Project Description:
Supporting Data Management Infrastructure for the Humanities (Sudamih) is an infrastructure project with two main strands of development: 1) a 'Database as a Service' (DaaS) system for researchers in the humanities; and 2) training materials to help researchers better manager their data. The project is funded by the JISC as part of their Research Data Management Programme.
The DaaS will offer researchers a web-based system for creating, editing, and searching research databases. It is intended to be easy to use, and will facilitate collaboration, offering automated back-up and versioning, and a generic query-builder so that researchers and (if so desired) members of the general public can search the databases via the website. The DaaS will initially cater for text, image, and geospatial data types.
With regards to training, Sudamih is developing online content and face-to-face presentations to introduce researchers to the principles of good data management and the services that Oxford offers to help. Training will cover file structures, linking data to sources, useful software, structuring information in databases or using text mark-up, documenting data, writing data plans in funding proposals, and where one can turn for help. We are taking a broad interpretation as to what constitutes 'data', taking it to cover the management of all of the materials, textual, visual, numerical, or otherwise, that researchers analyse during the research process.
Besides these two core strands of work, Sudamih will be assessing the longer term costs and benefits of developing such infrastructure.
The Sudamih Project was followed by the 'Virtual Infrastructure with Database as a Service' (VIDaaS) Project, which continued the development of the DaaS software.
