as well as the more traditional topic or keyword forms of searching.
http://www.gogeo.ac.uk/
Suitable for:

UKOLN Interoperability Focus

Interoperability Focus is a national activity, jointly funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils and Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Based within UKOLN, Interoperability Focus works closely with other staff on a range of issues including metadata, distributed systems and public library networking.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/
Suitable for:

Identification

Biosharing

Functionality:  CATALOGUES The web-based BioSharing catalogues aim to centralize bioscience data policies, reporting standards and links to other related portals. 1. Providing a “one-stop shop” for those seeking data sharing policy documents and information about the standards and technologies that support them. 2. Exposing core information on well-constituted, community-driven standardization efforts and link to their standards, documentation, training material, news and contact point. 3.
http://biosharing.org/
Suitable for:

PARADIGM Online Workbook

Between 2005 and 2007, the Paradigm project of the Bodleian Library and John Rylands University Library explored the issues involved in the long-term preservation of born-digital private papers in the context of hybrid archives - those that are composed of traditional and born-digital formats. The project accessioned sample archives from contemporary UK politicians and used these to gain practical experience of combining archival and digital curation worflows, standards, tools and technologies. An Online Workbook was created during the project and a print edition has recently been produced.
http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/workbook
Suitable for:

RODA (Repositório de Objectos Digitais Autênticos)

The National Archive Institute of Portugal (IAN/TT) doesn't currently have the needed infrastructures to support the processes of ingestion and management of digital objects produced by the public administration (PA). The initiatives of the eGovernment establish the need to support its activity in information and communication technologies to improve the efficiency, productivity and quality of their public services. In this scenario it is clear that the number of digital objects produced by these institutions will grow, and that their legal value and authenticity should be assured.
http://portal.roda.dgarq.gov.pt/
Suitable for:

Protégé Ontology Editor

Protégé is a free, open source ontology editor and knowledge-base framework. The Protégé platform supports two main ways of modelling ontologies via the Protégé-Frames and Protégé-OWL editors. Protégé ontologies can be exported into a variety of formats including RDF(S), OWL, and XML Schema.
http://protege.stanford.edu/
Suitable for:

GovTalk (UK)

The purpose of this site is to enable the Public Sector, Industry and other interested participants to work together to develop and agree policies and standards for e-government.
http://interim.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govtalk.aspx
Suitable for:

CORDRA (Content Object Repository Discovery and Registration/Resolution Architecture)

This tool can be used to create handles or IDs to assign to files NOTE: To the best of our knowledge, this project is no longer active.  A cached version of the project website is available thanks to the Internet Archive.  Please let us know if you have more current information! Functionality:  ID generator. Level of Expertise:  High. Simple to execute, but knowledge of Data IDs and handles needed.
Suitable for:

EPICUR - Enhancement of Persistent Identifier Services: Comprehensive Method for Unequivocal Resource Identification

Persistent Identifiers are essential conditions for an effective management of digital resources and reliable access to electronic documents. Currently several persistent identifiers services have been established, however there is a general demand concerning the active introduction of persistent identifiers, further development of technical components of persistent identifier services and the establishment of an organisational infrastructure regarding persistent identifiers.
http://www.persistent-identifier.de
Suitable for:

Go-Geo

Go-Geo! is an online resource discovery tool which allows for the identification and retrieval of records describing the content, quality, condition and other characteristics of geospatial data that exist with UK tertiary education and beyond. The portal supports geospatial searching by interactive map, grid co-ordinates and place name, as well as the more traditional topic or keyword forms of searching.
http://www.gogeo.ac.uk/
Suitable for:

UKOLN Interoperability Focus

Interoperability Focus is a national activity, jointly funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils and Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Based within UKOLN, Interoperability Focus works closely with other staff on a range of issues including metadata, distributed systems and public library networking.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/
Suitable for:

Metadata

Biosharing

Functionality:  CATALOGUES The web-based BioSharing catalogues aim to centralize bioscience data policies, reporting standards and links to other related portals. 1. Providing a “one-stop shop” for those seeking data sharing policy documents and information about the standards and technologies that support them. 2. Exposing core information on well-constituted, community-driven standardization efforts and link to their standards, documentation, training material, news and contact point. 3.
http://biosharing.org/
Suitable for:

SURFSHARE Guidelines on Selection of Research Data

Report on appraising and selecting research data, prepared by Heiko Tjalsma of Netherlands-based DANS and Jeroen Rombouts of Delft Technical University, for the SURF Foundation. This study shows the latest situation in the area of selecting research data, based on a survey of the literature, interviews with important figures, and the experience gained by DANS and the 3TU Data Centre.
http://www.surffoundation.nl/nl/themas/openonderzoek/cris/Documents/SURFshare_Collectioneren_Selection%20of%20Research%20Data_DANS_3TU_DEFtt.pdf
Suitable for:

DCC web site and Linked Data

14 August, 2009 | in Blogs

We at the DCC are in the early stages of refreshing our web site (www.dcc.ac.uk). Nothing you can see yet, but we're talking to a few consultants about what and how we can do better. The ones we have spoken to so far seem pretty clued up on content management systems, and even on web 2.0 approaches. But questions about the role of the Semantic Web or Linked Data get blank looks.

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Bryan Lawrence on metadata as limit on sustainability

5 December, 2008 | in Blogs

Opening the Sustainability session at the Digital Curation Conference, Bryan Lawrence of the Centre for Environmental Data Archival and the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC), spoke trenchantly (as always) on sustainability with specific reference to the metadata needed for preservation and curation, and for facilitation for now and the future. Preservation is not enough; active curation is needed.

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ARROW Repositories day: 1

14 October, 2008 | in Blogs

I’ve been giving a talk about the Research Repository System ideas at the ARROW repository day in Brisbane, Australia (which is partly why there has been a gap in posting recently). Here are some notes on the other talks.

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Repositories and the CRIS

7 August, 2008 | in Blogs

As I mentioned in the previous post, there has been some discussion in the JISC Repositories task force about the relationship between repositories and Current Research Information Systems (CRIS). Stuart Lewis asserted, for example, that “Examples of well-populated repositories such as TCD (Dublin) and Imperial College are backed by CRISs.” So it seems worth while to look at the CRIS with repositories in mind.

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Preservation

SURFSHARE Guidelines on Selection of Research Data

Report on appraising and selecting research data, prepared by Heiko Tjalsma of Netherlands-based DANS and Jeroen Rombouts of Delft Technical University, for the SURF Foundation. This study shows the latest situation in the area of selecting research data, based on a survey of the literature, interviews with important figures, and the experience gained by DANS and the 3TU Data Centre.
http://www.surffoundation.nl/nl/themas/openonderzoek/cris/Documents/SURFshare_Collectioneren_Selection%20of%20Research%20Data_DANS_3TU_DEFtt.pdf
Suitable for:

Representation Information

SURFSHARE Guidelines on Selection of Research Data

Report on appraising and selecting research data, prepared by Heiko Tjalsma of Netherlands-based DANS and Jeroen Rombouts of Delft Technical University, for the SURF Foundation. This study shows the latest situation in the area of selecting research data, based on a survey of the literature, interviews with important figures, and the experience gained by DANS and the 3TU Data Centre.
http://www.surffoundation.nl/nl/themas/openonderzoek/cris/Documents/SURFshare_Collectioneren_Selection%20of%20Research%20Data_DANS_3TU_DEFtt.pdf
Suitable for:

Data Curation for Integrated Science: the 4th Rumsfeld Class!

17 February, 2009 | in Blogs

I had to talk today to a workshop of NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) Data Managers, on data curation for integrated science. Integrated science does seem to be a term that comes up a lot in environmental sciences, for good reasons when contemplating global change. However, there doesn’t seem to be a good definition of integrated science on the web, so I had to come up with my own for the purposes of the talk: “The application of multiple scientific disciplines to one or more core scientific challenges”.

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Specifications again

6 January, 2009 | in Blogs

The previous post was a summary with relatively little comment from me. I really liked David Rosenthal's related blog post, but I feel I do need to make some comments. I'm not sure this isn't yet another case of furiously agreeing!

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Email discussion on the usefulness of file format specifications

6 January, 2009 | in Blogs

This is a summary of an email exchange on the DCC Associates email list over a few days in late November, early December. I thought it was revealing of attitudes to preservation formats and to representation information (in the form of both specifications and running code), so I’ve summarised it here. Emails lists are great for promoting discussion, but threads tend to fracture off in various directions, so a summary can be useful. Quotes are reproduced with permission; my thanks to all those involved.

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Some interesting posts elsewhere

5 November, 2008 | in Blogs

I’m sorry for the gap in posting; I’ve been taking a couple of weeks of leave at the end of my trip to Australia. Since return I’ve been catching up on my blog reading, and there are some interesting posts around.

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Representation information from the planets?

14 April, 2008 | in Blogs

Well, from the PLANETS project actually. A PLANETS report written by Adrian Brown of TNA on Representation Information Registries, drawn to our attention as part of the reading for the Significant Properties workshop, contains the best discussion on representation information I have seen yet (just in case, I checked the CASPAR web site, but couldn’t see anything better there).

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Legacy document formats

20 March, 2008 | in Blogs

On the O'Reill XML blog, which I always read with interest (particularly in relation to the shenanigins over OOXML and ODF standardisation), Rick Jelliffe writes An Open Letter to Microsoft, IBM/Lotus, Corel and others on Lodging Old File Formats with ISO. He points out that

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Question on approaches to curating textual material

24 July, 2007 | in Blogs

Dave Thompson, Digital Curator at the Wellcome Library asked a question on the Digital Preservation list (which is not well set up for discussion just now). I've replied, but we agreed I would adapt my reply for the blog for any further discussion that might emerge."I'm looking for arguments for and against when, and if, digital material should be normalised. I'm thinking about the long term management of textual material in proprietary formats such as MS Word. I see three basic approaches on which I'm seeking the lists comments and thoughts.

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Representation Information: what is it and why is it important?

6 July, 2007 | in Blogs

Representation Information is a key and often misunderstood concept. To understand it, we need to look at some definitions. First of all, OAIS (CCSDS 2002) defines data thus:“Data: A reinterpretable representation of information in a formalized manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing.”Second, we have Information:

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