We are happy to announce the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has funded our project to improve the user interface and functionality of our Dash tool! You can read the full grant text at http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2mw6v93b.
More about Dash
Dash is a University of California project to create a platform that allows researchers to easily describe, deposit and share their research data publicly. Currently the Dash platform is connected to the UC3 Merritt Digital Repository; however, we have plans to make the platform compatible with other repositories using protocols during our Sloan-funded work. The Dash project is open-source; read more on our GitHub site. We encourage community discussion and contribution via GitHub Issues.
Currently there are five instances of the Dash tool available:
- UC Merced: dash.ucmerced.edu
- UCLA: dash.ucla.edu
- UC Irvine: dash.lib.uci.edu
- UC Berkeley: dash.berkeley.edu
- UCOP: dash.ucop.edu
We plan to launch the new DataONE Dash instance in two weeks; this tool will replace the existing DataUp tool and allow anyone to deposit data into the DataONE infrastructure via the ONEShare repository using their Google credentials. Along with the release of DataONE Dash, we will release Dash 1.1 for the live sites listed above. There will be improvements to the user interface and experience.
The Newly Funded Sloan Project
Problem Statement
Researchers are not archiving and sharing their data in sustainable ways. Often data sharing involves using commercially owned solutions, posting data on personal websites, or submitting data alongside articles as supplemental material. A better option for data archiving is community repositories, which are owned and operated by trusted organizations (i.e., institutional or disciplinary repositories). Although disciplinary repositories are often known and used by researchers in the relevant field, institutional repositories are less well known as a place to archive and share data.
Why aren’t researchers using institutional repositories?
First, the repositories are often not set up for self-service operation by individual researchers who wish to deposit a single dataset without assistance. Second, many (or perhaps most) institutional repositories were created with publications in mind, rather than datasets, which may in part account for their less-than-ideal functionality. Third, user interfaces for the repositories are often poorly designed and do not take into account the user’s experience (or inexperience) and expectations. Because more of our activities are conducted on the Internet, we are exposed to many high-quality, commercial-grade user interfaces in the course of a workday. Correspondingly, researchers have expectations for clean, simple interfaces that can be learned quickly, with minimal need for contacting repository administrators.
Our Solution
We propose to address the three issues above with Dash, a well-designed, user friendly data curation platform that can be layered on top of existing community repositories. Rather than creating a new repository or rebuilding community repositories from the ground up, Dash will provide a way for organizations to allow self-service deposit of datasets via a simple, intuitive interface that is designed with individual researchers in mind. Researchers will be able to document, preserve, and publicly share their own data with minimal support required from repository staff, as well as be able to find, retrieve, and reuse data made available by others.
Three Phases of Work
- Requirements gathering: Before the design process begins, we will build requirements for researchers via interviews and surveys
- Design work: Based on surveys and interviews with researchers (Phase 1), we will develop requirements for a researcher-focused user interface that is visually appealing and easy to use.
- Technical work: Dash will be an added-value data sharing platform that integrates with any repository that supports community protocols (e.g., SWORD (Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit).
