Hi members of the Long Tail for Research Data Interest Group,
The next RDA plenary will take place in just 3 weeks time and I hope to see many of you in there.
The Long Tail meeting will take place on Wednesday, September 20 from 15:30 – 17:00.
The focus of the meeting will be on collection policies for long tail data. The aim is to share current approaches and consider whether we can develop some good practices for repositories and institutions.
We are looking for 5 or 6 volunteers to give a short lightning talk about collection policies. For example, we’d be interested to know whether you have policies around domain, size of data sets, formats and so on. Please send me a message if you would like to give a talk.
We will also discuss the next steps for our briefing paper and recommendations, Addressing the Gaps: Recommendations for Supporting the Long Tail of Research Data. The paper is attached to this message.
The summary and agenda for the meeting is copied below.
All the best,
Kathleen and Wolfram
 
Developing Coherent Policies for Collecting Long Tail Data
Research data are extremely diverse – as diverse as the international network of experts that perform research. Datasets may be small or large, simple or complex. Data may stem from hundreds of different subjects, may be produced by numerous methodologies, and exist in a plethora of different formats. The diversity of data is also characterized by a variety of data management practices, of varying quality and comprehensiveness. In general, larger datasets are more likely to adopt unified and standardized formats that are disciplinarily-defined and accepted. Long-tail datasets, on the other hand, which vary radically in source, discipline, size, subject, provenance, funding, format, longevity, location and complexity, are less likely to adhere to common standards. This diversity means that long tail data can take much more time and resources to curate and have historically received less attention in the community.
 
Agenda

Welcome and Overview of the Long Tail of Research Data Activities

Sharing the publication, “Supporting Long-Tail-Data in Research” and next steps

Lightning Talks: Collection Policies for Long Tail Data Collections/Repositories

Wrap Up

Supporting20Long20Tail20of20Research20Data2C20August202017.pdf