The Institutional Data Management Blueprint Project
(www.southamptondata.org) has been designing a 10-year plan and implementing pilot services for research data management across the University of Southampton. This is being carried out in an open way, so that other institutions can benefit from our experience. It includes developing and deploying user services, technical, policy, governance and detailed business planning. It is clear that data storage that has sufficient capacity and data management capability is a key enabler to ensure that researchers can be productive in terms of day-to-day operations, and longer-term preservation, curation and publication of their outputs. The current rate of data creation is exponential, and University IT services are finding it hard/impossible to predict, scale and support research data in the short-, medium- and long-term when considered at an institutional level. This includes both capital cost, such as upgrading/replacing data centres, and human resources to support such infrastructure.
This talk will cover the findings of the IDMB project and their possible impact on institutional attitudes to the use of the cloud.