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JISC Report: Value & Impact of Data Curation
and Sharing
I wanted to share the announcement of this new report from the UK
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) addressing payoffs from
data curation and data sharing with the CNI community. It has already
generated some lively discussion on more specialized lists, but
because of its synthesizing nature and focus on specific benefits, I
thought that it would be of broad interest, and many readers of this
list might not have heard about it yet.
I have reproduced the more detailed announcement below.
Clifford Lynch
Director CNI
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New Research: The value and impact of data
curation and sharing
2 April 2014
Substantial resources are being invested in the development and
provision of services for the curation and long-term preservation of
research data. It is a high priority area for many stakeholders, and
there is strong interest in establishing the value and sustainability
of these investments.
This synthesis report published today aims to summarise and
reflect on the findings from a series of recent studies, conducted by
Neil Beagrie of Charles Beagrie Ltd. and Prof. John Houghton of
Victoria University, into the value and impact of three well
established research data centres - the Economic and Social Data
Service (ESDS), the Archaeology Data Service (ADS), and the British
Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC). It provides a summary of the key
findings from new research and reflects on: the methods that can be
used to collect data for such studies; the analytical methods that can
be used to explore value, impacts, costs and benefits; and the lessons
learnt and recommendations arising from the series of studies as a
whole.
The data centre studies combined quantitative and qualitative
approaches in order to quantify value in economic terms and present
other, non-economic, impacts and benefits. Uniquely, the studies cover
both users and depositors of data, and we believe the surveys of
depositors undertaken are the first of their kind. All three studies
show a similar pattern of findings, with data sharing via the data
centres having a large measurable impact on research efficiency and on
return on investment in the data and services. These findings are
important for funders, both for making the economic case for
investment in data curation and sharing and research data
infrastructure, and for ensuring the sustainability of such research
data centres.
The quantitative economic analysis indicates that:
· The value to users exceeds the
investment made in data sharing and curation via the centres in all
three cases - with the benefits from 2.2 to 2.7 times the
costs;
· Very significant increases in work
efficiency are realised by users as a result of their use of the data
centres - with efficiency gains from 2 to 20 times the costs;
and
· By facilitating additional use, the
data centres significantly increase the returns on investment in the
creation/collection of the data hosted - with increases in returns
from 2 to 12 times the costs.
The qualitative analysis indicates that:
· Academic users report that the
centres are very or extremely important for their research, with
between 53% and 61% of respondents across the three surveys reporting
that it would have a major or severe impact on their work if they
could not access the data and services; and
· For depositors, having the data
preserved for the long-term and its dissemination being targeted to
the academic community are seen as the most beneficial aspects of
depositing data with the centres.
An important aim of the studies was to contribute to the further
development of impact evaluation methods that can provide estimates of
the value and benefits of research data sharing and curation
infrastructure investments. This synthesis reflects on lessons learnt
and provides a set of recommendations that could help develop future
studies of this type.
Key areas for further research include: extending such studies to
newer data centers and lower levels of aggregation (e.g. data sets),
conducting follow-up studies to track the evolution of value over
time, drilling down in the key impact areas of reuse and efficiency,
and further development of the methods (e.g. refining the
questionnaires and better integrating the estimates into a single
overview).
The synthesis report
About the authors
Neil Beagrie is Director of Consultancy at Charles
Beagrie Ltd, an independent management consultancy company
specialising in the digital archive, library, science and research
sectors. Neil is an internationally recognised expert in research data
management and digital preservation and was Principal Investigator for
the Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) research projects and the
international consultant to the US National Digital Information
Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). He has published
extensively on data curation and digital preservation issues. Further
information including published articles and recent talks are
available from www.beagrie.com.
John Houghton is Professorial Fellow at Victoria
University's Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies
(VISES). He has published and spoken widely on information technology,
industry and science and technology policy issues, and he has been a
regular consultant to national and international agencies, including
the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. John's
research is at the interface of theory and practice with a strong
focus on the policy application of economic and social theory.
Consequently, his contribution tends to be in bringing knowledge of
research methods to bear on policy issues in an effort to raise the
level of policy debate and improve policy outcomes. In 1998, John was
awarded an Australia Day Medal for his contribution to industry policy
development.
Further Information
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