ENVRI PLUS - Data curation in system level sciences: initial design

Data curation is commonly the 'Cinderella' of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). Usually, it receives little attention from researchers or managers and may be seen as a tedious chore to be done in wrapping up the research activity. Since research may well be continuous, such wrapping up may not occur. In contrast, many important research discoveries have been made by re-working old data and/or by comparison of old data with recently collected data. This is particularly true of environmental sciences where understanding the atmospheric, biospheric, hydrospheric and geospheric processes usually requires long-term observation and subsequent analysis. Furthermore, validation and re-validation of research results requires open and understandable access to the data used in the preparation of the original publication. Data curation is thus an important aspect of ENVRIplus and a key element of the ICT architectural and governance design. Data curation is integral to research methods (supporting, influencing, recording), workflows and processes and also integrates with all ICT activities through cataloguing and provenance. With an evolving policy of open access to data - as well as publications - and, in time, software developed from the open source movement - curation has become more visible and necessary. This deliverable reviews the state of the art and recommends architectural principles to be taken into account (along with the inputs on other topics) in the initial and subsequent architectural design phases of ENVRIplus.