Data Management Training Clearinghouse

The purpose of the Data Management Training (DMT) Clearinghouse project was twofold. First, the project aimed to increase discoverability and accessibility of the wealth of learning resources that have been developed to inform and train scientists about data management in the Earth sciences. Secondly, the project team wanted to facilitate the use of these learning resources by providing descriptive information (metadata) that can help research scientists, students, or teachers assess whether the resource would be appropriate and useful for their needs.   



The project team established the following objectives for the project:

• Create an online, searchable, and browsable clearinghouse of learning resources on data management in the Earth sciences.
• Provide a mechanism for creators or managers of learning resources to easily submit information about their resources into the clearinghouse.
• Provide the means for content submitters to describe the learning resources using a description schema that can increase discoverability and describe the contextual framework for which they were created.
• Provide a metadata submission form with online help guides available to assist content submitters in contributing complete and accurate information about their learning resources.
• Develop a basic crowd-sourced, quality-assured mechanism for building and sustaining the clearinghouse past the initial grant-funded development of the clearinghouse.

Principal Investigator : John C Nelson

Co-Investigator : Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Tamar Norkin

Cooperator/Partner : Amber Budden, John L Faundeen, Sophie Hou, Shelley Knuth, Matt Mayernik, Erin Robinson, David Bassendine

Accomplishments

The project team created the DMT Clearinghouse hosted within the web domain of ESIP, using the existing Drupal content management system environment at http://dmtclearinghouse.esipfed.org (fig. 7). The clearinghouse contains the following components:

• An online metadata registry with a publicly available, facet-searchable and browsable inventory of learning resources about data management practices (fig. 8). This registry includes references to community-developed frameworks for data management such as the USGS SSF and its Science Data Lifecycle Model.
• Home and About pages that provide context for the project, including goals, approach, and partner information.
• Help pages including an FAQ section and assistance with content submission, which will be iterated as more questions arise from user experience.
• A submission form for including metadata about the learning resources in the clearinghouse.
• A simple workflow process for content submission, review/editing, and release to publication.

The project team developed a submission form used to collect information about the learning resources that are to be included in the clearinghouse inventory. The submission form is available to users who have registered for a free ESIP login account The submission form uses key metadata fields from the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) schema that are adapted and applied to the types of learning resources targeted for inclusion in the clearinghouse. The LRMI schema was developed by the education community, has been endorsed by Schema.org, and is maintained by DCMI.org, the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. The submission form provides a multi-level interface of required and recommended metadata fields for ease of use by content submitters and reviewers/editors. The form is also populated with field definitions, tips, techniques, and examples of metadata values to facilitate content submission. The submission form underwent testing for usability by members of each of the initial partners (USGS, DataONE, and ESIP Federation) and has been improved per initial user feedback. The form was used successfully to create an initial inventory of learning resources for the clearinghouse, which was launched in October 2016.



Throughout the project, the team introduced the DMT Clearinghouse concept and product at various public venues including Research Data Access and Preservation Summit 2016 (poster presentation), DataONE User’s Group meeting in July 2016 (presentation and user feedback), ESIP 2016 Summer Meeting (presentation and user feedback), DataONE All Hands meeting in September 2016 (user testing and content submission), and the ESIP Data Stewardship Committee’s October 2016 monthly meeting (website launch presentation). The DMT Clearinghouse has generated interest from a number of other Earth-science-affiliated groups such as the National Ecological Observatory Network, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Data Carpentry, Research Data Alliance (U.S. Education Interest Group), and the Federal Scientific and Technical Information Managers Group. These groups are interested in submitting content to the DMT Clearinghouse and collaborating on activities such as taxonomy development, development of core skills for data professionals, and identifying gaps in topic coverage for data management learning resources.



The project team has identified future opportunities for more user testing, content submission workshop events, and marketing and outreach to build and sustain the clearinghouse. The team has also identified future enhancements for the clearinghouse including:

• Development of robust workflows to facilitate crowdsourcing of content submission and efficient review and publication of submitted content for clearinghouse reviewers and editors;
• Implementation of automatic link checking to ensure the currency of the links to the external locations of the learning resources;
• Collection of analytics related to page hits on the clearinghouse and individual learning resources, especially in light of the use of the Schema.org-endorsed LRMI metadata scheme;
• Automatic harvesting of metadata from other data lesson catalogs or sources; and
• Development of capabilities to push information about the DMT Clearinghouse learning resources out via Drupal’s learning registry module.

Note:  This description is from the Community for Data Integration 2016 Annual Report.