Usage Scenario One
Postgraduate Researcher
"I need a way of discovering globally all the data specific to my research. I also would like to contact the researchers that are responsible for creating those data collections"
Jessica Bright1 is a postgraduate student in the field of Astrophysics. Her PhD dissertation investigates an aspect of Dark Energy: a hypothetical and mysterious form of energy widely believed to be causing the accelerating expansion of the universe.
In order to minimise the likelihood of her thesis rehashing the results of another investigation, Jessica conducts a comprehensive search of the Internet and institutional libraries for papers and data collections relevant to her topic. She also interviews her colleagues and research supervisors to see if they personally know off any undocumented data sets.
Her supervisor suggests that she should visit, and register with, the Global Registries discovery service to find data collections.
She logs onto the Global Registries site, submits the keywords “dark energy” into the search field and is greeted by ranked results, each with a link to their respective data collections. Jessica refines her search terms to better locate research outputs most relevant to her research topic.
Using the Global Registries discovery service, Jessica finds research data collections from libraries, institutions, and other resources from all over the world. There are no boundaries.
The discovery service lists data collections as well as providing details of the people who created them. She has already contacted several investigators whom have provided her with advice and feedback on the merits of her research. Jessica has even been offered the opportunity of collaboration and access to resources and equipment, such as time on the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator, provided that Jessica agree to share her data.
The Global Registries discovery service has helped Jessica feel confident that she is not duplicating previous research. Furthermore, it has helped her to validate her research topic, while providing a rich sea of data for her to draw from, and also given her access to new peer networks and potential collaborators.
1 Jessica Bright is a fictional persona, as are all others described here. Image Disclaimer: All images of people are sourced from Flickr under the Creative Commons licence and are for illustrative purposes only.
