By ESmith | May 3, 2016
Part 1: Data sharing, new data sources and data protection
IASSIST is an international organisation of information technology and data services professionals which aims to provide support to research and teaching in the social sciences. It has over 300 members ranging from data archive staff and librarians to statistical agencies, government departments and non-profit organisations.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Embracing the ‘data revolution’: opportunities and challenges for research” and it is the 42nd of its kind, taking place every year. IASSIST2016 will take place in Bergen, Norway, from 31 May to 3 June, hosted by NSD - Norwegian Centre for Research Data.
Here is a first snapshot of what is there and why it is important.
Data sharing
If you have ever wondered whether data sharing is to the advantage of researchers, there will be a session led by Utrecht University Library exploring the matter. The first results of a survey which explores personal beliefs, intention and behaviour regarding the sharing of data will also be presented by GESIS. The relationship between data sharing and data citation, relatively overlooked until now, will then be addressed by the Australian Data Archive.
If you are interested in how a data journal could incentivise replications in economics, you should think about attending a session by ZBW Leibniz Information Centre for Economics which will present some studies describing the outcome of replication attempts and discuss the meaning of failed replications in economics.
GESIS will then look into improving research data sharing by addressing different scholarly target groups such as individual researchers, academic institutions, or scientific journals, all of which place diverse demands on a data sharing tool. They will focus on the tools offered by GESIS as well as a joint tool, “SowiDataNet”, offered together with the Social Science Centre Berlin, the German Institute for Economic Research, and the German National Library of Economic.
The UKDA and UKDS will present a paper which seeks to explore the role that case studies of research can play in regard to effective data sharing, reuse and impact.
The Data Archive in Finland (FSD) will also be presented as a case study of an archive that is broadening its services to the health sciences and humanities, disciplines in which data sharing practices have not yet been established.
If you’d like to know more about data accessibility, which is being required by journals and mandated by government funders, join a diverse group of open data experts as IASSIST dives into open data dialogue that includes presentations on Open Data and Citizen Empowerment and 101 Cool Things to do with Open Data as part of the “Opening up on open data workshop.” Presenters will be from archives from across the globe.
New data sources
A talk entitled “Data science: The future of social science?” by UKDA will introduce its conceptual and technical work in developing a big data platform for social science and outline preliminary findings from work using energy data.
If you have been wondering about the role of social media data in the academic environment, the session by the University of California will include an overview of the social media data landscape and the Crimson Hexagon product.
The three Vs of big data, volume, variety and velocity, are being explored in the “Hybrid Data Lake” being built by UKDA using the Universal Decimal Classification platform and expanding “topics” search while using big data management. Find out more about it as well as possible future applications.
Data protection
If you follow data protection issues, the panel on “Data protection: legal and ethical reviews” is for you, starting off with a presentation of the Administrative Data Research Network’s (ADRN) Citizen’s Panel, which look at public concerns about research using administrative data, the content of which is both personal and confidential. The ADRN was set up as part of the UK Government’s Big Data initiative as a UK-wide partnership between universities, government bodies, national statistics authorities and the wider research community.
The next ADRN presentation within this session will outline their application process and the role of the Approvals Panel in relation to ethical review. The aim is “to expand the discussion towards a broader reflection on the ethical dilemmas that administrative data pose”, as well as present some steps taken to address these difficulties.
NSD will then present the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), recently adopted at EU level, and explain how it will affect data collection, data use, data preservation and data sharing. If you have been wondering how the regulation will influence the possibilities for processing personal data for research purposes, or how personal data are defined, what conditions apply to an informed consent, or in which cases it is legal and ethical to conduct research without the consent of the data subjects, this presentation is for you.
The big picture
Wednesday 1 June will kick-off with a plenary entitled “Data for decision-makers: Old practice - new challenges” by Gudmund Hernes, the current president of the International Social Science Council and Norway’s former Minister of Education and Research 1990-95, and Minister of Health 1995-97.
The third day of the conference (2 June) will begin with a plenary - “Embracing the ‘Data Revolution’: Opportunities and Challenges for Research’ or ‘What you need to know about the data landscape to keep up to date”, by Matthew Woollard, Director of the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex and Director of the UK Data Service.
If you want to know more about the three European projects under the framework of the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission that CESSDA is involved in, one on big data (Big Data Europe - Empowering Communities with Data Technologies), another on - strengthening and widening the European infrastructure for social science data archives (CESSDA SaW) and a third on synergies for Europe’s Research Infrastructures in the Social Sciences (SERISS), this panel is for you.
“Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game”: Strategies for Discussing and Communicating Data Services" considers how libraries might strategically reconsider communications about data services.
Keep an eye on this blog for more news in the run-up to IASSIST2016.
Find out more on the IASSIST2016 website.
Spread the word on Twitter using #IASSIST16.
We are looking forward to seeing you in Bergen!
A story by Eleanor Smith (CESSDA)