Portage and Global Water Futures Webinar Series

The webinar will focus on introducing the Canadian Surface Prediction Archive CaSPAr that provides an archive of environment and climate change Canada’s (ECCC’s) numerical weather predictions and allows the user to request custom subsets of the data. the custom subsetting reduces significantly the amount of data the users have to handle after downloading. the data all follow the same standard NetCDF format which further eases the post-processing of the data. a similar database was setup in collaboration with the Global Water Futures project and is called “Cuiznart.” The Cuizinart disseminates datasets used or produced in GWF and follows the same data format and custom requesting as CaSPAr. the webinar will introduce both systems and the datasets available to date. A live demonstration of data requesting and retrieving will be performed to illustrate the straight-forward procedure to obtain data of interest.

Speakers

Juliane Mai is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo. Her research is focussed on parameter estimation, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of complex models. She applied these methods in different fields like systems biology as well as hydrology and land-surface modeling. She further made major contributions in the field of big data management through the development and hosting of the canadian surface prediction archive CaSPAr and the Cuizinart which disseminates input and research data.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

The longform description of deposited data is an essential resource for discovery. For searchers, it is the only text field where they can see their keywords in context, and in many federated search engines it is the only field that consistently appears on the search result page. In this presentation, Dan Phillips will give an overview of the current landscape of many general repositories including Dataverse on ScholarsPortal, Data Dryad, Figshare, and Pangaea. He will speak to the use of the longform summary/abstract field of data in comparison to other types of abstracts. Finally, he will propose some best practice concepts that aim to help people write effective data summaries.

Speaker

Dan Phillips has been researching environmental data management practices. His work aims to increase the research impact of the academic world by making it more accessible in the greater community. At Dalhousie University he is a graduand of the Master of Information program and a candidate of the Master of Resource and Environmental Management.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Portage and Global Water Futures Webinar Series

Distributed version control systems such as GitHub provide researchers with a powerful tool for managing the processes and outputs of collaborative projects. Though commonly associated with computer code, systems like GitHub can be used to manage and share a wide range of products, including data, metadata, documentation, and even books. This webinar will introduce attendees to the fundamental concepts of distributed version control and will demonstrate how these can be applied in a research context using GitHub and its associated tools and interfaces. We will cover how to create and control access to repositories and organizations in GitHub, how collaborators can clone, pull, fork, and push changes, and how repository owners can merge changes and manage versions. Finally, we will review how repositories and their contents can be packaged into releases and deposited to repositories like Zenodo to support reproducibility and transparency.

Speakers

Jay Brodeur is Associate Director of Digital Scholarship Services in the McMaster University Library and Administrative Director of McMaster’s Lewis and Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship. In his role, he collaborates with groups within and beyond the Library to develop services and infrastructure that supports research at McMaster.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

Portage and Global Water Futures Webinar Series

Descriptive documentation will protect the integrity and value of your data, and ensure its usefulness for current and future research projects. This webinar will explore what types of information are needed to make your data findable and accessible, and what information will help ensure it stays useful in the long term. An overview of commonly required metadata fields will be highlighted through a comparison of popular metadata standards and repository deposition guides. Processes to build supporting documentation throughout the data generation process, such as README files and Standard Operating Procedures will be illustrated, and examples

Speakers

Krysha Dukacz: Krysha holds a B.A. (hons) in Geography, a GIS Specialist certificate and an MBA (Management of Information Systems). She has worked in the public sector at the federal level (Environment Canada – NHRC) and municipal level (City of Ottawa, City of Saskatoon) as well as in the private and academic sectors. As the Data Manager, Global Water Futures at McMaster University, Krysha works with GWF researchers to develop and implement effective data management procedures to protect valuable research assets.

Erin Clary is the Curation Coordinator for the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Portage Network. She reviews new dataset deposits for the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR), and as a member of Portage’s Curation Expert Group, she is engaged in developing resources to support a national curation community of practice. She was previously a curator with Dryad Digital Repository, and has curated data for the Data Curation Network. Erin studied Biology, and holds an MLIS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.

This session will provide an overview of the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR)––a national platform for digital research data management and federated discovery of Canadian research data, developed through a partnership between the Compute Canada Federation and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Portage Network. Aimed at IT, research, and higher education professionals, this session will provide practical information about when to recommend FRDR to researchers, how to use FRDR, and FRDR’s storage and preservation capabilities. We will also take a look at the role of FRDR within Canada’s changing digital infrastructure landscape.

Speakers: Kelly Stathis (Portage Discovery and Metadata Coordinator), Erin Clary (Portage Curation Coordinator), Lee Wilson (Portage Service Manager), and Beth Knazook (Portage Preservation Coordinator).

This presentation is part of the BCNET Cybersecurity and Research Innovation Summit.

Beth Knazook, Portage Preservation Coordinator, Co-chair “Picking up the threads of 2019”.

#WeMissiPRES is an online programme of talks and presentations on digital preservation.

Portage Training Coordinator Jennifer Abel will discuss data management plans and lead a hands-on session walking you through the Portage Data Management Planning tool. This will include some discussion on the value of data management plans, common roadblocks, as well as tips and tricks for writing your own data management plan. This session should be especially helpful for participants applying for grants or research funding, as data management plans are increasingly a requirement of these applications.

This event is part of MERIDIAN’s ‘Atlantic Canada Ocean Data Management Initiatives and Infrastructures’ workshop series.

Portage and Global Water Futures Webinar Series

Using a research data lifecycle approach, this webinar will provide attendees with an overview of research data management (RDM) best practices, including both guidance and resources to help them manage their own research data. Topics covered will include such things as overarching RDM principles (e.g., FAIR, CARE, OCAP), file management and version control, file naming conventions, data storage and backup strategies, data access and sharing, and data deposit. Specific support platforms that can be leveraged to help with RDM needs will additionally be touched upon including the Portage DMP Assistant, Dataverse, and Compute Canada’s Rapid Access Service.

Speakers

James Doiron is the Research Data Management Services Coordinator, University of Alberta Library, and the Academic Director of the UofA Research Data Centre. James sits on a number of local, national and international advisory and working groups, including both as a member of the UofA’s Institutional RDM Strategy Working Group, the Statistics Canada Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) External Advisory Committee, and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Council. James is co-Chair of the Portage Network Data Management Planning (DMP) Expert Group, and is additionally a member of the Portage Research Data Management (RDM) Training Expert Group, as well as the Dataverse North Working Group.

Jane Fry is the Data Services Librarian at MacOdrum Library, Carleton University. Research data management is one of her main areas of responsibility and she is the lead for Carleton’s Institutional Strategies Working Group. She is also on a number of other local, national and international committees, including: co-Chair of the Portage Training Expert Group; Chair of the ODESI Data Deposit Policy Working Group; co-Chair of the DDI Training Committee; and member of the Canadian National Research Data Management Training Working Group.

This webinar will be presented in English and recorded. Engagement during the webinar in both official languages is welcomed. Previous webinar recordings are available on the CARL YouTube Channel. Links to the recordings and slides can also be found on Portage Training Resources.