Data Management Plan For A Project Of Gwynedd Council

Question

Task 1:
Understand the Requirements for an EPSRC Data Management Plan
Before starting to craft your plan, you should look through the guidance notes from both Bangor University and the EPSRC. (Links have been provided in the Guidance section in this document.) There is a set structure that must be followed. There are links to two templates, either one of which could be used without issue.
Task 2 Define Your Project
As a preface to your plan, you will need to detail what your project is. It is highly recommended that you select the topic/questions that you would like to complete for your Individual Project. This way you will have an advantage of having already considered the data implications before you start. If you have no idea what you would like to complete a project on, you may use the scenario provided in the Scenario section.
This preface will need to be included in your submission as an introduction before your plan.
Task 3 Write-up
You will need to complete the write up in formal, scientific style conforming to the EPSRC policy on Data Management Plans. The formal style will require writing in short, accurate statements and avoiding jargon wherever possible. The nominal word count for this plan is 3000 words, which is 6 sides of A4 at reasonable font size (minimum 10 point) and sensible margins. Assessors will not be counting every individual work, however submissions that are drastically over or under the word count will attract a mark penalty.
Scenario
You have been approached by Gwynedd Council about designing a data system to support a new analytics platform. This platform will help support the council’s recycling and waste collection services. The stated aim of this project is to streamline collection patterns and make the council’s service more efficient.

Answer

Introduction
This study is regarding the data management plan for a project of Gwynedd Council. For any project, it is also important to conduct research through which it becomes possible to collect some important data regarding the particular project [11]. However; it is also essential to manage those research data properly so that those can be used for the current research as well as for the researches. These data either can be extremely confidential or can be important to be available for the other researchers. In this aspect, a proper data management plan is essential and this is what will be developed through this study.

1.What type of data will be generated project while initiating data management plan?
The data that will be generated are regarding the research on waste management and recycling of the wastes. Moreover; the data will include all the past and present documents regarding recycling and waste collection strategies of Gwynedd Council. The data will be as such that the Gwynedd Council would be able to analyze those for its project on waste management. Therefore; there will be also data from different websites and journals which have the discussions regarding waste management and recycling of the used products. These data would help Gwynedd Council to have a new analytics platform and would help in executing the project successfully. The data points will be based on the statistics of recycling of wastes in countries such as US and UK. Data will be taken which are between the year 2015 and 2019. Data about big data analytics will be taken and the efficiency of this technology for analysis will be researched.

2.What will be the volume of the data and what will be the financial requirements for storing the data for an effective data management plan?
The volume of data will be within 1TB and will be stored through Microsoft One Drive. Therefore; there would be no additional costs for storing the data as of now. However; in future if there would be requirements of storing higher volume of data, then; expenses would be made as per the charges taken by Microsoft for extending the storage space for including additional volume of data. The expenses would increase with the increase in the volume of data.

3.File formats in the data management plan
For storing and accessing the data, Freedom of Information Act (2000) will be used as the suitable standard. Moreover; Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (2002) will be also followed as followed by EPSRC [1]. This would help the researchers of Gwynedd Council to access the metadata free of cost. Sufficient metadata will be stored in the repository of Gwynedd Council. Moreover; there would be references of the links of other international domain repositories from which it will be possible to access more metadata. There would be information about the steps or processes by which the researchers of Gwynedd Council would be able to access the metadata stored in other servers. This would help in completing the research without any difficulties. The metadata will be based on the information about advanced technologies which would be used for recycling and waste management.

However; it will be also ensured that the data of Gwynedd Council would be also available to other researchers so that they can get the required assistance while researching on recycling of the products and waste collection. This would help in maintaining the guideline of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) significantly [2]. The metadata that would be present would be based on the advanced level of research and the focus will be on keeping the volume of metadata as high as possible. New metadata would be added as per the requirements of the researchers. There would be provisions of adding more sources of metadata and all the metadata will be in the PDF format and the researchers would be only able to read the data. The PDF file will be secured as such that the data would be only readable. Other users will not be able to copy those data or modify those at any point of time. These provisions will be only available for the researchers of the Council.

However; the data that would be stored by the researchers of Gwynedd Council while incorporating data management plan would be changeable and that provision will be only present for the authorized researchers of the council. Those data will be present in Microsoft Word format for the researchers. However; before publishing those data, the format would be changed to PDF. After converting to PDF, the dataset will be stored into the server of Council and the file will be named as “researchdata.pdf”.

4.What are the strategies of data management plan?
Data backup strategy in the data management plan: In the aspect of storing and accessing the data for the research, it would be also essential to backup the data securely. Data backup would help in ensuring the availability of the research data at any point of time during or after the research [3]. Data will be kept as backup in different storage devices, preferable external hard disks. Those devices will be kept far away from the centre. Offsite storage will be considered and there would be provisions of extracting or restoring the data after the possibility of threats is over. This is because; if at any point of time, the main server or the computers get impacted by natural disasters or cyber attacks, then there would be provisions of extracting the lost data from other resources at any point of time. In the process of initiating data management plan, availability of the research data is going to be the key. Due to the fact that Microsoft One Drive will be used for storing the data of the research, therefore; it would be possible to sync the data from the external device with the stored data [4]. In this aspect, the researchers would not face any issue regarding proper collaboration of the data.

Data sharing strategy: Data will be shared with the collaborators by giving permission for accessing the data stored in the Microsoft One Drive. Access will be only given to the authorized researchers of the council. In order to access the data to prepare a data management plan, researchers will have to provide an accessing request to the data management team of the Gwynedd Council. This would ensure the security of the data. However; for accessing the published data, the researchers would have to log on to the Microsoft One Drive profile and then they would be able to access the data with ease. The authorized email ids of the researchers will be added in Microsoft One Drive profile of the company. Then, the researchers will be allowed with permissions for accessing the research data. Data will be thus shared through their email ids.

In-project access facilities will be provided to the authorized researchers of the project. However; it will be also important for the researchers to follow the data access policies of EPSRC. They will be strictly prohibited to share data with other individuals or organizations without the consent of the team of data management plan of the Gwynedd Council. This would also help in maintaining the confidentiality of the data.

File naming conventions: In the aspect of naming the files which would contain data of the research, the policy of Bangor University will be followed. The researchers will have to follow the policy strictly so that they would be able to share the file with others with ease. This would also help the other researchers to identify the files for the research easily. The name of the files needs to be kept as per the requirements of the research in particular project. This would also help in ensuring that only the authorized researchers of the council have developed the file. It would be also important to include the ID of the researchers while naming the file. This would help in ensuring the authority of the respective files with ease.

Other guidelines for data management plan: In order to maintain the privacy, the personal information would not be shared outside the European Union. In this way, it would be possible to maintain the privacy of the sensitive information and thus, it would be also possible to maintain the security of the research data [5]. This means that the data will be only available among the researchers of European Union. It would be essential to have a strong internet connection which will help in sharing and transferring the data with ease. With a strong internet connection, it would be possible to store the data in the Microsoft One Drive as well as to retrieve those data for the research.

The confidential data for the research need to be protected with the help of encryption technique. This would help in ensuring the sensitive data would be protected and the confidentiality would be maintained. Researchers would be able to access those confidential with their login id and password. All the data would be stored in Microsoft One Drive for at least 10 years. After the end of 10 years, if the data are no longer required, then those data would be securely deleted. However; the published data would be not deleted and would be kept available for the other researchers. It would be also important to use cloud storage after some point of time in order to ensure faster backup and retrieval.

If other research organizations seek permission from the council for accessing some research data, then those data need to be shared by ensuring proper identity of those research organizations. This would help in complying with the Freedom of Information Act (2000) and would also help in maintaining the policy of EPSRC [6]. It would be essential to train the researchers on proper handling of the data and for ensuring that those researchers would follow the guidelines and policies with success. They need to be made aware of the importance of the data that they would access and also the security policies that they need to follow while accessing the data .This would ensure that the guidelines of EPSRC would be followed successfully.

5.Process of description of the data:
While giving access of the data to the secondary users, it would be essential to ensure that the origin of the data would be clearly mentioned. The data regarding big data analytics and its use on analyzing the research data and metadata will be also available for the secondary users so that the overall process of research can be clear. Then data points regarding the statistics will be also shared to the secondary users.

For maintaining the standard of the metadata, the policy and guideline of the Digital Curation Centre or DCC will be followed. This would help in ensuring that high quality metadata would be included for the research [7]. In this way, there would be enough clarity on the source of metadata thus preventing any confusion for the secondary users at any point of time. For this particular data management plan for a project, metadata will be regarding environmental policies, waste collection and the process of recycling of the wastes. Therefore; the disciplinary guidelines of the Digital Curation Centre would be beneficial in the process of maintaining the clarity of the metadata and for completing the research with success. 

6.Secondary use
The data that will be stored and shared for the research while implementing data management plan are going to be highly valuable. The reason is that those data will be extracted from the reliable sources and will also have a significant volume of metadata [8]. Therefore; it would be possible to ensure that the researchers will have a wide variety of data to help the council for conducting the project successfully. Along with this, the data that will be published will have the enough supporting evidences which would be significantly helpful for other research organizations. Moreover; there would be provisions for the researchers to add the experimental data in their own research work. These data would help in enhancing the quality of the research and the quality of the research articles that will be published. Overall, due to the presence of data from different sources around the world, it would be possible for the researchers to have a wider scope regarding successful research about the information on recycling of the used products or the wastes and on the processes of collecting the wastes. Therefore; the data that will be shared are going to be highly valuable and useful for secondary use.

After the end of the project, the data will be stored for at least 10 years as per the policy of the council. Those data obtained from the data management plan can be further utilized for the future researches regarding the research topic and those should be valuable then as well. The value of the data will be high for the other organizations which would be developing the similar projects. The project teams and the researchers of those organizations would be able to get some significant data from the current project and those data will be useful for their projects as well. Along with this, due to presence of some real data based on the project, other organizations would be able get significant help and the data would be up to date as well. Moreover; due to the presence of metadata, it would be possible to have some additional information as well. This would overall help in increasing the value of the data at present and for the future as well. Those data can be re-used, however; there would be no provisions for the other researchers to modify those data in the future. Therefore; for the future use, the data are going to extremely significant as well as valuable.

7.Data sharing methods:
Data management plan regarding data sharing: For sharing the data, the focus will be to ensure that the personal data of the resources will not be available to the secondary users. Only the research data and the metadata will be available for the secondary users to access. Along with this, the research data will be protected as such that the secondary users would not be able to modify those at any point of time. The data will be disposed in the repository for 10 years. However; only the research data which are not sensitive will be available for the secondary users [9]. The confidential data of the research will be shared through email and will be available in the Microsoft One Drive. Researchers will have to seek the permission on accessing those data. The database administrators will give access permission automatically. The published data will be uploaded in Google Scholar so that other researchers can access those.

The norms of EPSRC will be followed properly which would help in share the data with security and also by maintaining the ethics. Along with this, some of the data will be readily available for the other researchers. However; those data will be shared to the secondary users after the permission of the higher authorities of the council. Those data need to be shared at free of cost and this would help in maintaining and following the ethical policies of EPSRC.

Restriction of the data: As discussed earlier in this study of data management plan, access of sensitive data will be fully restricted. Only the non-confidential data of the research will be available for public access. The sensitive data would include personal information of the researchers and the council, data about the name of the participants in the research and other data which are confidential and will be restricted for the use of the researchers and the authorized shareholders of the council. The framework of EPSRC will be fully followed and further, if any changes are made in the policy, then the changes will be followed as well. The authority of the council will be responsible for setting the restrictions and for selecting the data which would be confidential and restricted for sharing [10]. Data will be handled by properly disposing those after 10 years. Only the confidential data will be disposed. Other data will be available for the public.

In order to store the data in the repository, there would be some expenses. For data having volume within 1 TB there would be no additional cost. However; for storing data volume of more than 1 TB, there would be some additional costs. The costs of storage will depend upon the volume of extra data that will be deposited in the repository. However; the focus will be to keep the volume of data within 1 TB. This would help in limiting the additional expenses for storage of the research data. The volume of data can increase along with the progress of the research for the project of the council. All the personal data will be stored in the repository and will not be available for access for the other users at any point of time. This would also help in reducing the volume of the data that will be kept confidential and will be not available for further access. The researchers may wish to delete their personal data after the completion of the research if they want. If not deleted, those data would be stored securely and by maintaining the privacy with a significant effect.

8.Timeframes
The data obtained from the data management plan will be immediately released after the end of the project. Once the project gets completed, some data will be deposited in the repository and others will be available for public access. The data will be released only while publishing those for the other users. This means that the project should be marked as fully completed after publishing the data for the users. This process would ensure that the data would not be available for the public before the complete of the research. This would also help in maintaining the confidentially of the research as well as the overall project. The data will be published within 15-20 days from the completion of the actual project. This would help in the data up to date for the other users who would be accessing those. In this aspect, the guidelines provided by EPSRC will be successfully followed by the team of data management plan of the council and will be followed in the future as well.

If any changes are made regarding the timeframe of the release of data, those will be made aware to the researchers of the project of council. This process would help in maintaining the research ethics with success. The timeframe of completing the research is expected to be 6 months and the project would take another 7 months to complete. Therefore; the data will be released after 13 months from now.

Conclusions
Therefore; for Gwynedd Council; it will be important to follow and manage the plan successfully so that the framework of EPSRC can be maintained. It will be simultaneously important to make the researchers aware of the plan so that they can maintain the research data properly from their side. Through this research, it has been possible to understand the data management plan of EPSRC and further; some other standards have been considered which has made possible to create the data management plan for the research project of Gwynedd Council successfully. It will be the responsibility of the stakeholders of Gwynedd Council to maintain the plan properly.

References
[1]"EPSRC policy framework on research data - EPSRC website", Epsrc.ukri.org, 2019. Data management plan [Online]. Available: https://epsrc.ukri.org/about/standards/researchdata/. [Accessed: 28- Dec- 2019].

[2]"Freedom of Information Act 2000", Legislation.gov.uk, 2019. [Online]. Available: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/contents. [Accessed: 28- Dec- 2019].

[3]T. Li et al., "Data-Driven Techniques in Computing System Management", ACM Computing Surveys, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 1-43, 2017. Available: 10.1145/3092697.

[4]S. Makki, "Measuring the Performance of Data Placement Structures for MapReduce-based Data Warehousing Systems", International Journal of New Computer Architectures and their Applications, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 11-20, 2018. Data management plan Available: 10.17781/p002371.

[5]D. Goroff, J. Polonetsky and O. Tene, "Privacy Protective Research: Facilitating Ethically Responsible Access to Administrative Data", The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 675, no. 1, pp. 46-66, 2017. Available: 10.1177/0002716217742605.

[6]"Access to information - EPSRC website", Epsrc.ukri.org, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://epsrc.ukri.org/about/access/. [Accessed: 28- Dec- 2019].

[7]"Resources for digital curators | Digital Curation Centre", Dcc.ac.uk, 2019. [Online]. Available: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources. Data management plan [Accessed: 28- Dec- 2019].

[8]J. Kemp, C. Dean and J. Chodacki, "Can Richer Metadata Rescue Research?", The Serials Librarian, vol. 74, no. 1-4, pp. 207-211, 2018. Available: 10.1080/0361526x.2018.1428483.

[9]M. Fenner et al., "A data citation roadmap for scholarly data repositories", Scientific Data, vol. 6, no. 1, 2019. Available: 10.1038/s41597-019-0031-8.

[10]P. Ortmeier and B. Johnson, Introduction to security. .

[11]J. Sutton and Z. Austin, "Qualitative Research: Data Collection, Analysis, and Management", The Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, vol. 68, no. 3, 2015. Data management plan Available: 10.4212/cjhp.v68i3.1456.