We got funding by SURFfoundation for a 5 month project. In this project we will help researchers to publish datasets that they used for their publications. The project focusses on researchers from the School of Economics and Managment and the School of Social and Behavioral Science. The goal is to connect 40 publications with the underlying datasets.
Technical information
The Dataverse Network system will be used for the description and storage of the datasets. In the description of the dataset there will be a link to the metadata record of the publication in the search system of Tilburg University. The dataset descriptions are according to the DDI version 2 standard. The DDI records are harvested from the DVN system using the OAI-PMH protocol. In the search system, the DDI records are added to the metadata records of the corresponding publications. The metadata records are MPEG21/DIDL records that contain the bibliographical description in MODS and links to the full text in the institutional repository. The combination of the DDI record and the DIDL record represents a so-called enhanced publication that can be represented by an OAI-ORE Resource Map. With the exception of the Resource Maps, the same setup is used in Economists Online. The technical work for this was done in the European project NEEO, Also related is the portal of the European Values Study that is the outcome of the project DatapluS funded by SURFfoundation.
The real challenge
The real challenge is however not technical but organisational and behavioural. How to convince and motivate researchers to make their datasets available for open access (this also involves limited access in the sense that access requires the consent of the researcher or someone acting on his/her behalf)? At the end of the project we want to have in place procedures for the delivery of datasets comparable to and integrated with the procedures for the delivery of open access publications to the institutional repository. In following blogs, I will describe how we handle this challenge.