UPBox and DataNotes : an environment for the collaborative management of research data

Abstract

Research datasets are, in most cases, only targeted for appropriate management after the results of their analysis are published. This a posteriori approach works well for static resources such as publications, but does not suit research datasets because of their rapidly changing context and content. For these resources, the data management process should be present from the start of the research, effectively becoming a part of the research workflow itself. However, research data repositories rely completely on curators for the description of the deposited datasets; this can create problems, as the curators can become a bottleneck in the process. In this paper we present a collaborative data management environment designed to help a small research group store and describe their datasets in preparation for later deposit in a data repository. The environment is made up of two integrated components: UPBox—a private cloud and web-based file storage environment—and DataNotes—a wiki solution tailored for researchers to collaboratively describe their data, based on Semantic MediaWiki. Preliminary user tests have yielded positive responses to the implemented features, as they correspond to some of the needs on the targeted research groups.