This is a very helpful review of the current state of data sharing practices from a UK perspective that has come out as part of the JISC funded DISC-UK DataShare project. I'm fowarding the full announcement from the SPARC Open Data list.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI
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Hi,

As part of the JISC-funded DISC-UK DataShare project in the UK, a State-of-the-Art Review has been written, marking out the current scene on data sharing at the beginning of the project. While the report is UK-focused, it may be of wider interest, and has a very thorough bibliography.

DISC-UK is a UK consortium of data support professionals working in departments and academic libraries in universities (Data Information Specialists Committee-United Kingdom). The project is about working with academics and institutional repository managers at the four partner institutions to provide exemplars for sharing research data within institutional repositories (based on EPrints.org, DSpace and Fedora software).

Deliverables so far:

DISC-UK DataShare: State-of-the-Art Review http://www.disc-uk.org/docs/state-of-the-art-review.pdf by Harry Gibbs

Data Sharing Continuum graphic http://www.disc-uk.org/docs/data_sharing_continuum.pdf by Robin Rice

Feedback on these very welcome. More deliverables will be added as the project continues, at http://www.disc-uk.org/deliverables.html

The project also maintains social bookmarks on this topic at http://bluedot.us/users/DataShare/

Robin Rice, Project Manager
Edinburgh University Data Library


Background to the Project:
The project's overall aim is to contribute to new models, workflows and tools for academic data sharing within a complex and dynamic information environment which includes increased emphasis on stewardship of institutional knowledge assets of all types; new technologies to enhance e-Research; new research council policies and mandates; and the growth of the Open Access / Open Data movement.

Objectives:

  1. Build capacity of institutional repositories in UKHE to respond to
     the unique requirements of research datasets as a new 'document type'
  2. Use a range of open source software repository solutions -
     Eprints, DSpace, Fedora - to provide exemplars and add-on tools
     for managing datasets as institutional repository items
  3. Produce and disseminate findings - in cooperation with the
     Repositories Support Project (RSP) and the Repositories Research
     Team (RRT) - to inform library and repository managers about the
     organisational and technical issues associated with the deposit of
     research data
  4. Work with the RSP, Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and others to
     identify training needs and solutions for increasing skills of
     information professionals in UKHE for managing research data.

For further information see http://www.disc-uk.org/datashare.html