Project

RDM at GTB

Data is becoming more important every year. In AI, automation and multiyear trials information plays a key role. An important distinction is that data is not information. Data could become the new gold but only if it’s managed correctly. While everyone sees the potential, data management is a research field on its own. With ontologies, long term storage and ambiguous interpretations of FAIR. At the greenhouse horticulture (GTB) business unit, and many others, this unfortunately means it is treated as research. Projects and researchers try things, but the efforts lack coordination. This project gave us the opportunity to move the research a few steps closer to practice.

As first step an application procedure was started for a data steward (DS) along with structural funding and most important: support from management and support staff. After a few months we found a candidate and started training him. While trying out the RDM procedures and testing the tools several new ideas popped up. In consultation with management and the support staff a few of these are worked out in this project:

  1. It’s challenging to work FAIR on the default storage solution of WUR: the W. Therefore, we invested part of our development capacity in testing and improving iRODS. Together with the supporting teams we managed to upload the first datasets. After which we wrote a few tools to make iRODS easier to use. The key developments are a user interface and a pipeline to automatically upload data to iRODS, complete with metadata for the tape archive.
  2. The original RDM protocol counted more than twenty pages, the researchers also had to read up on 3 intranet pages: one about security, another on privacy and a third one about data management. Most of this information only applies to specific projects, privacy regulation is very strict on human data but says nothing about plants. To simplify the workflow and save the researcher valuable time a flowchart was created. Creating a general flow with questions each project can go through. We could not have done this without the support of the RDM support staff of PSG. Following a flowchart for our business unit, the library is currently trying to simplify the WUR wide procedure.
  3. Some steps in the RDM process apply to each project, for example the creation of a data management plant or archiving the data and report at the end of the project. Currently it's up to the researchers whether they do this. Data stewards can play ‘police officers’, but that not a nice way of working. There must be a better way; after asking around we are happy to say we found possibilities. These have been communicated to the WDCC and library. Hopefully they find the time to follow up.

This project might have ended but we have not. There is still a lot to do before we can work FAIR. If you would like to know more, reach out!