Research Data Management Services at OCAD University

Metadata

Metadata are an important part of ensuring that data is discoverable, citable, and enables future users to interpret for reuse. There are many metadata standards that vary across disciplines but according to the Tri-Agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management (2016), common elements include the following:

• Who created the data and when
• How the data were created 
• Quality, accuracy and precision
• Features necessary to enable understanding and reuse

For a helpful archive of standards by discipline, visit the Digital Curation Centre's Disciplinary Metadata page. 

Data Sharing: Data Repositories

Section 3.3 of the Tri Agency Research Data Management policy states that grant recipients will be required to deposit into a digital repository their digital research data, metadata, and code that support their research conclusions

• The deposit must be made by time of publication 
• Repository choice may be guided by disciplinary standards
• In all cases the repository must ensure safe storage, preservation and curation of the data.

OCAD University Library provides access to OCAD University Dataverse, an open source platform offered to Ontario universities through Scholars Portal, the service arm of the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL). 

OCAD U researchers can log into Dataverse and access user guides on the Scholars Portal site. 

Other Data Repositories

There are a number of disciplinary data repositories available. <odesi> is a digital exploration tool for social sciences data containing over 3,535 datasets and more than 13,000 additional dataset descriptions available for searching.

To explore other disciplinary data repositories visit the following:

• Re3data.org maintains a Registry of Research Data Repositories

• The Simmons Open Access Directory (OAD) provides a growing list of open access data repositories sorted by discipline