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Enhancing Research Capabilities through Data Management at the Smithsonian

The Smithsonian Institution, with its 19 museums and diverse research centers, lacked systematic data management for digital research content. The solution involved creating a workspace for researchers to enhance research capabilities, ensuring trusted and durable content. The approach included capturing full research structures and integrating software tools with repository for better control and reusability. Researchers describe their own data, utilizing an ontology of concepts to represent projects as linked objects. The system mimics a network model for sustainable content, with a focus on metadata-driven concept objects and resource objects holding digital artifacts like images and data.

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Enhancing Research Capabilities through Data Management at the Smithsonian

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  1. ResearchData ManagementAt the Smithsonian Using SidoraCNI December 10, 2013

  2. The Smithsonian Institution • Founded to “increase and diffuse knowledge” • 19 museums, 9 research centers, 8 advanced study centers, 22 libraries, 2 major archives and a zoo • Long-term baseline research, especially in biodiversity and environmental studies • Lots of research in cultural heritage areas • No systematic data management of digital research content

  3. The Problem • We must capture research information as it is created and make it “durable” and “trusted” • The digital information created by a project is usually complex and numerous • Capturing the full structure and context of the research content is necessary • Content should be able to be re-used and re-purposed • Researchers must describe their own data from their point of view

  4. The Solution • Researchers will have a workspace, not an archive, curators will make sense of it later • Primary goal is to enhance research capabilities, leaving trusted data as a legacy • Maintain complete control of the content for as long as appropriate • Software tools will be integrated with the repository • Appropriate levels of security that do not get in the way of research

  5. The Web is the model • A network of nodes that are units of content, connected by arcs that are relationships • Increasingly, content will not be sustainable as discrete packages • We will be maintaining our part of the formalized world-wide web of content • Each project is a set of related digital objects that stands alongside the publications

  6. A data object is one unit of content Persistent ID DC RELS-EXT Reserved Datastreams AUDIT POLICY 1 2 Custom Datastreams (any type, any number) n

  7. A project can be represented as a web/graph of related objects • Like a file system built on two types of object: • Concept objects which describe the nodes of the structure and create context for the resources • Resource objects are the digital artifacts • The concepts are metadata that creates the descriptive framework that is also a “database” • The resources hold the digital content, like images, tabular data, video and audio

  8. Ontology of Concepts • Researcher • Project • Collection • General Collection •                 Natural History Collection • General Concept or Idea • Place • General Place •                 Research Site •                 Archaeologic excavation • Person • Dataset • Organization • Institution •                 Expedition • Animal or plant • Species •                 Specimen •                 Component(?) • Event • General event • Instrument deployment • Experiment • Textual Creation • Object (or Physical Entity) • Cultural Heritage Object or Entity •                 Archaeologic feature

  9. Demo

  10. Discovery and Collecting Environment • Search interface with ability to maintian a “set” of resources and describe the aggregation • Maintain a local group of sets for active work • Move sets to desktop filesystems, projecting Fedora objects as virtual files • Pass sets to Analysis Environment • Save sets as nodes in the original project graph and cite them

  11. Analysis Environment Discovery and Collecting Environment Galaxy Galaxy Set Dataset Concept Local Filesystem Taverna Taverna Set

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