Charles Humphrey
Head, Data Library and Academic Director of the Research Data Centre
University of Alberta
Preserving Research Data: the Canadian experience

Bio

Chuck is the Head of the Data Library and the Academic Director of the Research Data Centre at the University of Alberta. He has over twenty years of experience providing data services on his campus. In the early 1990s, he served a four-year term on the governing council of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and since 1996, he has been a member and co-chair of the Statistics Canada External Advisory Committee for the Data Liberation Initiative. He served on the Data and Information Systems Panel of the Canadian Global Change Program from 1990 to 1996 and helped author the report, "Data Policy and Barriers to Data Access in Canada: issues for global change research." More recently, he was a contributing member of the National Data Archive Consultation, commissioned by the National Archives of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the National Consultation on Access to Scientific Research Data, a task force of the National Research Council, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Chuck also sits as a member of the National Data Committee of the Canadian Metropolis Project and is a member of the interdisciplinary research team for Knowledge Utilization and Policy Implementation. He was President of the International Association of Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST) from 1991 to 1995. In 2000, he received the Canadian Association of Research Libraries Award for Distinguished Service to Research Librarianship.

Presentation Abstract

Two national consultations have been conducted in Canada over the past four years that focus on preserving and providing access to research data. The initial study was conducted on behalf of the National Archivist of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The findings from this investigation demonstrated the need to preserve research data and outlined institutional models to implement a data archiving mandate. The second consultation was coordinated by Canada\'s National Research Council on behalf of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This investigation has led to a series of recommendations for government, the granting councils, the research community and universities. This presentation will review the research findings of these two consultations and discuss possible directions given this new knowledge.