SURF, a collaborative organisation of Dutch educational and research institutions, has awarded funding for the project proposals “Further development Ldot tool” from MEMIC and “Secure access to iRODS in combination with SRAM” from DataHub. NWO has made a budget available to SURF for projects and pilots in the field of research data management (RDM) to support the establishment of local Digital Competence Centers (DCCs). The objective is technological projects that can strengthen the data landscape in the Netherlands.

DataHub Maastricht and MEMIC offer RDM support to researchers from both the academic hospital (MUMC +) and Maastricht University (UM). Security and privacy are very important, as data from both organisations may contain sensitive information.

Secure access to DataHub infrastructure for collaboration with external parties

An important goal of DataHub is to facilitate researchers in structuring and enriching their data with metadata, so that it becomes accessible, findable and reusable, but also manageable, in accordance with the FAIR principles. National and international collaboration is becoming more and more important. This emphasizes the importance of securely opening up the DataHub infrastructure for collaboration with external parties. DataHub’s research software engineers have been closely involved in the development of SURF Research Access Management (SRAM). The DataHub iRODS infrastructure has now been prepared for connection with SRAM. With the SURF funding, DataHub can provide this connection, so that national and international partnerships can access DataHub via SRAM.

Further development Ldot tool

To simplify the logistical process of doing research, MEMIC provides the in-house developed workflow management system Ldot. With this web-based tool, it is possible to keep track of the progress in a running (multicentre) research. Because of the separation between privacy-sensitive data and research data, interest in the tool has increased since the GDPR (2018). Ldot does not depend on any application used for collecting research data and is unique in the Netherlands. With the SURF funding, Ldot can be developed further, and new connections will be realised in addition to existing connections such as Castor, Qualtrics and mobile apps. An important improvement made possible by this funding is the connection with SRAM as the authorization layer. As a result, Ldot will use federated authentication based on international (open) standards. This not only works with SRAM, but also with internationally comparable infrastructures, such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

Safe and easy access to research services

Researchers are increasingly collaborating: within their own institution, with other organisations or companies and abroad. Collaborations want secure joint access to applications, computing clusters, datasets or data storage. Rearranging everything for each project is complex, expensive and time-consuming. Offering professional RDM support within the organisation is of high importance. Because both DataHub and MEMIC are working towards a connection with SURF Research Access Management [icon name=”external-link”] (SRAM), the current demand from research collaborations for fast, easy and secure access to the data is met.

More information

For more information, visit the MEMIC [icon name=”external-link”] and DataHub [icon name=”external-link”] websites.

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About this post 

• Author: Mirjam Kamps [icon name=”envelope-o” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]
• Categories: Research Data Management news & events
• Keywords: DataHub, MEMIC, RDM, SRAM, SURF
• Publication date: 3 February 2021 | Last updated: 25 August 2021
• Source: DataHub
• License: CC-BY 4.0