Data Champions
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Data Diversity Podcast #5 – Abdulwahab Alshallal
Welcome back to another edition of the Data Diversity Podcast, the Research Data podcast from the University of Cambridge Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC). If this is your first time here, in this podcast, I speak to Cambridge Data Champions about their journeys in acquiring and working with data in their research, with the hope to highlight interesting facets of data work, but also academic research in general. In this episode, I spoke to Cambridge PhD student Abdulwahab Alshallal, from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, and who is part of the Physical Activity Epidemiology research group. Currently for his PhD, he is exploring associations of physical activity, behaviour and fitness…
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Data Diversity Podcast (#4) – Dr Stefania Merlo (2/2)
We return with another post featuring our Data Diversity conversation with University of Cambridge Data Champion, archaeologist Dr Stefania Merlo from the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, the Remote Sensing Digital Data Coordinator and project manager of the Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM) project and coordinator of the Metsemegologolo project. This post is short in word count but not in importance, as it touches on two reflections on the challenges of data management as a researcher who works in a global context, two aspects of present-day academia that may be relevant to many readers. This edition follows on from the previous post where Stefania talks about the challenges of extending UK-based Open…
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The Research Data Sustainability Workshop – November 2024
The rapid advance of computing and data centres means there is an increasing amount of generated and stored research data worldwide, leading to an emerging awareness that this may have an impact on the environment. Wellcome have recently published their Environmental sustainability policy, which stipulates that any Wellcome funded research projects must be conducted in an environmentally sustainable way. Cancer Research UK have also updated their environmental sustainability in research policy and it is anticipated that more funders will begin to adopt similar policies in the near future. In November we held our first Research Data Sustainability Workshop in collaboration with Cambridge University Press & Assessment (CUP&A). The aim was…
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Data Diversity Podcast (#4) – Dr Stefania Merlo (1/2)
Welcome back to the fourth instalment of Data Diversity, the podcast where we speak to Cambridge University Data Champions about their relationship with research data and highlight their unique data experiences and idiosyncrasies in their journeys as a researcher. In this edition, we speak to Data Champion Dr Stefania Merlo from the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research, the Remote Sensing Digital Data Coordinator and project manager of the Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM) project and coordinator of the Metsemegologolo project. This is the first of a two-part series and in this first post, Stefania shares with us her experiences of working with research data and outputs that…
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Data Diversity Podcast #2 – Dr Alfredo Cortell-Nicolau
In our second instalment of the Data Diversity Podcast, we are joined by archaeologist Dr Alfredo Cortell-Nicolau, a Senior Teaching Associate in Quantitative and Computational Methods in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Data Champion. As is the theme of the podcast, we spoke to Alfredo about his relationship with data and learned from his experiences as a researcher. The conversation also touched on the different interpersonal, and even diplomatic, skills that an archaeologist must possess to carry out their research, and how one’s relationship with individuals such as landowners and government agents might impact their access to data. Alfredo also sheds light on…
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The (exponential) thirst for data – The March 2024 Data Champions forum
The Data Champions were treated to a big data themed session for the March Data Champion forum, hosted at (and sponsored by) the Cambridge University Press and Assessment in their amazing Triangle building. First up was Dr James Fergusson, course director for the MPhil in Data Intensive Science, who described how the exponential growth in data accumulation, computing and artificial intelligence (A.I.) capabilities has led to a paradigm shift in the world of cosmological theorisation and research, potentially changing with it scientific research as a whole. As he explained, over the last two decades cosmologists have seen a rapid increase of data points on which to base their theorisation –…
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Mapping the world through data – The November 2023 Data Champion Forum
The November Data Champion forum was a geography/geospatial data themed edition of the bi-monthly gathering, this time hosted by the Physiology department. As usual, the Data Champions in attendance were treated to two presentations. Up first was Martin Lucas-Smith from the Department of Geography who introduced the audience to the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project, a global community mapping project using crowdsourcing. Just as Wikipedia is for textual information, OSM results in a worldwide map created by everyday people who map the world themselves. The resulting maps can vary in terms of its focus such as the transport map, which is a map which shows public transport lanes like railways, buses and…
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Data Diversity Podcast #1 – Danny van der Haven
Last week, the Research Data Team at the Office of Scholarly Communication recorded the inaugural Data Diversity Podcast with Data Champion Danny van der Haven from the Department of Material Science and Metallurgy. As is the theme of the podcast, we spoke to Danny about his relationship with data and learned from his experiences as a researcher. The conversation also touched on the differences between lab research and working with human participants, his views on objectivity in scientific research, and how unexpected findings can shed light on datasets that were previously insignificant. We also learn about Danny’s current PhD research studying the properties of pharmaceutical powders to enhance the production…
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The September 2023 Data Champion Forum
The Cambridge Data Champions had a fantastic September Forum at the West Hub. The forum started with an introduction to the West Hub by Library Manager Daniele Campello and we welcomed Clair Castle as the new interim Research Data Manager with the Office of Scholarly Communication (University Library). Dr Mandy Wigdorowitz kicked off the presentations by sharing with the Data Champions what she aims to achieve as the University’s Open Research Community Manager. This includes raising the profile of Open Research at the University and ensuring that scholarly and research outputs that are deemed to be open are indeed accessible and interoperable in accordance with FAIR principles. As Open Research…
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Open Research in the Humanities: CORE Data
Authors: Emma Gilby, Matthias Ammon, Rachel Leow and Sam Moore This is the third of a series of blog posts, presenting the reflections of the Working Group on Open Research in the Humanities. Read the opening post at this link. The working group aimed to reframe open research in a way that was more meaningful to humanities disciplines, and their work will inform the University of Cambridge approach to open research. This post reflects on the concept of FAIR data and proposes an alternative way of thinking about data in the humanities. As a rule, data in the arts and humanities is collected, organised, recontextualised and explained. We are therefore…
