"A centre of excellence in digital information management, providing advice and services to the library, information and cultural heritage communities."

Job Title

Research Officer

Contact Details

UKOLN,
University of Bath,
Bath,
BA2 7AY
tel: +44 (0) 1225 383668
fax: +44 (0) 1225 386838
email: a.ball@ukoln.ac.uk

The Job I Currently Do

My research activities are currently split between two projects. As one of the staff attached to the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), I have worked on the SCARP Project Case Study for Engineering research, as well as reporting on the state of the art in Web archiving and in preservation and curation for institutional repositories. I have also helped to analyse the impact of the International Journal of Digital Curation, drawn up a blogging policy for the DCC Community Development Team and monitored the associated blogging activity. As part of DCC Phase 3, I'm examining how the DCC can make best use of social networks, and at the same time considering how content from social networking fora may be preserved and curated.

My remaining effort is directed towards the Engineering Research Information Management (ERIM) Project, funded by JISC under the Data Management Planning in Research Council Funded Projects strand of the Research Data Management Programme. This project uses research data from representative strands within IdMRC projects to develop exemplar data management plans reflecting the particular challenges of Engineering data, and perhaps EPSRC-funded data generally.

Previous Research

My first assignment at UKOLN was to the KIM Grand Challenge Project, otherwise known as Immortal Information and Through-Life Knowledge Management: Strategies and Tools for the Emerging Product-Service Paradigm. This project found robust ways of handling engineering information and knowledge, so that design information and rationale can be accessed, understood, updated and re-purposed throughout the lifetime of a product. My research focus in that project was using lightweight formats to facilitate more integrated use of design information across the product lifecycle, and to provide fallback curation surrogates.

I was involved in the development of the Data Audit Framework, led by HATII at the University of Glasgow. I also conducted a Scientific Data Application Profile Scoping Study on behalf of JISC.

Further Information

Further information can be found on my personal home page. A list of my publications and presentations is available.