Science information strategy : stake holder consultation phase 1 report, public version : February 2011

Giles, Jeremy R.A.. 2011 Science information strategy : stake holder consultation phase 1 report, public version : February 2011. British Geological Survey, 186pp. (Unpublished)

Before downloading, please read NORA policies.

Preview

Text SIS__Stakeholder_Consultation__Phase_1_Report_February_2011.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

A stakeholder consultation was undertaken in autumn 2010. The main objectives of the study were:  To identify how NERC could improve the services and service levels of its Environmental Data Centres; and  To understand customer expectations and plan how to improve the management of those expectations. The responses provide a baseline of the current stakeholder experience of using the NERC data centres and the attitude of the community towards them. Subsequent consultations will allow us to moniotor the impact of the Science Information Strategy as it is implemented. NERC were aided in the design, implementation and analysis of the consultation by LISU (Loughborough University). The dataset created during this project is very rich and diverse and should be studied further during the second phase of the Science Information Strategy Implementation. This report, and its companion report by Loughborough University staff, should be regarded as initial findings, however, a number of principle conclusions can be drawn, and these are: 1. The study has met its goal of finding the views of existing and potential users. The demographics clearly indicate the success. We have a good spread across the major sectors and research areas. 2. There is a high level of stakeholder satisfaction with the services from the data centres. 86% of respondents are either “Very Satisfied” or “Fairly Satisfied” with using the data centres; whilst 75% of respondents depositing data are either “Very Satisfied” or “Fairly Satisfied”. There is clearly some work to be done in improving customer satisfaction, especially with the process of depositing data, but the overall satisfaction rates are very gratifying. 3. The Polar Data Centre appears to be under performing, when compared to the other data centres. This needs to be explored further. 4. The profile of the data centres needs to be raised. There is clearly considerable ignorance about the data centres. A disappointing 22% of those interviewed by telephone said they would consult NERC data centres in the first instance. 5. High quality metadata is valued by the data centre users. 6. The barriers to use of NERC data centres need to be further investigated. Some of these have been addressed in the NERC Data Policy and this message needs to be communicated clearly to users. Others need more work and should be explored in the later phase of the Science Information Strategy Implementation. 7. The NERC data centres have many users who require more than just digital data. For example 26% of depositors are depositing physical samples or collections. 8. Ease of use of the systems developed by the data centres is commented on several times by users. During the telephone interviews more users listed improved functionality as the one thing they would change. 9. The specialist knowledge provided by the data centre staff is clearly important to some stakeholders and not to others. It is possible to speculate that academics don’t value this service while non‐specialists see its value. However, this area needs further investigation to discover what is really required by different stakeholder communities and what is legitimate for NERC to actively support. 10. Users are looking for data that we do not hold. We need to publish clear collections policies for the data centres, so that users know what we do hold and what we don’t hold.

Item Type:	Publication - Report
Programmes:	BGS Programmes 2010 > Information and Knowledge Exchange (Information Management)
Funders/Sponsors:	NERC
Date made live:	21 Jun 2011 08:22 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/14497

Actions (login required)

View Item

Document Downloads

More statistics for this item...