About

Portage, Compute Canada (CC) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) are collaborating to provide a scalable federated platform for digital research data management (RDM) and discovery. They are pleased to announce that the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR) service has finished Beta and is now in Limited Production.

The Limited Production version of FRDR will have many of the features and user interface design expected for full launch. Data deposit is currently being offered as a 'by request only' service, subject to resource availability and capacity. If you have a dataset you would like to deposit, please contact support@frdr-dfdr.ca to request permission to deposit.

A demo version of the FRDR site is available for training and testing purposes. The FRDR demo can be used to learn about the platform's search and data deposit features. As much as possible, the demo will be kept up-to-date with the latest version of the FRDR platform. Please note that all data deposited into the demo will be considered "test" data and will only be available temporarily.

Purpose

FRDR will address a longstanding gap in Canada's research infrastructure by providing a single platform from which research data can be ingested, curated, preserved, discovered, cited and shared.

The platform's federated search tool will provide a focal point to discover and access Canadian research data, while the range of services provided by FRDR will help researchers store and manage their data, preserve their research for future use, and comply with institutional and funding agency data management requirements.

Partners

FRDR Features

Repository Services

• Repository platform

  • Fast and efficient data upload and download for large datasets through Globus File Transfer, as well as web browser transfers for smaller datasets
  • A fully-bilingual user interface and robust documentation available in English and French
  • DOI registration for datasets provides a persistent identifier that can be used for data citation
  • Support for multiple authentication providers, including Compute Canada, ORCID, and a growing list of Canadian postsecondary institutions
  • Optional embargoes on data and metadata records
  • Allows multiple people to collaborate on a submission
  • Support for Special Collections by research groups with organizational branding and links to external web content
  • A responsive support service with business hours coverage across Canada (support@frdr-dfdr.ca)
  • Planned feature extension, scheduled releases, and updates

• Managed Storage Services

  • Managed repository storage spread across multiple Compute Canada Federation hosting sites
  • Secure repository storage for a minimum of 10 years after deposit
  • Regular backups and geographically distributed storage for research data
  • On-site system administration and ongoing hardware maintenance

• Curation Services (provided in coordination with researchers, data management support staff, and local institutional research data management contacts)

  • Create and review documentation and metadata to explain and contextualize data
  • Perform quality assurance through metadata inspection, file audit, and code review
  • Link research data documentation to author PIDs (e.g., ORCIDs) and, where relevant, grant information
  • Link research data documentation to other research products, e.g., data management plans, data papers, journal articles

Discovery Services

• Metadata harvesting and indexing of Canadian research data repositories, including datasets hosted in FRDR’s repository platform
• Discovery interface with text-based search functionality supported by Globus search
• Openly available OAI-PMH feed of harvested metadata
• Geodisy: geospatial search interface using GeoBlacklight (currently in beta)

Preservation Services

• Preservation processing of research data via parallelized Archivematica instances:
  • Checksum generation
  • File identification, characterization, and validation
  • Format conversion of files via policy registry to future-friendly formats
  • Archival Information Package (AIP) creation
• Long-term preservation storage:
  • Transfer of AIPs to partnering Preservation Service Providers

Governance

Lee Wilson, Portage Service Manager, oversees the FRDR service.

The Steering Committee comprises representatives from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ (CARL) Portage Network, the Compute Canada Federation (CCF), the FRDR development team, FRDR host sites, NDRIO, and the end user community via the User Advisory Committee Chair. Current membership includes:

Chair:

• Jeff Moon, Director, Portage

Membership:

• Susan Haigh, Executive Director, CARL
• Lee Wilson, Service Manager, Portage
• Greg Lukeman, CEO, ACENET
• Suzanne Talon, CEO, Calcul Québec
• John Simpson, Chair, Science Leadership Council / Humanities & Social Sciences Specialist
• Jason Hlady, Associate Director, Research and Library Technology, University of Saskatchewan
• Dugan O'Neil, VPR/international pro tem, Simon Fraser University
• John Morton, Director of Technology, SHARCNET
• Jay Brodeur, Associate Director, Digital Scholarship Services, McMaster University

Special thanks to Umar Qasim, University of Alberta, who was part of the original steering committee.

Development and Operations Team

• Lee Wilson, Service Manager, Portage Network
• Kelly Stathis, Discovery and Metadata Coordinator, Portage Network
• Erin Clary, Curation Coordinator, Portage Network
• Beth Knazook, Preservation Coordinator, Portage Network
• Melanie Parlette-Stewart, Training Coordinator, Portage Network
• Caitilín O’Hare, Communications Officer, Portage Network
• Mark Goodwin, Geospatial Metadata Coordinator, University of British Columbia
• Alex Garnett, Research Data Management & Systems Librarian, Simon Fraser University
• Neha Milan, Operations Lead, University of Saskatchewan
• Todd Trann, Technical Lead, University of Saskatchewan
• Mike Winter, Senior Developer, University of Saskatchewan
• Adam McKenzie, Research Data Management Analyst, University of Saskatchewan
• Joel Farthing, Developer, University of Saskatchewan
• Paul Dante, Developer, University of British Columbia

Special thanks to Keith Jeffrey, the former Project Manager, who has since retired.

Project Timeline

• January 2016: The software development project was started, following an earlier pilot project that identified scalability and preservation as key elements of the service that was needed.
• September 2016: Alpha testing of the user interfaces was started thanks to the contribution of discovery interface code developed by the University of British Columbia.
• April 2017: Beta testing was started and the project was put in limited production mode with a small number of research groups.
• August 2019: CANARIE announced $2M of funding to CARL Portage, of which a portion is going towards moving FRDR into full production.

Geodisy Project

FRDR’s Geodisy map search (beta) is an open source discovery tool that allows users to find open data from Canadian researchers by using an interactive map. Research data can be hard to find, and even harder when looking for data about a specific area or place. Geodisy changes that, giving users a window into the world of research data with map-based tools familiar to everyone. Geodisy currently sources data from Scholars Portal Dataverse, which houses material from institutions across Canada. FRDR’s Geodisy will continue to expand upon its collection to include more institutional sources.