Data curation

In science, Data curation is a term used to indicate the process of extraction of important information from scientific texts such as research articles by experts and converting them into an electronic form such as an entry of a biological database.^[1]

According to the University of Illinois' Graduate School of Library and Information Science, "Data curation is the active and on-going management of data through its life cycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship, science, and education. Data curation activities enable data discovery and retrieval, maintain its quality, add value, and provide for re-use over time, and this new field includes authentication, archiving, management, preservation, retrieval, and representation."^[2] Deep background on data libraries appeared in a 1982 issue of the Illinois journal, Library Trends.^[3]. For historical background on the data archive movement see "Social Scientific Information Needs for Numeric Data: The Evolution of the International Data Archive Infrastructure." ^[4].

In broad terms, curation means a range of activities and processes done to create, manage, maintain, and validate a component.^[5]

This term is used in context of biological databases, where specific biological information is firstly obtained from a range of research articles and then stored within a specific category of database. For instance, information about Anti-depressant drugs can be obtained from various sources and after checking whether they are available as a database or not, they are saved under a drug's database's anti-depressive category.

Enterprises are also utilizing data curation within their operational and strategic processes to ensure data quality and accuracy ^[6].

The Dissemination Information Packages (DIPS) for Information Reuse (DIPIR) is studying research data produced and used by quantitative social scientists, archaeologists, and zoologists. The intended audiences is researchers who use secondary data and the digital curators, digital repository managers, data center staff, and others who collect, manage, and store digital information. ^[7]

See also

• Biocurator

References

1. ^ Bio creative Glossary at http://biocreative.sourceforge.net/biocreative_glossary.html
2. ^ http://www.lis.illinois.edu/academics/programs/ms/datacuration University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science
3. ^ McCook, Kathleen de la Peña/ Kathleen M. Heim, issue editor,v.30, no. 3 (1982). Data libraries for the social sciences. 
4. ^ Kathleen M. Heim, "Social Scientific Information Needs for Numeric Data: The Evolution of the International Data Archive Infrastructure." in Collection Management 9 (Spring 1987): 1-53.
5. ^ Pilin Glossary at http://www.pilin.net.au/Project_Documents/Glossary.htm
6. ^ E. Curry, A. Freitas, and S. O’Riáin, “The Role of Community-Driven Data Curation for Enterprises,” in Linking Enterprise Data, D. Wood, Ed. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2010, pp. 25-47.
7. ^ http://dipir.org/

External links

• Curation of ecological and environmental data: DataONE