Introduction

Scientific research increasingly creates and uses digital data in many different ways and in a wide range of formats. Data curation activities are required to maintain and preserve the digital research data as well as to facilitate its future reuse. Increasingly science will be carried out through distributed global collaborations enabled by the internet. The Grid infrastructure will provide ‘e-Science’ with powerful large-scale computing resources and dedicated repository management software.

This chapter on data curation is closely related to chapter 6 by Barbara Sierman on digital preservation, as both studies are concerned with the longevity and long-term storage of digital objects. The main difference between the two chapters is that her chapter on digital preservation takes organisation and management aspects into consideration whereas this chapter on data curation takes the digital object as its starting point. Despite the fact that the two reports emphasise different aspects, some overlap is unavoidable.

This chapter consists of five parts. The first part contains an elaboration on the concept of data curation. Next, features of scientific digital objects are described for which data curation is relevant. The third part covers data quality issues. Next, some remarks are made on data curation tools and procedures; the tools, procedures and concepts that are described in this section are examples of practical implementations of data curation. The last part of this chapter contains concluding remarks. As data curation is a relatively new term and used within the context of a wide number of projects, initiatives and organisations in different ways, it is impossible to cover all aspects and details in an objective way. This chapter is based on a number of published information sources and empirical observations.

What is data curation?

According to Wikipedia, a curator is a person in charge of a cultural heritage institute (e.g. an archive, gallery, library, museum) who cares for the institution's collections. The object of a curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it is artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections. The role of the curator encompasses collecting objects, making provision for the effective preservation, conservation, interpretation, documentation, research and display of the collection, and to make the collection accessible to the public.