Speakers' Presentations
- Sara Day Thomson, DPC - Key Note: ‘Preserving Transactional Data: a Technology Watch report’
- Aidan Condron, UKDA - Case Study: 'Energy Demand Research Project: Smart Reader Trials 2007-2010'
- Sarah Sheppard, UCL - Case Study: 'The Consumer Data Research Centre and its Data Service'
- William Kilbride, DPC - 'Broad Strokes and Emerging Trends: a reflection on preservation approaches and big data'
- Stefan Schweers, GESIS - Case Study: 'Conceptualising a Spatial Data Infrastructure’
- Andrew Lindley, AIT - 'Database Management and Preservation'
Introduction
The DPC and UK Data Service invite you to join our Briefing Day on Preserving Transactional Data—data that result from single, logical interactions with a database. From energy usage to student enrolment, routinely collected data present a valuable resource for research and analysis. The Briefing Day will bring together practitioners who work with transactional data across multiple sectors, including data science, archives, libraries, and academic research. The Briefing Day will also introduce the Technology Watch Report developed through a 15-month study in support of the ESRC’s ‘Big Data Network’ programme. The Briefing Day and report provide an overview of maintaining transactional data for long-term access and the accompanying challenges posed by forms of big data.
Transactional data, whether created by interactions between government database systems and citizens or by automatic sensors or machines, hold potential for future developments in academic research and consumer analytics. Reliable transactional data has the power to improve services and investments by organisations in many different sectors. For some forms of data, value accumulates over time, creating the conditions for longitudinal analysis; and conditions for relatively short lived data to offer reproducible results. To release their true value, such data sets need to be effectively curated and preserved.