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Introduction

The significant increase in the production and collection of scientific data is appropriately referred to as a “data deluge.” Researchers and scholars confronting this deluge are faced with new data management challenges that have both social and technical dimensions. DuraCloud for Research (DfR) will reduce the impact of the data deluge on researchers — enabling them to concentrate on their real work — by automating many of the rote activities involved in handling digital research material. But DfR also has the opportunity to do much more since "value added" services can easily operate on data when those copies reside in a "cloud." It is the work of this project to analyze researcher and research institution needs, in order to build software and offer services tailored to meet those needs. DfR will:

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What is part of a good infrastructure for researchers? At this time no one knows. We also don't thoroughly know the needs for research data curation and, while we can draw from the extensive body or work performed for libraries and records management, we must also be careful not to draw false analogies. We can benefit from the experience of a number of current and past projects. We can also draw from the design of successful infrastructure. But, to a great extent, we have to build parts of the infrastructure and put them before DfR users. To manage development risk we have adopted the "Minimum Viable Product" (Instead of links, let's do footnotes) (we can in hard copy) (methodology from "Lean Engineering" practices widely in use by software companies such as Google and Amazon. From the "lean" approach, we are integrating "structured learning" practices to guide us. We use "agile" project management and development methodologies to produce quality products while supporting redirection as we learn.

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