e-Science Data Environments : A View from the Lab Floor

Abstract

Preserving scientific digital data and ensuring its continued access has emerged as a major initiative for both funding agencies and academic institutions. Digital preservation, the study of the processes, organizations, and technologies needed to maintain scientific digital data over time, is a multidisciplinary field that draws on the literature from library and information science, informatics/computer science, and domain sciences such as biology, geology, and environmental sciences. This dissertation develops and tests a new theoretical model for the preservation of scientific data concerning the research practices of scientists, adds to knowledge about the lifecycle of research data, and the related antecedents, barriers, and threats to data preservation. This research is based on a mixed-method approach. An initial study was conducted using case study analytical techniques at the individual level. Insights from these case studies were combined with grounded theory in order to develop a novel model of the e-Science Data Environment. A broad-based quantitative survey was then constructed to test and extend the components of the model. The major contributions of these research initiatives are the creation of the e-Science Data Environment, a data lifecycle that provides a generalized model of the research process and a theoretical basis to better explain and predict both the antecedents and barriers to preservation.