Mlonyeni Lufu Chisi

 This week we are continuing our journey on data curation and preservation and specifically organisational issues in this subject matter. As mentioned in our earlier topics, data curation refers to the continuous management of digital information across the lifecycle of records to ensure that records remain accessible, authentic, reliable and usable over time. Sinclair et al., (2011) point out that it is important to note that digital assets play a vital role in supporting governance, accountability, research and service delivery. Whilst technological advancements have significantly improved preservation capabilities, organisational dynamics remain a decisive determinant of the success or failure of digital curation initiatives. Some of the factors that might contribute to weaknesses in governance structures in the preservation of  digital records include human resources capacity and limited funding allocations, (Bermes & Fauduet, 2011). One of the issues that affects data...

This week we are looking at Data Curation Preservation Issues (Threats to Digital Materials). The Digital Preservation Coalition (2015) in Hurley and Marks (2023) defines digital preservation as the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary. Wisconsin (2004) emphasises that digital curation are the actions needed to maintain and utilise digital data and research results over their entire life cycle. Yakel (2007) in Dobreva and Duff (2015) explains digital curation as the active involvement of information professionals in the management, including preservation of digital data for future use.  This involves the selection, maintenance, dissemination, preservation and adding value to digital assets. Examples of these activities could include the development of repositories for digital resources, the creation and /or selection of digital assets, creation and management of metadata and management and provision for diss...

  We are continuing on our academic journey on Data Curation  and this week we are looking at yet another exciting topic, using and reusing data. The value of open data is multifaceted. Nowadays data is created for many purposes and is now increasingly being recognised as a long term intellectual asset. This asset is capable of generating new knowledge, supporting innovation and strengthening future research, (Yatcilla, 2016). Zhang (2024) explains that data use is the primary application of data for the purposes for which it was intended or created for.It is important to understand that the use of data remains pivotal to research, decision making and knowledge among across different disciplines. Piwowar (2013) found out that proper data management practices are important inoder for data to be effectively used and reused. He pointed out that data should be carefully organised, accurately documented, securely stored and available only to authorized personnel.  In this mode...

 This week we are looking at how we can store data. The world now has enormous amounts of data and it is imperative that we devise convenient means on how we can store this data. Wilkinson et al., (2016) and Cox et al., (2019) explain that data  curation in data storage refers to the  structured and systematic management of digital information to ensure that it is securely preserved, well-organized and consistently accessible for future use.This is an importatnt aspect of the data curation life cycle  because the data does not only need to be collected and analyzed but must also be stored in a manner that supports long-term preservation, retrieval, sharing and reuse. In this regard effective storage underscores the reliability and sustainability of digital data assets in research and institutional environments ensuring that information remains usable beyond its initial purpose,  (Wilkinson et al., 2016; Cox et al., 2019). It is importatnt to understand that data...

  Hallo Bloggers we are back again  and we are continuing with Data Curation this week.Specifically we are going to talk about selection and appraisal of data. Pienta et al., (2017) explains that social scientists are ever producing an expanding volume of data leading to questions about appraisal and selection of content given to finite resources to process data for reuse. By applying a data driven approach we aim to ensure that curation resources are applied to make the most valuable data findable, understandable, accessible and usable.  Data repositories work to ensure that data are sufficiently preserved, accessible and understandable now and in the future. According to the UK Data Service (2019) selection and appraisal of data are very important in records management , digital curation and research data management. International Council on Archives (2016) explains that data selection is the process of identifying and choosing data that are considered important for lon...

     Welcome back everyone, I am glad to receive you once again on our blog. This is where we share informative and exciting stuff in our Library and Information Science profession. This week we are going to talk about data collection and data repositories and how these impact not only our profession but indeed the world as a whole. Data is collected on a daily basis and can be used in various aspects of our daily lives.This data can be used for research, academic work  and for our day to day lives and decision making. Data collection is a term used to describe a process of preparing and collecting data.It is the systematic gathering of data for a particular purpose from various sources that have been systematically observed, recorded and organised, (Lafta, 2018). Some of the purposes of data collection are to obtain information, to keep on record, make important decisions on issues and to pass information to others. Data is classified into  mainly into 2 major ...