title: UPBox and DataNotes: a collaborative data management environment for the long tail of research data
creators: João Rocha da Silva José Pedro Barbosa Mariana Gouveia João Correia Lopes Cristina Ribeiro
abstract: Current research data management workflows are often an a posteriori process, with research datasets being targeted for preservation actions after the whole research process is completed. This approach works well for research publications but not for research datasets due to their dynamic nature. It is important to gather data production contexts, so the data management process should be present since the start of the research, effectively becoming a part of the workflow. Due to their rigid work ow-based deposit approach, widely used repository solutions are not intended to support the fast-paced evolution of datasets as they are produced. In this paper, we present a collaborative data management environment designed to help a small research group store and describe their datasets in preparation for later deposit in a data repository. It is built on two integrated, open-source components: UPBox - a private cloud and web-based file storage environment - and DataNotes - a solution tailored for researchers to collaboratively describe their data, based on Semantic MediaWiki. Preliminary usage tests have shown that the features of this solution respond to data management needs in research groups.
keywords: research data management data repositories semantic mediawiki digital curation lisbon