Friday, 1 April 2016

Preservation my Research Notes, and Process

My research project is a historical comparative analysis involving existing materials that, while they are not born digital, have already been made available in digital formats. These are, for the most part, available in multiple academic and national libraries. For this reason, the records I would be most interested in protecting would be those records that I am producing myself ie. large numbers of research notes. My workflow, as it stands, is entirely digital, so my records would be born digital as well.


http://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dvn/


As a scholar working within the University of Toronto , I would take advantage of the Dataverse service offered by Scholar's Portal, in order to preserve my research notes. This service is the first officially certified trusted digital repository in Canada, meaning that it can be trusted to provide reliable and long-term access and preservation to digital materials, because it meets specific standards related to technology, security, procedures, and finances (among others). This repository has the additional advantage of allowing for multiple versions of a file to be kept, which would provide me with a way to track changes (and/or my thought process) throughout my project. In addition, it is extremely flexible in its security settings, so I would be able to restrict access completely while working on the project, open it up to select people as necessary, and make it public if, sometime in the future, my work is published to a journal that requires the data I used be made accessible.

I'm sure there are other options out there - but for me, it would make no sense not to take advantage of what is undoubtedly (certifiably!) the best option, especially when it is made available free of charge right here at UofT.




Sources:

"Attributes of Trusted Digital Repositories." OCLC Research Group, 2002, http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/trustedrep.html



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1 comment:

  1. cipslilian1 April 2016 at 15:25

    Reading your post, raised a question in my head… I am aware you noted to simply consider the available UofT services as another means to store copies but I still thought, “What about issues regarding people decentralizing the copies?”
    By decentralizing I mean, making multiple copies, stored in different locations away from our direct absolute control… and how as a result, we might be subtly removing ourselves from responsibility. By absolute control I am referring to the way I used to depend on Google Drive to automatically save my work (I had way too many experiences with Microsoft Word not working mid-way while trying to save or a blackout while writing…), and continually make it accessible on my demand via log in. What happens if these institutions abruptly ‘shut down’ and do not assure access, despite your rights as signed in the Terms of Service (ToS) when you first signed up for the service? This seems similar to the dependence on banks to keep your money safe and accessible through ATMs (and then considering the history of banks going bankrupt...). Yet, perhaps the stakes are quite different and not as serious as the comparisons I made. Optimistically, those who are aware, know better and can inform others too.
    On another note, I am quite hesitant when someone says ‘free’ especially because of things like surveillance, data mining (e.g. unpaid labour by posting on Facebook, even on here on Blogspot, contributing to algorithms you did not know existed etc.)and how some ToS legalese makes access to/use of your data not as you initially had in mind etc…
    TL;DR, I agree on using all available services to help in preservation, because, ultimately if it holds any importance for you to preserve it—then the onus is on you to find the best means to do so.

    Lilian Le-Dang

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