iridium JISC MRD02 – monthly update February ’12

Progress to date

Workpackage 0 (Project Management)

• Management Group meetings took place on 2 and 16 of February to review progress against project plan and active workpackages
• support team have now completed MANTRA online RDM training
• support team positions aligned to medical sciences will be re-advertised, alternative coverage has been planned

Workpackage 1 (Requirements)

• requirements gathering face-to-face interviews have had 46 positive responses to date from 168 initial invites (total invites is expect to be over 300)
• interviews are being arranged and conducted through support team
• interviews are beginning to generate potential Consultative Group membership candidates
• a short online survey invite will be send to over 1000 active research projects in early March
• this workpackage is 3 months behind original timeline, thus we are revising plans on how we feed researcher practice and requirements into the building of the infrastructure

Workpackage 2 (Policy)

• draft Code of Practice has been authored
• JISC MRD02 Programme specific policy meeting in Leeds on 12-13 March 2012 will be attend by project team members

Workpackage 3/4 (Assessment of tools/systems)

• these workpackages are running together until a need is identified for them to run separately
• metadata meeting took place on 9 Feb 2012 to outline a potential schema
• data catalogue specification has been outlined

Workpackage 9 (Dissemination)

• a University wide email through Registrar’s weekly update was conducted
• dissemination table on project management site updated with potential internal and external opportunities
• there is some measurable evidence of internal dissemination being effective

Activities in the last month

• DCC North East event will take place on 23-24 April 2012, with 2 talks from Newcastle University, including an iridium project specific talk
• RLUK event on 16 April 2012 will be attended by two iridium team members
• iridium has been referenced in a recently awarded EPSRC FRRIICT case study

Risks & issues

Risk/issues likely to present in the coming 3 months are:

• team needs to be very clear that the iridium project is not about data storage space and to manage researchers’ expectations
• sufficient researchers do not engage or interviews cannot be scheduled easily
• researchers do not give/identify their needs or that researchers’ needs are out of scope
• project highlights existing practice in data management that requires change
• until March 2012, preparation workload for researchers relating to REF14 will deter project engagement.

Milestones & challenges

In the coming 3 months, identified milestones are:

• RDM requirements identified and analysis published, including use cases.
• exemplar research projects identified and engaged.
• a detailed RDM draft policy document, consolidated using the analysis of existing policies, is authored to support policy principles.
• postgraduate students project training and activities management

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