Lessons Learned: On the Challenges of Migrating a Research Data Repository from a Research Institution to a University Library.

Lessons Learned: On the Challenges of Migrating a Research Data Repository from a Research Institution to a University Library Thorsten Trippel and Claus Zinn University of T¨ubingen Wilhelmstrasse 19, 72074 T¨ubingen, Germany {thorsten.trippel, claus.zinn}@sfs.uni-tuebingen.de Abstract The transfer of research data management from one institution to another infrastructural partner is all but trivial, but can be required, for instance, when an institution faces reorganisation or closure. In a case study, we describe the migration of all research data, identify the challenges we encountered, and discuss how we addressed them. It shows that the moving of research data management to another institution is a feasible, but potentially costly enterprise. Being able to demonstrate the feasibility of research data migration supports the stance of data archives that users can expect high levels of trust and reliability when it comes to data safety and sustainability. Keywords: Research Data Management, Data Repositories, Data Migration 1. Introduction Good scientific practice requires that research data cre- ated and studied by scientists is archived. The sustainable archiving of research data is a complex manner as it in- cludes the entire life cycle of data. In the different phases of this life cycle, many human factors are involved, often placed in different organizational structures, and making use of many technological frameworks. The sustainable management of research data is a noble aim, but there is no single golden path to sustainability. Also, the path might suddenly encounter a road block, when for instance, an existing archival infrastructure faces a dis- continuation because a research institution faces closure or a new research orientation. Here, the sustainability of re- search data management depends on another institution be- ing able and willing to take over the data. Though the scholars are partly responsible for archiving, they can hardly be responsible for running the archive. Re- search infrastructures and networks of institutions claim that they fulfill this responsibility, using certified technical infrastructure and processes. The cooperation between in- stitutions in such infrastructures and networks strengthens the overall reliability of each partner, but the expression of intent can be severely tested if one partner discontinues its service. In this paper, we report on the following use case: research data has been collected, evaluated, catalogued, and made accessible by a research institution in an exemplary manner. It is assumed that this data centre is discontinued, but that the research data should remain available. All research data therefore needs to be migrated, in the given case from a lin- guistics department to a discipline independent data facility operated by an institutional infrastructure, here a university library and computing centre, which takes care of all data and guarantees its access for the foreseeable future. For this use case, we have devised a migration concept that has uncovered a number of challenges that need to be ad- dressed to make such as hand-over of research data man- agement a success. 2. Background The work reported in this paper stems from the NaLiDa project, which was divided into two main …

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