Erschließung, Linked Open Data, RDA
In the research data life cycle, scientific repositories support scientists in publishing and validating datasets. The ecosystem of scientific data repositories (i.e. listed via re3data.org) consists of a large variety of available categories and types, including discipline specific, interdisciplinary and institutional ones, and mixtures thereof. With this heterogeneity comes large variation in terms of data and metadata standards, APIs, file formats, licenses, archival- and publication guidelines, terms of re-use, and others. This is also a reason why a search across multiple repositories is a time consuming task to be carried out by researchers who want to re-use data, but are unsure where to look for it.
The Leibniz Data Manager (LDM), accessible at https://service.tib.eu/ldmservice/ increases the availability and re-use of scientific digital objects and their metadata with the following features:
To search and explore research data across various repositoriesTo preview data in different interfaces, e.g. via tables, via audio-visual material like AutoCAD files or 2D and 3D data, or via live programming code (Jupyter Notebook(s)).To empower the semantic interoperability of metadata by mapping harvested metadata to DCAT format and providing RDF serializations.Allows the installation of customized and local LDM distributions with open source code through distribution in a docker container.In sum, LDM offers a simple, small-scale and open software distribution, which can connect digital repositories in a way such that datasets and other scientific objects will stay in their respective repositories, with LDM providing an integrated view of the data sets archived by these repositories. Scientists can understand the information contained in digital objects, strengthening, thus, scientific transparency by following the FAIR principles.
Scientific libraries provide research and science with specialist literature and information, including research data. Increasingly, they make available services to support researchers in research data management. These services include the operation of (subject-specific) repositories for research data. Background is that research funders like Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) are increasingly calling for results in the form of research data to be published as open and FAIR as possible.
The heterogeneity of published research data generates complex landscapes of various repositories, which use different data and metadata standards, interfaces, file formats, archiving and publishing policies, licensing information, conditions for the reuse of digital objects, and other requirements. Accordingly, researchers have to spend a lot of resources to find and select suitable and reusable research data for their research projects. Additionally, only a few repositories offer a preview for research data so that researchers can decide before downloading whether the data is sufficient for their project.
The Leibniz Data Manager (LDM) allows users to search and explore research data across various repositories. It also previews data in different interfaces, e.g. tables, audio-visual material like AutoCAD files or 2D and 3D data or live programming code via Jupyter Notebook(s). Hence, LDM facilitates the finding of reusable research data. Besides that, LDM resorts to Semantic Web technologies to empower FAIR principles. Therefore, research data is described by metadata, e.g. in DataCite or DCAT in several RDF serializations. LDM is an open source and additional (meta)data management layer for data repositories, implemented on top of the web data catalog software CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network). LDM is distributed in a docker container; it can be customized and local LDM distributions can be easily installed. LDM is accessible at https://service.tib.eu/ldmservice.