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Powering RSpace collections with ARGOS machine actionable DMPs

Adding ARGOS DMPs in RSpace collections and linking them with notebooks and other items

Overview

In the context of the EOSC Digital Innovation Hub (DiH) open call for collaborations, RSpace was awarded to implement workflows that enhanced its infrastructure with EOSC services. The services used for this purpose were ARGOS and Zenodo, to introduce machine actionable DMPs (maDMPs) in RSpace collections and make the links with notebooks and other items as well as to publish the collections and links on Zenodo, respectively. RSpace enables streamlined collection and management of research data and samples used in experiments, and complements and feeds into Argos’ output management planning platform.  ARGOS serves the different data, software, and other outputs management lifecycles by offering mechanisms that describe the steps and practices followed throughout research projects. Moreover, ARGOS caters to creating links and relationships with the different outputs of research. Besides its predominantly use at the planning stage, ARGOS connects with different data services and workflows (from creating to sharing research) to support DMPs as “living documents” and validate the plans at the end of the projects.  The integration between RSpace and ARGOS happened on different levels to accommodate the following actions: adding ARGOS DMPs to the RSpace platform linking ARGOS DMPs to other objects in RSpace publishing ARGOS DMPs through RSpace

Challenge & Scenario

As the EOSC is realised, the need to align with its processes and interact with its key components is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, EOSC is organised to enable semantics and FAIR into its workflows aiming to become the “Web of FAIR data and services”. RSpace is a digital research platform that consists of an electronic lab notebook integrated with a sample management system, and connected with an ecosystem of research tools, enabling streamlined collection and management of data in the active research phase and serving as a value adding bridge between the planning and archiving phases of the research cycle. RSpace had an ingestion mechanism for DMPs in place which needed to be configured according to the ARGOS API. It also came with repository integrations that facilitate publishing of the RSpace collections, e.g. via Zenodo. Because ARGOS published DMPs already get their DOIs (digital object identifiers) from Zenodo, there were extra actions needed to ensure proper publishing and assignment of PIDs on the ARGOS DMPs coming from RSpace. To enable contextualisation between ARGOS DMPs and RSpace collections, links had to be introduced both between ARGOS DMPs and other objects inside the RSpace collections and with the ARGOS DMPs and the RSpace collections.

Solution & Implementation

Upon the EOSC FUTURE open call award, the teams of RSpace and ARGOS held several meetings to get accustomed to each others’ technology, agree on the directions that the integration could take according to both services’ priorities and capabilities and coordinate efforts to support them. The plan that was established supports adding ARGOS DMPs to the RSpace platform, linking ARGOS DMPs to other objects in RSpace, and publishing ARGOS DMPs through RSpace. The following points were observed and implemented to achieve the plan: Searching for ARGOS DMPs is missing some options whilst also being restricted to published DMPs only, hence the ARGOS API was enhanced and is currently being further expanded. When ARGOS DMP ids are available, they are maintained in the RSpace collections. When that’s not the case, ARGOS DMPs are assigned DOIs as part of the RSpace collection containing them. Creating links between ARGOS DMPs and other objects inside RSpace was not enough; there needed to be a  qualified reference between ARGOS DMPs with RSpace Collections published on Zenodo.

Impact

The integration between ARGOS and RSpace bridges the management stages during and after research to capture the evolution of outputs and practices on the published plans. To aid contextualisation of this information, it creates links and relationships leading to an increase on the qualified references of repositories and the OpenAIRE Graph.

In depth description

Details

The Search API that was configured to RSpace allows all of its users to search for and import a DMP from ARGOS to their RSpace collection. 
DMPs can be searched by label (i.e. DMP title), grant (i.e. project name and grant id), funder (i.e. the organisation that has funded the project that creates the DMP) and collaborators (the authors of the DMP).

Once selected from the list of search results, the DMPs are imported in the user's Gallery. From there, they can be inserted in any collection of experiments that the user is working on.

When the user is ready to publish their RSpace collection on Zenodo, the pop-up that contains metadata needed for this upload allows for DMPs that are in the user’s Gallery to be associated with the rest of the objects contained in the RSpace collection.

Assigning PIDs to ARGOS DMPs might happen both via the ARGOS platform and via the RSpace publishing services, such as Zenodo:
  • On the occasion that a DMP id does not exist, it is assigned directly via the RSpace repository integrations, as part of the RSpace collection id.
  • On the occasion that the ARGOS DMP entering RSpace has a DMP id, then a related_id is exposed on the Zenodo record to show that the published RSpace collection is documented by the ARGOS DMP with the given DMP id. 

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