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PDF, English - main document Download (4MB) | Lizenz: Coscine and Data Stewardship by Dukkart, Kseniia ; Gonzalez, Catherine ; Parks, Nicole A. underlies the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Abstract

Coscine is RWTH’s solution for safely and FAIRly storing and archiving research data and the associated metadata. Coscine ensures that data meets the FAIR principles via the requirement of metadata. The metadata provides context to the data stored in Coscine so that it is reusable to other researchers in the scientific community. Users can create projects which contain resources that house the data linked with metadata profiles. Metadata can be searched for in Coscine so long as the project has made it publicly available. Projects and resources are equipped with persistent identifiers (PIDs) which allow findability of the data.

In this poster, we illustrate how data stewards at the Research Process and Data Management Department at RWTH support researchers in using Coscine. Using three instances—namely, creating tailored metadata profiles, automating data workflows in the laboratory, and connecting services such as ELNs—we outline our current ongoing work.

Coscine encompasses fillable forms to record metadata. To this end, it offers a metadata profile service, enabling researchers to establish custom metadata profiles according to their needs, but also ensuring that all Coscine users working with similar datasets can benefit from standardized profiles. Here, data stewards play a vital role in assisting researchers with choosing which metadata to record, how to structure this metadata, and even creating the metadata profiles themselves. Examples include metadata profiles for Preclinical Imaging, Flow Cytometry (FACS), and Metagenomic Data.

Once metadata profiles have been established, resources to store or link data are created within Coscine projects. At this stage, Coscine may be integrated into laboratory practices and streamlined through automated workflows, alleviating any additional manual burden on researchers during the data storage and metadata assignment process. Here, data stewards assist researchers by creating scripts written in Python in combination with the Coscine SDK—built on top of Coscine's REST API—to extract necessary metadata from research files. This is then incorporated into their respective profiles and delivered to Coscine along with the data files.

This covers the basics on Coscine's end. However, researchers use various tools and storage solutions in their daily research work. Similar to automated (meta)data delivery into Coscine from local hardware, REST APIs can be leveraged in scripts to link tools such as electronic lab notebooks (ELNs). This provides suitable data storage where ELN storage reaches its limits—structured metadata as well as archival solutions are required. However, such workflows have proven difficult to maintain; thus a native solution both on the ELN side as well as Coscine is much desired. Ongoing work is aiming to do just that. Once implemented for these systems, the solution should be easily transferable to other services.