Infrastructures and Tools

Infrastructures and Tools are needed to support the entire research data lifecycle. In the following we show a collection of FAIR infrastructures for the different phases of the lifecycle:

Planning Phase

Machine-actionable Data Management Plans (maDMPs) enable the automated exchange, integration and validation of information for DMPs. This ensures efficient Research Data Management (RDM) from planning to archiving and preserving research data. In the project FAIR Data Austria, Damap will be developed by TU Wien in collaboration with TU Graz. This work is based on the RDA Common Standard.

Active Research Phase

Requirements for managing research data FAIR depend on the different roles, perspectives and project phases. Needs range from secure management and protected access during the research process to infrastructures that allow data mining, data analysis, etc. You will find several examples below.

CyVerse Austria (CAT) is an infrastructure for RDM and data analytics at TU Graz, Medical University of Graz and University of Graz. The Austrian instance of CyVerse is based on the model of CyVerse US (University of Arizona).

CAT offers a secure environment for RDM to manage data and attach corresponding metadata. In addition, CAT ensures secure and fast exchange of research data with collaborators. Data analytics in CAT is reproducible through Docker technology and offers connection to local HPC clusters.

An electronic lab book is the digital version of hardcopy labnotebooks and is primarily used for documenting research and experiments.

A software solution that is already in use at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) and KFU Graz is eLabFTW. It is an open-source solution which is highly adaptable and guarantees high data security standards. At TU Graz, this service is hosted by the Central Informatics Service (ZID) and is easily accessible via a web browser on any device. Besides documentation, elabFTW enables collaborative work and organisation of laboratory equipment in a simple way.

GitLab is a non-linear development platform for version management of software projects which is available as a web application. The entire life cycle of software development (project planning, source code management, etc.) can be realised here collaboratively. At Graz University of Technology there is a self-administered instance that can be used by students and staff to manage projects independently. TU Wien, University of Vienna and University of Innsbruck also have their own instance.

Presentation slides: DOI: 10.25365/phaidra.312

Video recording: Handle: 11353/10.1403751

License: CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

End of the Project

More and more research institutions in Austria have established or are about to establish their own, institutionalrepositories for research data. Repositories are often used for other digital objects apart from research data, such as publications, reports, teaching materials or administrative data. A list of repositories can be found here (in German).

In addition, there are also discipline-specific repositories available in Austria. Examples can be found here (in German) , but also in re3data using the country filter.