On the 14th February
Research staff, Postgraduate students and support staff gathered to mark
International Love Data week with an afternoon of lively and informative talks
under the heading Straeon Data Stories. The presenters brief was simple; 10
minutes on any aspect of Research data. What followed were presentations which
posed questions, addressed challenges and discussed innovations in the area of
Research Data Management, all showing the vibrancy of Research Data Management
here in Bangor.
Dr Dave Perkins kicked off the
presentations treating us to a selection of images taken from the world around
us. He detailed how in order to transfer the real world into the digital world
there is some translation which goes on in terms of computer bits. Due to the
nature of this translation there is an element of inefficiency, leading, in
some cases due to the nature of zooming, to pixelated images. He finished by
posing the question ‘Does it matter if it is not as good as the real world?’
Are we happy to accept these inefficiencies?
We were delighted to welcome
colleagues from Natural Resources Wales and Harriet Robinson gave us a
fantastic overview of the breadth and depth of data which is available from
them. This data is collected by NRW and ensures that decisions to do with the
Natural World are made on sound evidence. They have several collections of data
available, all available under an Open Government Licence, including: Recorder
6, Marine Recorder, Arc GIS, WIRS and WISKI (hydrometry and telemetry data
taking recordings every 15 minutes across thousands of locations). One place to
access NRW data is via Lle, a geo-portal developed as a partnership between
Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales, available at: http://lle.gov.wales/home.
NRW ensure that the data is discoverable, accessible and reusable and are
currently operating on 3* level of openness. There are some exciting
developments in the pipeline. They are aiming to become as Data by Design
organisation achieving a maximum 5* level of openness, improving the technology
for the publication of data, innovate data usage and a wish to go Global.
Laurence Jones a PhD student from
Bangor’s business school talked us through the types of data that he uses, the
financial databases researchers in the Business School have access to and the
models used to analyse the data they access. In this case data is not created,
but accessed and analysed on computer terminals (jokingly referred to by
Laurence as those see in films like The Big Short). This data includes stock
market data (daily, second, millisecond) Credit ratings data and company data
which includes financial balance sheets. He talked us through how he would
analyse and interpret this data and how he would deal with outliers (…specific
observations, Trimming, Winsorizing), given that the data is not always 100%
accurate. Then using progression models they are able to control different
things which may be affecting dependent variables, such as the impact
regulation may have on company fortunes.
A new postdoctoral fellow to the
University’s School of Ocean Sciences, Adel Heenan, gave us a ‘fishy tale’.
Prior to arriving at Bangor Adel worked at the University of Hawai’i collecting
data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, US
department of Commerce) monitoring the coral reef fishes across the Pacific.
Adel added atmosphere to her presentation by playing a video in the background
of a fish sampling survey. This project generated a huge dataset and a report
of its findings was presented to the Congress of the United States of America.
The 2012 President Obama issued a directive pushing the Open Data agenda in the
U.S. There was a need then to extend access to this data, to put in place
quality control measures, to ensure efficiencies in terms of dealing with data
requests and improve data archiving. Adel advocated the use of both GitHub and
the Reproducible Research open educational course available via Coursera.
At the half way point we broke
for refreshments, a chance for questions and networking as well as encouraging
contributions to our Love Data Pledge and Data developments heart. Everybody
was asked to pledge one thing that they plan to do with their Research data and
suggest developments they would like to see at the University with regards to
Research Data Management.
Professor
Jonathan Roberts kicked off the second half of proceedings claiming: Love Data:
Love Visualisation. He led us through 4 stories which have led to 4 lessons for
good Research Data Management as follows:
·
D: Define the problem
·
A: Design and generate Alternatives
·
T: Critically Think
·
A: Assess outcomes with users.
Along with Panos Ritsos and Chris Headleand, Jonathan has published a
book entitled Five Design-Sheets: Creative Design and Sketching for Computing
and Visualisation, which leads the reader through sketching as a way to
establish a problem and create a solution.
Graham Worley joined us to talk about the new SEACAMS 2 project aiming
to make 20TB of data available to the Marine Renewables Industry. They have
created iMARDIS, The Integrated Marine Data Information System to make this
data available. The motto of the project has been “Measure once, use many
times”. A phrase that encompasses the Open Data movement. Their aims are to
offer a data download service, develop data products and create analytical and
modelling tools. They have designed an infrastructure which offers more than
just a repository for data, it offers granular metadata, dynamic access, the
ability to retrieve subsets of the data and the use of APIs for programmatical
access to the data for real-time feedback. They have also designed a metadata
manager and have processed approximately 4TB of the data. The most difficult
part of the journey so far has been the data licensing aspect by trying to make
the data as open as possible but balancing alongside academic concerns.
Our second PhD student to present was Cameron Gray from the School of
Computer Science. By using Learner analytics he has been able to assess the
retention rate of students based on the first 3 weeks of attendance and
produced a predictive model. This model can be used to identify at risk
students and form the basis for strategies for intervention. The data also
allowed the identification of any events which may trigger a fall-off in
attendance. This will lead to Data Driven Decision making.
Our final speaker for this inaugural Data Stories event was Dr Panos Ritsos
who talked us through Visualization beyond the desktop, the next big thing?
Mixed/Augmented reality and the internet of things is set to change our
perception of informational and physical space. Data can, and is, becoming more
pervasive and this could lead to the death of the desktop as we move to more
mobile technologies. He is working on Synthetic visualisations, real-time
physical space representations of data. Augmenting the environment through
interaction, reworking objects. This is leading to a different kind of
openness, an openness of convenience. He encouraged anybody with an interest in
visualising data to get in touch.
We would like to thank all speakers for their contribution to a lively
and engaging event. Good ideas were
shared and good practice highlighted.
The event highlighted the scope and range of data that is being
produced, handled and managed at the University. A better understanding of what’s happening in
practice, will help us understand how best the University can support research
data management developments in the future.
This event also took part during the Bangor Sustainability Carnival,
which aimed to showcase the range and variety of sustainability-related events
that run in a typical month at Bangor University. Good research data management support is
essential to ensure data is available in the long-term. It is also essential
that data critical for global sustainability efforts can be openly shared for
the collaboration and the greater good.
Bangor University is not working alone, and we should be tapping in to
developments in Research Data Management initiatives across the UK HE sector
for UK-wide sustainable solutions.
Thank you to Dr James Wang, School of Electronic Engineering, who engraved these Data tokens for our presenters.
