July 31, 2019. – The Portage progress report for the second quarter of 2019 is now available. It summarizes Portage activities and accomplishments and provides an update on Portage operations and communications undertaken in this period.
July 31, 2019. Ottawa ON – The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) are investigating the feasibility of a national consortial approach to Datacite, the global non-profit organization that provides persistent identifiers (DOIs) for research data and other research outputs.
DOIs are persistent identifiers for digital objects and are widely used for identifying published content, datasets, and other scholarly research outputs. There are over 400,000 DOIs minted in Canada with Datacite and over 57,000 DOIs in Canada were minted in 2018. Up to now, Canadian institutions minting DOIs through Datacite have been supported by the National Research Council Canada as the national organization. This agreement ends as of January 1, 2020.
A collaborative approach to a Canadian Datacite consortium would allow the 45 Canadian institutions and repositories minting DOIs through Datacite to split the cost of the Datacite membership fee. In addition, Canadian institutions that are minting fewer than 100 DOIs per year will be able to participate in the national consortium at no charge. Institutions with more than 100 DOIs per year would pay a fee per repository, and a tiered fee based on the number of DOIs minted per year. A national approach also leverages the community support and leadership in Canada and allows members to engage in the governance and future developments of Datacite through a coordinated national voice.
CRKN and CARL, through the services of Portage, are exploring a model where CRKN offers licensing and billing support and Portage leverages the existing capacity of its Network of Experts to provide community support. This joint initiative ensures that the Canadian institutions who have integrated Datacite as part of their infrastructure continue to be supported with a sustainable model.
For more information, please contact:
Rebecca Ross
Director of Strategy and Engagement, CRKN
rross@crkn.ca
613-791-8334
Jeff Moon
Director, Portage Network
portagedir@carl-abrc.ca
613-533-6000 x 77992
The Organizing Committee, in collaboration with CARL Portage and McMaster University, invites individuals from across Canada to express their interest in attending part or all of the Canadian Data Curation Forum, being held October 16-18, 2019 in Hamilton, Ontario.
The SSHRC-funded Forum will consist of two events: A data curation training event (October 16th and the morning of the 17th) and a community-building forum (afternoon of October 17th and all-day on the 18th). More information for each event may be found at the Forum’s website. Individuals can use this application form to express their interest in attending one or both of the events. All expressions of interest must be submitted by the end of the day on August 15, 2019 to be considered. Successful applicants will be contacted shortly thereafter with registration information.
Applicants can apply (through the application form) for limited travel bursaries, which will be made available for attendees from traditionally underrepresented groups and organizations, early-career professionals, and those demonstrating financial need.
Questions, comments, or requests for more information can be sent to canadiandatacurationforum@gmail.com.
Version 1.1 of this guide provides overall guidance on the Dataverse 4.x citation metadata section. In particular, the guide:
Provides definitions and offers tips to clarify where needed.
Distinguishes between required, recommended and optional fields. Required fields are designated by the Dataverse system out-of-the-box. Recommended fields are considered best practice to improve data discovery and reuse. Optional fields are good to have.
The sample dataset can also be found on the Dataverse platform at: <https://doi.org/10.5072/FK2/TOXB6Q>
The Portage Network is pleased to announce the release of its new publication, Repository Options in Canada: A Portage Guide. We’d like to thank Scholars Portal for their assistance with its production.
Canada has a rich data repository landscape operating at national, regional, and local/institutional levels. This guide provides detailed information to help researchers and data professionals determine the most appropriate option for their data, with a particular focus on Canada’s two developing national repository platforms: the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR) and Dataverse.
The Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Portage Network, in collaboration with McMaster University Library, is pleased to announce that the SSHRC-funded Canadian Data Curation Forum will be held at McMaster University in Hamilton from October 16 to 18, 2019.
The goal of the Forum is to establish a national Community of Practice that will catalyze the development/adoption of data curation1standards, practices, tools, and skills within and across disciplines and institutions. It will bring together library data specialists, research data managers, and discipline and functional experts from a range of institutions and organizations. The Forum will integrate a variety of keynote talks, discussions, and workshops with the objectives of: a) facilitating communication and collaboration around data curation practices and standards, and b) developing skill and training resources.
The event’s Organizing Committee will be working over the coming months to assemble the program and prepare a call for expressions of interest. During the intervening period, please contact Lee Wilson (lee.wilson@ace-net.ca) or Jay Brodeur (brodeujj@mcmaster.ca) if you seek further information.
1Data curation is the active management of research data throughout a project to produce datasets that are FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
May 7, 2019 – The Portage progress report for the first quarter of 2019 is now available. It summarizes Portage activities and accomplishments and provides an update on Portage operations and communications undertaken in this period.
The Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Portage Network, in collaboration with McMaster University Library, is pleased to announce that they have been awarded a Social Science and Humanities Research Connection Grant to develop and deliver a Canadian Data Curation Forum that will promote and advance the practice of data curation in Canada.
Data curation is the active management of research data throughout a project to produce datasets that are FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. The goal of the forum is to establish a national Community of Practice that will catalyze the development/adoption of data management standards, practices, tools, and skills within and across disciplines and institutions. Accordingly, the Forum will focus on two elements: (1) the facilitation of communication and collaboration around data curation practices and standards and (2) skill and training resource development.
The Canadian Data Curation Forum will be held at McMaster University in Hamilton. It will bring together library data specialists, research data managers, and discipline and functional experts from a range of institutions and organizations.
March 20, 2019 – The FRDR User Experience and Training Working Group is seeking new members for its 2nd year mandate. The Working Group focuses on the user-experience side of the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR) service by providing feedback on, and suggestions for, the improvement of the front-end design, user-facing documentation, training materials, and informational and promotional materials for FRDR.
Members are expected to serve for 12 months, beginning in April 2019. If you would like to join this working group or recommend a colleague please contact Lee Wilson, Service Manager, Portage Network (portageservices@carl-abrc.ca), with a brief expression of interest. Submission deadline is April 5, 2019. Please see the draft Terms of Reference for a full description of the group’s responsibilities.
March 20, 2019 – Portage’s Data Discovery Expert Group is convening a new working group to improve the FRDR Discovery Service, which helps to de-silo Canadian research data by providing a single search portal for more than 100,000 metadata records indexed from over 40 Canadian governmental, institutional, and domain-specific data repositories. The goal of this project will be to map subject keywords to the Online Computer Library Center’s (OCLC) Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) using the open source OpenRefine software. This important work will increase the discoverability of Canadian research data by providing a controlled vocabulary for subject keywords.
Working Group members will be expected to serve for 12 months, starting in April 2019. If you would like to join this working group or recommend a colleague please contact Lee Wilson, Service Manager, Portage Network (portageservices@carl-abrc.ca), with a brief expression of interest. Submission deadline is April 5, 2019. More information may be found in the draft Terms of Reference.
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