On the Importance of a Research Data Archive

Abstract

As research becomes more and more data intensive, managing this data becomes a major challenge in any organization. At university level there is seldom a unified data management system in place. The general approach to storing data in such environments is to deploy network storage. Each member can store their data organized to their own likings in their dedicated location on the network. Additionally, users tend to store data in distributed manner such as on private devices, portable storage, or public and private repositories. Adding to this complexity, it is common for university departments to have high fluctuation of staff, resulting in major loss of information and data on an employee’s departure. A common scenario then is that it is known that certain data has already been created via experiments or simulation. However, it can not be retrieved, resulting in a repetition of generation, which is costly and time-consuming. Additionally, as of recent years, publishers and funding agencies insist on storing, sharing, and reusing existing research data. We show how digital preservation can help group leaders and their employees cope with these issues, by introducing our own archival system OntoRAIS.

Research Data Management in the Croatian Academic Community: A Research Study

“…A prerequisite of achieving high reproducibility of research is reliable, long-term access to digital content [27], which is often missing or neglected. This long-terms access to research data is now commonly required by publishers, academic institutions and research project funding agencies [7,13,28,29]. However, research data are not always widely available for reuse as data sharing is not fully appreciated by researchers across all disciplines [2], restricting the reuse of data.…”