“I’m not a scientist, I don’t have any research data”:

Managing arts and humanities data

Nicola Siminson and Julie Ramage, GSAJeremy Barraud, UAL

Wednesday 30th November 2016

Ramage, Julie and Hards, Lorna (2016) Becoming Awesomestow - profiling investments in cultural assets and creative quarters in British towns and their impact on regeneration. Nesta, London. http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/4289/

Ramage, Julie and Hards, Lorna (2015) Becoming Awesomestow - profiling investments in cultural assets and creative quarters in British towns and their impact on regeneration. The Glasgow School of Art - Reid Building, 11-26 April 2015 [Show/Exhibition] http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/3698/

So what are the challenges?“… I am not sure what constitutes research data… What is data? I mean, I talk to you about my data as a researcher, but for the institution, what does it consider data? Would it be conference proceedings, would a performance be data even if it was not recorded, sometimes I don’t record my performances…”

One definition"Anything which is used or created to generate new knowledge and interpretations. ‘Anything’ may be objective or subjective; physical or emotional; persistent or ephemeral; personal or public; explicit or tacit; and is consciously or unconsciously referenced by the researcher at some point during the course of their research. Research data may or may not lead to a research output, which regardless of method of presentation, is a planned public statement of new knowledge or interpretation."

Garrett, 2012: https://kaptur.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/what-is-visual-arts-research-data-revisited/

Data management challenge

• Research data in the arts is not so easily defined as in STEM subjects

• Researchers need to learn to identify and define what is data in their processes

• Researchers are not used to packaging and sharing data

• Management of highly diverse content and formats

• New and developing field – no real best practice in place

Policy aims

• To ensure that staff involved in the research process are aware of their data-related responsibilities

• To ensure that the University meets its obligations with regard to research data management, as defined by research funders

• To make explicit the University’s institutional commitment to good research data management practice

• The policy is supported by a set of procedures and institutional awareness raising and training activities

What we’re doing at UAL

• UAL Data repository

• Training

• Data management planning

• Community of Practice

UAL Data Repository

• Holds UAL research data for all research projects where there is a need to store and share the supporting research

• Research Council-funded projects with a Data Management Plan

• Tested with existing, tricky data

• http://researchdata.arts.ac.uk/

ROCOCO project

• File formats - as open source as much as possible for wider access and preservation issues

• File sizes – maintaining quality of digital files against file sizes

• Organisation - needs to be logical and cohesive, contextual

• Labelling of individual files

• Legal considerations: IP, copyright, Data Protection, release forms

Data management planning

• Established workflow as part of Data Management Policy

• Workflow covers, pre-award, post-award and post-project stages

• Bespoke support for each application

Community of Practice

• Introduction to data management

• Case studies

• Visiting institution: Glasgow School of Art

• Metadata discovery

• File formats

Future developments

• Further repository enhancements to fit the needs of the researchers

• New methods of marking and visualising the data

• Developing best practice in the curation of data

• Educating practice-based researchers on the need to organise and share their data

What we are (and have been) doing at the GSA• GSA RDM Policy – and roadmap document• Training and comm.s

• sessions for staff – and research students• one-to-one conversations• blog posts

• RDM pages on GSA’s VLE• GSA RDM Stakeholder Group• participation in projects (KAPTUR; VADS4R)

How do you get Art & Design researchers to engage with RDM, if there are few external drivers / sticks (e.g. very little RCUK funding)?

Sharing experiences and ideas for engaging with arts and humanities researchers?

Useful information• GSA RDM Policy: http://www.gsa.ac.uk/about-gsa/key-

information/institutional-policies/ • KAPTUR: http://www.vads.ac.uk/kaptur and

https://kaptur.wordpress.com/about/ • VADS4R: http://www.vads4r.vads.ac.uk/ • RADAR: http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/ • RADAR blog: https://gsaradar.wordpress.com/ • Contact details:

• n.siminson@gsa.ac.uk • j.ramage@gsa.ac.uk • j.t.barraud@arts.ac.uk