MOST Wiedzy – Open Research Data Catalog Policy and Information - Bridge of Knowledge

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MOST Wiedzy – Open Research Data Catalog Policy and Information

General information

MOST Wiedzy – Open Research Data Catalog was designed, built, and developed as a part of the project co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund under the Operational Program Digital Poland 2014-2020:  ‘Bridge of Data. Multidisciplinary Open Knowledge Transfer System - Stage II: Open Research Data’.

The nature of the ‘Bridge of Data’ project was to design and build a platform that allows collecting, providing metadata description, and long time preserving the unique research data produced and gathered at the three most important Pomeranian universities: Gdańsk University of Technology, Medical University of Gdańsk and the University of Gdańsk. Most of these data are made available to the scientific community, entrepreneurs and the public therefore became Open Research Data (ORD), one of the three pillars of the Open Science.

To ensure reusability of archived resources the available research data are described by standards developed by dedicated, experienced scientific team. The metadata allow other external computer systems to interpret the collected data. ORD descriptions will also include data reuse or reduction scenarios to facilitate further processing.

Another significant goal of the "Bridge of Data. Multidisciplinary Open Knowledge Transfer System - Stage II: Open Research Data" was to increase accessibility, improve quality and ensure effective functioning these resources in worldwide scientific processes.

The MOST Wiedzy Open Research Data Catalog ensures the infrastructure enabling to archive and make information and resources gathered by scientists in the research process in progress accessible. That is why, it has a positive impact on increasing accessibility, improving the quality of researches and increasing the possibility of reusing scientific resources. The services were designed in collaboration with a substantive team, consisting of the Library (OSCC) employees and the IT technical teams at the Gdańsk Tech IT Services Center and TASK IT Center. Assumptions and functionalities were consulted with teams of scientists at all three universities from the very beginning of the design process. The cross-section of services that it offers includes a data repository with a backup infrastructure and the ability to perform operations and calculations even on big data. It also provides the support of the OSCC as well as additional services supporting knowledge sharing. This altogether provides researchers with the ability to meet the requirements regarding research data management and dissemination set by funding agencies, publishers, and also institutional and national authorities.

In 2021, The Rector of the Gdańsk University of Technology signed the ordinance stating the MOST Wiedzy Research Data Catalog as the Institutional Repository for Open Research Data at the University.

Aims and scope

MOST Wiedzy repository is: 

  • a repository that meets all the requirements set by the NCN,
  • the place where the research data are made available by the FAIR principles,
  • A DOI for each dataset that makes it easy to find,
  • the possibility of integrating the dataset with the scientific profile, publication module or projects,
  • the ability to choose one of the Creative Commons licenses for your dataset or to grant any other license,
  • the possibility of depositing data and creating a private link for publishers who require access to research data to publish an article,
  • substantive support from the employees of the Competence Center.

Deposit data in a repository

In the MOST Wiedzy repository, scientists from the largest Pomeranian universities: Gdańsk University of Technology (Gdańsk Tech), University of Gdańsk, and Medical University of Gdańsk (GUMed), as well as holders of special Vouchers can deposit their research data free of charge. Every Gdańsk Tech scientist with an active user profile on the MOST Wiedzy website has the right to deposit research data in the MOST Wiedzy repository. Scientists from the University of Gdańsk and GUMed, after creating a user profile on the MOST Wiedzy website, receive permissions from the IT Services Center of the Gdańsk University of Technology within a few days of sending an e-mail with a request to grant permissions. In the case of scientists from other universities, only Holders of Vouchers can obtain the right to deposit research data in the MOST Knowledge repository. After logging in to the user's account, a scientist from another university, thanks to a unique link attached to the Voucher, is redirected to a place where he can enter a one-time code. A one-time code from the Voucher gives indefinite rights to any account holder on the MOST Wiedzy website.

Recipients of the project

In order to recognize the situation and identify potential groups of recipients in the field of work with open data and their needs, numerous meetings and conversations were held with representatives of industry, academic staff of all three universities and external scientific units, as well as with employees of the university directly involved in cooperation in the field of collecting, searching and sharing open data. The experience gained over several years of activity was a valuable clue in determining the needs of these environments. 

On this basis, five stakeholder groups have been identified:

  • researchers,
  • PhD students,
  • students,
  • entrepreneurs,
  • representatives of the information society (in particular teachers and students at various levels of education)

Collection development policy

Research data collection is organized under suitable categories according to the Scientific Output provided by the three universities: Collection is multidisciplinary and reflects all scientific disciplines. Providing suitable infrastructure for depositing research data in the MOST Wiedzy Open Research Data Catalog responds to the needs of the academic and public environment.

We do accept research data from all scientific disciplines. However, preference is given to high-quality data that demonstrates relevance and usefulness for more than one scientific discipline and may be valuable for further interdisciplinary research.

The collection aims to cover as broad as possible areas of science described by rich metadata schema. Selection criteria are based on the factors:

  • scope
  • format
  • terms of access
  • documentation
  • open licences  
  • FAIR principles

Moreover, we accept and encourage scholars to provide raw data that is unique and reusable for the broader research community. In addition, we assist in complying your data with ethical, legal, publishers, or funding agencies' requirements in data management and sharing.

In some instances, these criteria may not be appropriate for inclusion (e.g. extremely large datasets may need additional storage). In that case, please get in touch with our support staff at open-data@pg.edu.pl.

Recommended file formats

Every dataset consisting of more than one file has to be deposited to the respository as a compressed archive file. The prefered format is .zip due its openness, commonless, and integrity with the data preview implemented into the repository service. The file format of content data files is crucial for its interoperability and reusability. Recommended file formats are listed below, open formats are favorized but it has to be considered everytime if the conversion won’t result data ora metadata loss. 

  • Textual data - RTF (rich text format), TXT plain text, XML, ODT (open document text )
  • Images - TIFF 6.0 uncompressed, PNG, JPG,  SVG
  • Spreadsheets - CSV (Comma-separated values), TSV Tab-delimited values
  • Geospatial - GML (Geographical Mark-up Language), KML (Keyhole Mark-up Language), ESRI Shapefile, Geo-referenced TIFF
  • Archives - ZIP, TAR, GZIP, 7Z
  • Videos - Audio Codec (FLAC), MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, AIF audio interchange file format, AVI, MPEG-4, OGG video, WMF

Storage procedure

Only trusted users are granted rights to upload datasets to The MOST Wiedzy Research Data Catalog. Among them are: emloyees of Gdansk University of Technology, University of Gdansk,  Medical University of Gdansk. Other users need to contact open-data@pg.edu.pl to gain access to uploading data.

More information:

The Open Research Data Catalog MOST Wiedzy is based on a self deposited approach, where the author is responsible for providing the content. Research data is not subject to verification and its quality depends only on its creator, every record is checked for its formal correctness and compliance with the scientific discipline practices and standards. The process of verification is provided by the Open Science Competence Center team. More info about good practices of shearing Open Data can be found https://pg.edu.pl/openscience/otwarte-dane-badawcze

Preservation plan

Detailed information about “Preservation Policy” can be found in the official document:

Preservation Policy (.pdf, 205 kb)

Maintenance

The Gdańsk University of Technology is fully responsible for the maintenance of the repository.

The specific roles are performed by:

  • IT Services Center at Gdańsk University of Technology - managing the repository from the technical point of view and developing new features;
  • CI TASK - providing secured storage;
  • Gdańsk Tech Library (Open Science Competence Center) – providing support for the users (expertise role) and contribute to the development of the repository features.