The DataVault is a service component identified in the 2012 Research Data Management Roadmap as being required to assist University of Edinburgh researchers to comply with funder requirements for long-term retention of their research data. The Jisc-funded Data Vault project led by L&UC with the University of Manchester in 2015-16 developed generic software designed to collect basic metadata and deposit a set of research data into a back-end service. Meanwhile ITI Research Services had done initial work on defining the architecture that would be needed to provide the back-end of the service.

Because of the demand raised for the DataVault and the delay in a customised, UoE-focused service being ready, an interim service was rolled out in 2016. The interim service makes use of the Storage Manager tool used to manage spaces on DataStore for the front-end, and temporary space allocated on DataStore as the back-end. A Pure dataset record, with an option to mint a DOI, is required for every Vault created.

This project seeks to

• enhance the interim service and make it ‘self-serve’ to users
• define the requirements, policy, and infrastructure of the full service, with a view to launching the full service at the end of the project date, as a component of the Research Data Service

More development work will likely be required after the launch date, but as a separate project.

Additional project documentation is available on the project SharePoint site.

Note that this project is being run using the Scrum methodology with planning, stand-up, review and retrospective meetings and detailed planning managed using the Jira software tool.