UPMET

With changes in regulations and the advent of open science, the sector involved in the dissemination and reuse of data is undergoing a profound transformation. Through the UpMet (Upscaling metadata for increasing reuse in the social sciences) project, CDSP is bringing its expertise in data documentation and archiving to the academic community.

Background

At present, though awareness of the value of data is steadily growing, practices that are insufficiently documented and standardised present risks to the archiving and future reuse of data.

The production of tools capable of bringing improvements to the sharing, exploration and reuse of this mass of data represents a real methodological challenge, which the UpMet project seeks to tackle.

Encouraging self-deposit by appropriate support

The focus of the first component of the UpMet project is to encourage the sharing of data on self-deposit platforms. By improving the user experience on these systems through explanatory and technical support and by increasing researchers’ knowledge of minimal standards (building datasets, recommendations on documentation, etc.), UpMet is intended to help research teams become autonomous in managing and sharing their data.

This pedagogical element draws on experience of existing tools in similar centres in Europe. It also draws on arenas dedicated to exploring methods of sharing data in the social sciences (motivations for sharing, typology of shared elements, etc.) and contributes to the production of publications about self-deposit practices.

Facilitating large-scale comparisons by harmonising metadata

The focus of the second facet of the project is the development of a harmonised stock of questions and variables using the DDI-3 standard (also called DDI-Lifecycle). The aim of this experiment is to produce metadata for existing surveys by using controlled vocabularies (CESSDA, DDI Alliance) so that equivalent questions or variables from 2 different sources can easily be identified under a single concept.

The questions and variables documented in this way cease to be exclusive to a particular dataset but can be used by everyone.

By establishing a database with the help of these questions and variables, harvested following its pilot phase by CESSDA’s European Question Bank, CDSP is helping to increase the possibilities for comparisons between international data and for their large-scale use.

CDSP is also committed to providing feedback on experience from this aspect of UpMet in online events (webinars) addressed to the scientific and academic community.

Recognition

Selected through the FLASH call for projects issued by the National Research Agency dedicated to research practices and open data, the UpMet project obtained funding to the tune of €99,600.