1st%20African%20Digital%20Curation%20Conference

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1st African Digital Curation Conference

• Social Sciences Humanities

12-13 February 2008
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Changing Research Environment

• Mode 2 Research
• ICTS
• Communication and Collaboration
• Information Search and Access
• Dissemination and publication (self-archiving,
  open access
• E-Science
• Large scale science increasingly carried out
  through distributed global collaborations enabled
  by the internet
• Access to large data collections,largescale
  computing resources and
• Require large scale storage, retrieval and
  transfer

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Importance of Data Curation

• Re-use for new research
• Compliance publishers, donors, legislation
• Validating research results
• Cannot recreate unique data
• Cheaper to maintain expensively created data than
  re-generate
• Existing data can be enriched
• Technology obsolescence
• Open access to publicly funded research (public
  good)
• Implementing best practice

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What is Data Curation?

• What should a definition encompass?
• Preservation
• Access
• Storage
• Data quality
• Data integrity
• Re-use
• Usability
• E-science
• Appraisal

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What is data curation?

• includes but goes beyond that of data
  archiving and digital preservation, to include
  the active management and appraisal of data over
  the life cycle of scholarly and scientific
  interest
• Dr Peter Burnhill, Director, Digital Curation
  Centre, Edinburgh, UK

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What is data curation?

• 'The activity of managing and promoting the use
  of data from its point of creation to ensure it
  is fit for contemporary purpose, and available
  for discovery and re-use.
• E-science Curation Report Data Curation for
  e-science in UK, JISC, 2003

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Lets Shape our Own Definition