Review of data harvesting for the Equipment Data Service

A version of this article first appeared on the Jisc Research blog on 31 May 2024.

Research Consulting was commissioned by Jisc to undertake a review of institutional and supplier systems workflows: including identifying institutional sources of truth for equipment data records to optimise data harvesting for the Equipment data Service (EDS). This project consisted of interviews, written contributions, and a workshop webinar. It took place from February to April 2024. The report offers Jisc a good grounding in the workflows among which the service operates, and the challenges that remain.

It’s been over 10 years since the requirements from UKRI to share information on research equipment was passed. Since then, the EDS, now managed by Jisc, has been developed to support institutions on meeting these requirements. EDS currently consists of 60 research performing organisations and over 20,000 equipment items. However, the process of data harvesting and upload is not ideal.

Gathering and sharing data about research equipment has an important role in the UK’s research ecosystem. It enables compliance with funder requirements and facilitates proactive sharing of equipment and collaboration, both within academia and with other sectors, including business, SMEs and public sector organisations. Data about equipment can also provide a tool for managing equipment within institutions, developing local equipment portfolios and assisting in the prioritisation of projects and investment for the strategic development of research infrastructure nationally and regionally.

The key findings of the project include:

• data about research equipment is highly varied in terms of the approaches taken within institutions and the quality of data;
• low levels of integration between systems are common, with many examples of multiple datasets alongside manual processes and workflows for capturing and managing data;
• the funder mandate remains the primary driver for sharing information about research equipment, although there are opportunities to encourage collaboration via research equipment
• research equipment data can form part of open data initiatives, building on work such as the PIDINST metadata schema for instrumentation.

The review identified two potential strategies for Jisc and the community to consider for the long-term development of the service:

• to extend the functionality such that individual institutions could use a confidential area of the EDS to manage their equipment internally;
• to enhance the contextualisation of equipment data to more effectively support collaboration.

Short-term actions and potential improvements were also suggested, including:

• improving the EDS search functionality which would involve updating the metadata schema;
• improving clustering and expression of hierarchical relationships, such as department, discipline, faculty and purpose;
• implementing the API link for harvesting data from Pure and gathering this into the EDS;
• considering options for supporting Kit Catalogue and its users; and
• considering options for including equipment-related systems support within systems specifications in Jisc’s procurement framework, the Research Management Systems DPS.