Page 222 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 42

Extended English abstracts of articles published in the Chinese edition of Journal of Library Science in China 2016 Vol.42 221

Investigation and analysis of the data preservation policy in British
universities
WANG Qiong & CAO Ran ①a *

As the prerequisite and basis of the scientific data sharing and reuse,the policy of scientific
data preservation has been gaining its wide-range attention in academic circles. Practical policy
is a strong guarantee of the effective management of the scientific research data. Methods of
content analysis and Internet survey are adopted to carry out the research on the scientific data
policies in 28 universities,UK Data Curation Center,United Information System of the United
States and some other related websites. In the present study,the scientific data policy on the
creating,preservation and reuse of the whole data use cycle was investigated from theory and
practice respectively. Theoretically,it is discovered that the study of data preservation policy
abroad has mainly been focused on the macro management and the specific process of scientific
data preservation,such as the structure,application scope and effect of the preservation policy of
national information centers,while domestic scholars mainly concentrate on the content analysis
of foreign preservation policy and provide suggestions for the policy-making,such as study of
Australian universities research data preservation policy,and the status quo of foreign research.
Practically,it is the data preservation project carried by foreign specialized institutions,such
as the permanent scientific data access project implemented by the European Union,and the
establishment of domestic scientific research data platform and institutional repository guided by
the scientific data preservation policy.
To better guide the data management practice in universities and actively explore the scientific
data preservation policy,this paper has chosen 28 universities’ scientific data preservation
policies as the research subject. Eight aspects ranging from preservation content,metadata,for
mat,location,duration and destruction,institutions and responsibility,preservation benefit,to
security and privacy are the focus. It is clear that some countries have conducted a significant
attempt in data preservation policy-making which takes a guiding role in the whole practice
period,from data creation,preservation to reuse. However,it is also found that there are
some practical defects in previous research data preservation policies in UK:the incomplete
content in different preservation stages,data preservation rules with different subjects are
inconsistent. Therefore,when formulating the scientific research data preservation policy,it is
proposed to set up a standard for the preservation content and duration,unified and standardized
guideline to manage the metadata and format. Actively building a scientific data preservation
environment,strictly and clearly defining responsibilities and rights of data management,and
improving the protection of copyright and privacy and security policy system can guarantee
scientific data preservation practice.
The innovation of this paper lies in its systematic proposal on scientific research data policy
* Correspondence should be addressed to CAO Ran, Email: 18401614749@163.com,ORCID:0000-0002-7162-8191