This new book complements the excellent collection of essays in Pryor (2012) also published by Facet. Together the two works constitute a fairly comprehensive introduction to the subject, be that for the information professional practitioner or the student. From a UK perspective, if one only had time to read two works on Research Data Management, it would be these two that I would recommend.
The editors (also authors of the core part of the book) are from the Digital Curation Centre (www.dcc.ac.uk/), an internationally respected centre of expertise in data management and curation: so we are in safe hands in terms of depth of understanding of the subject. The DCC's involvement in a series of “institutional engagement projects” with UK universities probably explains why their analyses ring so true at least for the UK context.
The scope of the book is to explain the drivers that are behind Research Data Services, what a service might consist of, and to explore the process of creating such services; the case study material in the second half of the book broadly illustrates the kind of themes that have been analysed at a conceptual level earlier in the book. Pryor's opening chapter provides an insight into the context with a particular focus on the Royal Society's influential report Science as an open enterprise and an in-depth analysis of the EPSRC requirements around RDM that did so much to trigger active development of services in the UK after 2011. Chapter Two, again by Pryor, is a more detailed picture of institutional responses around RDM. In Chapter Three Pryor looks at the “human infrastructure” of stakeholders who need to be mobilised around an RDM service. The fourth chapter, by Angus Whyte, describes a six-stage process of going about creating a service, based on service design principles and influenced by Business Process Reengineering. It looks at many RDM-specific tools to assist this process, such as the Data Asset Framework approach to evaluating researchers’ current practices. Sarah Jones’ Chapter Five introduces the types of service that might be developed, such as a policy, repository and training programme. These chapters are the core of the book. They provide a lucidly written and practical set of guides. There are lots of references to more detailed tools and resources, but the explanations stand-alone. Given the large number of highly technical reports, dense with acronyms, that typify publication in the RDM field, having such a concise but comprehensive treatment of the key issues is invaluable.
The second part of the book is a series of case studies: of three universities developing services (Southampton in the UK and one each from USA and Australia, respectively), of a national subject repository, the UK Data Archive and finally of the JISC Managing Research Data development programme. I found the Southampton case study a rich resource for reflecting on how the principles set out in the early chapters might unfold in practice. The JISC programme itself generated a vast number of detailed reports, this chapter provides a good overview of its context and achievements.
Although some of the case studies are from beyond these shores, the book is primarily from a UK perspective, e.g. in terms of how the opening chapter defines the agenda through a close reading of the EPSRC requirements. It's an interesting question whether the guidance in the first part of the book would be applicable in other contexts. It is worth saying that a recent book by Ray (2014) offers a parallel perspective on the US experience.
This is also very much a book focussed on the perspective of providing a service to researchers. As such it will be of use to information professionals, but also IT professionals and research administrators. Whyte's chapter does make some mention of the researcher perspective and ways to explore it, nevertheless if there is something missing from the book it is that a stronger researcher voice is needed.
A sample of the opening chapter of the book is currently available from the Facet web site.
