Management of Research Data in ETD Systems
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Management of Research Data in ETD Systems
More and more institutions worldwide have electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) programmes. However, it appears that only a handful of institutions have mechanisms in place to gather the complete work involved in the process of producing a thesis or dissertation, especially the images and experimental data. It is not uncommon for successful postgraduate students to dispose of or lose the data used in the production of their work thus rendering such work irreproducible except at great cost and efforts. In a reported case in the institution of the authors, the laptop containing the data was stolen. This is an unquantifiable loss as the student could not generate necessary paper(s) for publication. Many institutions have research and data management centres/services which provide consulting services, training and software tools to support the scholarly research, advanced academic study, and information infrastructure. Some of these centres specialize in the receipt, processing, and reporting of large data sets typically associated with different research programmes. The data sets are used in scholarly research, to provide meaningful reports that aid management in day-to-day operations as well as to better understand the complexities of service delivery. However the management of ETD programmes is usually not the responsibility of such centres. This paper will report on a survey carried out to establish the research data management practices by institutions which have ETD programmes including the systems in place (software and hardware), and the integration of text and data. It will make recommendations on the way forward with regards to managing research data (including images) generated in the process of producing a thesis or dissertation. (Felix Ubogu is the University Librarian of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Dr Yasien Sayed is Senior Researcher, Protein Structure-Function Research Unit, School of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of the Witwatersrand). Felix.Ubogu@wits.ac.za Yasien.Sayed@wits.ac.za
2008