7 SPEC Kit 354: Data Curation
Support for Curation Activities
Data curation services comprise a variety of different types of activities. The survey asked respondents to
indicate whether their service provides any of 47 different activities grouped into five different aspects
of data curation: ingest, appraisal, processing and review, access, and preservation. If an activity is
not currently included as a part of the service, we asked if they plan or aspire to include the activity in
the future.
The most universally provided data curation services are ingest activities, which include
metadata, deposit agreements, authentication, documentation, file validation, and chain of custody.
Forty-five libraries (92%) currently provide one or more of these services and all but chain of custody are
offered by more than two-thirds of the libraries. The access category covers 11 activities that are likewise
commonly supported. Forty-three libraries currently provide one or more of these services. More than
two-thirds provide file download, terms of use, discovery services, embargo, use analytics, metadata
brokerage, and data citation. Only 14 provide data visualization, though.
Most of the responding libraries provide some of the 18 processing and review activities.
However, this category shows an interesting bimodal distribution of results between activities that are
currently supported and those the respondents would like to provide, but are unable to at this time. As
one respondent commented:
“These ten activities are the most difficult to implement because they are the most time
consuming and resource intensive. These activities also require a high degree of both technical
training and disciplinary knowledge. We are slowly working towards supporting these activities,
however some, like peer-review, are and will continue to be out of reach. If depositors/users
supply us with this metadata, and/or ask us for assistance, then we will provide this support
where possible. However, we cannot currently provide large-scale support across all datasets
deposited in our repository.”
This bifurcation is also seen for the nine activities in the preservation category and the three
appraisal activities.
Figure 4. Support for Ingest Activities
Support for Curation Activities
Data curation services comprise a variety of different types of activities. The survey asked respondents to
indicate whether their service provides any of 47 different activities grouped into five different aspects
of data curation: ingest, appraisal, processing and review, access, and preservation. If an activity is
not currently included as a part of the service, we asked if they plan or aspire to include the activity in
the future.
The most universally provided data curation services are ingest activities, which include
metadata, deposit agreements, authentication, documentation, file validation, and chain of custody.
Forty-five libraries (92%) currently provide one or more of these services and all but chain of custody are
offered by more than two-thirds of the libraries. The access category covers 11 activities that are likewise
commonly supported. Forty-three libraries currently provide one or more of these services. More than
two-thirds provide file download, terms of use, discovery services, embargo, use analytics, metadata
brokerage, and data citation. Only 14 provide data visualization, though.
Most of the responding libraries provide some of the 18 processing and review activities.
However, this category shows an interesting bimodal distribution of results between activities that are
currently supported and those the respondents would like to provide, but are unable to at this time. As
one respondent commented:
“These ten activities are the most difficult to implement because they are the most time
consuming and resource intensive. These activities also require a high degree of both technical
training and disciplinary knowledge. We are slowly working towards supporting these activities,
however some, like peer-review, are and will continue to be out of reach. If depositors/users
supply us with this metadata, and/or ask us for assistance, then we will provide this support
where possible. However, we cannot currently provide large-scale support across all datasets
deposited in our repository.”
This bifurcation is also seen for the nine activities in the preservation category and the three
appraisal activities.
Figure 4. Support for Ingest Activities
