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MRD Hack Days: File backup, sync and versioning, or “The Academic Dropbox”

This post emerged from discussions at the JISC MRD Hack Days, particularly with Joss Winn of the University of Lincoln’s Centre for Educational Research and Development. The event brought together developers and data management experts for two intensive days to discuss and prototype tools for research data management.

Joss has also written a more discursive post about our discussions of file synchronisation, particularly with respect to handling of large files.

For a bit of context, both Joss and I make regular use of Dropbox and Git where appropriate.

The problem

Many researchers store the majority of their live data on local disks, with little or no redundancy, leaving them open to data loss through accident or theft. To solve this problem, we provide research users with high resilience, high performance, high capacity network storage, but in spite of these advantages, they often don’t use it as well as they might.

Another requirement is for easy sharing of files. Most data sharing still takes place via email.

The main reason for this is that many researchers do a lot of work on their laptops, in locations where their network connection may be intermittent, slow or completely sent. On the train, on a plane, in a cafe, they need access to some or all of their data wherever they are.

When faced with this problem, many researchers turn to Dropbox because it is easy to use and requires no user interaction beyond the initial setup. However, there are serious issues with using Dropbox to store research data, primarily the fact that confidential data is being stored on servers outside the institution’s control.

What is needed is a tool to transparently synchronise local and network storage, effectively providing an offline cache which provides the convenience and speed of local disk access combined with the resilience of network attached storage.

Desired features

Control over storage locations

For confidential research data, it is highly desirable for all copies to remain under the control of the institution(s) who are responsible for looking after it. Any solution should at least have the option of storing data on a university-run storage service.

Encrypted network transfer

Control of the storage locations on their own is not sufficient. If data is sent over the internet with weak (or worse non-existent) encryption, it can easily be intercepted by an attacker. Strong encryption should be used to protect all data.

Large file support

Many of the files which researchers routinely work with may be tens or hundreds of megabytes, or in some cases gigabytes or terabytes. Clearly, there’s a limit to this – it’s reasonable to expect that researchers will have to manage files of a gigabyte or more differently. But a suitable solution should at least work well for files of tens or hundreds of megabytes.

Two important factors spring to mind here. First, the user needs feedback about the progress of a sync so that they aren’t surprised when changes they were expecting haven’t propagated yet. Second, the tool needs to gracefully handle a user cancellation or a dropped connection without losing or corrupting data. Ideally, if this happens it should be able to resume where it left off.

Conflict resolution

Once you have two copies of your files, you have two different places to modify them, giving you the possibility of making different changes to the same file prior to synchronising. This becomes even more likely when you are sharing the same files between multiple users.

Metadata

Storing metadata along with data for later (perhaps automated) deposit in a repository is a core research data management practice. It tends to be readily available only when the data is created, but often only useful when data is finally published or archived. With a dedicated “Academic Dropbox”, it may be possible for users to associate metadata directly files at creation time, and then keep that metadata with the file throughout its life through to deposit in an archive.

Existing solutions that might work

Here is a whistlestop tour of some of the options we dug up. I’ve listed the pros and cons as I see them (though feel free to correct/update me in the comments), and I’ve not commented on features for which I couldn’t find enough information to judge.

Unison

http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

I (Jez) use this daily.

Pros

  • Excellent handling of conflicts (choose which copy to use, or merge the two where possible)
  • Allows synchronisation of arbitrary pairs of folders, so will work with any storage that can be mounted by the user
  • Gracefully handles interruptions of the transfer, and restarts next time from where it left off
  • Uses the rsync protocol to transfer only the parts of files which have changed
  • Can transfer files over an encrypted SSH connection

Cons

  • Requires initial configuration by the user: in Mac or Linux this can only be done by editing configuration files, though the Windows client has a
  • Needs to be explicitly run by the user, which is easy to forget; could be run on a schedule, but this typically requires
  • For large sets of files, scanning for changes can take a long time, particularly over the network

Rsync

http://rsync.samba.org/

Pros

  • Allows synchronisation of arbitrary pairs of folders, so will work with any storage that can be mounted by the user
  • Very flexible, and operates without user interaction, so can be adapted to fit many situations
  • Uses the rsync protocol to transfer only the parts of files which have changed
  • Can transfer files over an encrypted SSH connection

Cons

  • Syncs in one direction only, so full synchronisation requires two runs, one in each direction
  • Command line tool has many complex options, and the available GUIs only go a small way to improve this, so it can be difficult for non-technical users to understand

Git and other distributed version control systems (DVCS)

http://git-scm.com/

Both Joss and I (Jez) use this regularly.

Pros

  • Can transfer files over an encrypted SSH or HTTPS connection
  • Outstanding conflict resolution by intelligent merging of files
  • Support for common software development activities such as branching (e.g. to make experimental changes)

Cons

  • All actions require manual running of commands, either via a command line or a GUI, so requires quite a major change to the user’s workflow
  • Merging only works well for text-based file formats, though it is possible with some work to use alternative merge tools for, say, Word documents
  • Poor handling of large binary files generally, although extensions are available to mitigate this (see below)

Large file extensisons to DVCS

E.g. git-bigfiles http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/git-bigfiles, git-media https://github.com/schacon/git-media, git-annex http://git-annex.branchable.com/, mercurial large files extension http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/LargefilesExtension, and also Boar https://code.google.com/p/boar/

Boar is a VCS designed specifically to work with large files, while the others are extensions to existing VCS systems.

Pros

  • Similar to DVCS (above), but vastly improved handling of large binary files (reduced memory requirement, for example)

Cons

  • Similar to DVCS, but requires additional configuration

SparkleShare

http://sparkleshare.org/

Pros

  • Very little configuration required to achieve similar results to Dropbox
  • Can store data anywhere a Git repository can be placed but there is potential to build alternative storage backends
  • Git features not exposed by the SparkleShare interface can be accessed using other git-based tools

Cons

  • Software is very new and seems unstable (it crashed a few times for me under Mac)

Sharebox

https://github.com/chmduquesne/sharebox-fs

Pros

  • Implemented as a filesystem, so completely transparent to the user once installed
  • Uses git as a backend, so shares many of its advantages, including the ability to transfer data in encrypted forms

Cons

  • Still very early in development so difficult to get working and only available on Linux

Oxygen Cloud

https://oxygencloud.com/

Pros

  • Commercial offering with enterprise support available
  • End-to-end strong encryption to protect confidential data
  • Option to use your own (institutional) storage instead of the provided cloud storage
  • Access via iOS and Android smartphones

Cons

  • Enterprise service with commercial pricing

Summary

There’s no simple solution to this, but we now have a whole range of things to try and to suggest that our users try. Who knows, some of them might even work!

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By Jez Cope – 4 May 2012

Introducing Simon McLeish, technical developer

My name is Simon McLeish and I have just started working on developing the technical specification for the research data repository at the University of Bath to be developed for the Research360 project over the next year, as well as work to integrate SAKAI and SWORD2 for use with the repository. At the moment, my time seems to be pretty much equally divided between meetings to discuss requirements and writing the specification – and I’m trying to keep it on schedule for the end of May!

My background includes work on a large number of JISC projects, from the elib phase 2 programme in 1996, based at the London School of Economics from 1998 to 2011. My work there includes a lot of Identity Management, including the technical evaluation of Shibboleth for JISC in 2001 which led to its adoption in the UK HE community and writing parts of the Identity Management Toolkit published in 2010 and currently being updated (which is what I’m doing when not working on the Research360 project), as well as lots of work on repositories, setting them up for research papers, shared document storage for project teams, and for digital archives for the LSE Library. Since leaving the LSE I have been working as an IT consultant for several clients in academia. I’ve also worked at the University of Ulster, for an Internet service provider, and carried out research in mathematical logic.

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By sjm62 – 1 May 2012

Postgraduate DMP template first draft

A lot of people have asked for this to be made available, so here it is: Data Management Plan for PGRs v0.2. It’s also available as a PDF.

This template is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

We welcome comments and suggestions for improvements, and we’d love to hear from anyone who finds it useful. I’ll be updating it soon based on feedback from our students.

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By Jez Cope – 19 March 2012

Gaps in Guidelines

Gap analyses often take the form of a formal survey such as the Data Asset Framework or CARDIO. However, there are more informal ways of identifying gaps in an institution’s readiness for managing its research data. As we have been working on our new RDM policy, we have referred to a number of related policies, procedures and guidelines. In a small number of cases, whilst activities are undertaken on a routine basis, we have discovered that associated guidance has yet to be formalised.

With this in mind, I have started to draw together a list of what types of areas associated with RDM should have guidance documents available. This list is by no means conclusive and I expect that I shall add to it as the Research360 project progresses.

  • Data protection
  • Freedom of information
  • Intellectual Property
  • Legal & ethical
  • Storage
  • Use of external data repositories
  • Encryption
  • Use of cloud based resources
  • Security, access and permissions
  • Resilience and backup
  • Retention and disposal

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By Catherine Pink – 16 March 2012

Hitachi Content Platform object store arrives

HCP object store

HCP object store

Just a little bit of geekery really. The object store that I mentioned the other week has now arrived! The cabinet on the left in the photo is almost entirely disks.

We have one for each data centre, but installing them into our existing infrastructure is a non-trivial task, so it’ll be a while before they’re in service.

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By Jez Cope – 12 March 2012

Benefiting from Research360: Who, when and how?

Thinking about this blog post has provided a welcome opportunity to reflect on what we’re hoping to achieve during the Research360 project. It’s a broad project covering many aspects of research data management (RDM) and generating numerous specific outputs that, one would hope, will all benefit researchers, their collaborators, the institution and the wider RDM community.

In trying to identify the three key benefits of the Research360 project (as against RDM more generally) I have used the KRDS benefits framework as a guide to determine what the outcome of the benefit will be, when it will be achieved and who will benefit.

1. Centralised provision of RDM support for researchers

Central to research data management are the researchers themselves and it’s easy to forget that all researchers already manage their data. What we’re asking them to do is to continue to manage their data, but in a more structured way and for longer than they might be used to.

In order to do this, researchers need to understand what is meant by RDM and what their responsibilities are – to themselves, to their students, to their funders and to their Institution. They then need to be able to find and access the support available to enable them achieve this.

Researchers will benefit most if this information is clearly visible and usable. We have therefore created and are continuing to develop a research data management website at the University of Bath. This website will host many of the outputs from Research360: our new RDM policy; guidelines in data management planning and storage; information about training and support; and links to other resources.

Production of this focal RDM resource will be a direct benefit primarily aimed at researchers internal to the University of Bath. However, it will also showcase our commitment to RDM to our external collaborators and act as a resource to other institutions and to the wider RDM community.

In the near term, we will monitor traffic to the website, use of the resources hosted there and requests for RDM support. We would also hope to see increased use of the existing managed storage facilities and uptake of data management planning as part of all funding applications.

Over the longer term, the resources hosted on this website will support a cultural change across the institution leading to a fully integrated RDM environment at the institution.

2. Strengthening of industrial ties

A key feature of both the Research360 project and research carried out at Bath is the focus on collaborative research, both interdisciplinary research and in collaboration with external organisations.

How then, might collaborative research benefit from effective research data management? In collaboration with colleagues working on the REDm-MED project and Neil Beagrie (of Charles Beagrie Ltd) we have recently been giving this question a lot of consideration.

Whilst there was general agreement that effective data management is a ‘good thing’ for collaborative research, identifying how this would translate to specific benefits for both industry and the institution has been difficult. Harder still is working out how any benefits could be measured.

As part of Research360, we therefore want to learn more about how data generated through such collaborations is currently organised, accessed, curated and preserved. We can then identify particular difficulties that managing such data can generate and identify what can be done to overcome these problems in the future, thus generating both direct and indirect benefits.

We therefore aim to identify representative case studies of research carried out in partnership with industry. By working closely with individual researchers, we can identify, target and resolve specific problems in the near term. This should then enable us to determine how our work on RDM is supporting and benefiting collaborative research over the longer term.

3. Creating a sustainable RDM infrastructure at the University of Bath

Achieving a fully integrated research data management infrastructure, particularly the technical and training aspects, is likely to take longer than the duration of the Research360 project. We therefore need to ensure that the work completed during the project is both maintained and built on once the project finishes.

We will therefore build on the outputs of the Community Capability Model Framework project to produce a clear institutional roadmap and supporting business case. These will provide the framework around which this longer term sustainable development will occur. They will also identify where further investment and work are required and define where responsibility for this work will lie.

This will benefit the institution in its strategic longer term planning. Researchers will benefit from a continued RDM infrastructure and from retention of investment from both funders and external collaborators. The wider RDM community will benefit from continued investment and development of RDM.

We won’t be able to directly measure the benefits of the institutional roadmap and business case until after they are delivered at the end of the project. However, by then we should have an idea about what the future plans are for RDM at the University of Bath.

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By Catherine Pink – 8 March 2012

Research Data Management 101 — Data Management Planning

A few weeks ago, we got together some of our students from the Doctoral Training Centre in Sustainable Chemical Technologies to run a pilot training session on data management. As part of that, we asked them to trial a selection of data management plan (DMP) templates.

We split the students into smaller groups, and assigned each group a different template. We then allowed them about an hour to complete as much as they could, while hovering around to answer questions and make note of the discussions the students were having. After this, we then used an audience response system (ARS or “clickers”) to gather feedback on how useful the templates were, using the votes from the clickers as a starting point for discussion.

The templates

DMPonline

We used the “GenInst” template in DMPonline as an example of an institutional template. As this template is aimed at Principle Investigators, students were told to skip any questions that didn’t seem relevant.

The students were immediately put off by the amount of detail they were asked to input, though on a positive note, they definitely felt that this was the most comprehensive template! None of the students using this template got anywhere near to finishing it.

The students reported that very little of what they were being asked felt relevant to them, and that for at least some of the questions it was difficult to understand what they were being asked for.

DataTrain post-graduate DMP form

This is a single-page template developed as part of the DataTrain project and now available via the Archaeology Data Service.

This was found to be the quickest and easiest template to fill in, and all of the students attempting this one completed it fully. However, not all of the students felt that it was sufficiently comprehensive.

This view is borne out by a review of the completed plans: it seems that the questions as phrased don’t bring out issues like backup and security.

Expanded post-graduate DMP form

This was developed specifically for this session as an expanded version of the DataTrain form, as an attempt to provide more structure and elicit more detailed answers.

Although this form took longer to complete, most of the students managed to finish it, and felt that it was comprehensive enough.

However not all of the students found it completely relevant, and some found some of the questions difficult to understand — both of these could probably be improved by some rephrasing.

Twenty questions about your data

This is a set of questions devised by David Shotton of Oxford University. They are arranged under the headings What, Where, How, When, Who and Why, and include examples of possible responses to each question.

These questions were considered to be mostly relevant and easy to understand, and the students had no problem completing them in the time available. The example responses made it easier to understand what was required for each question.

The only real problem was in the ordering of the questions. Because they were arranged under What, Where, etc., the students found it difficult at times to see how the questions related to each other. Perhaps because of this, the students were undecided as to whether it was comprehensive enough.

Update: Now available on the web — David Shotton’s Twenty Questions for Research Data (now restructured based on this feedback)

Discussion

Getting the template right

The number of students trying each template was very small (2–3), so it’s difficult to draw concrete conclusions at this stage, but they have given us some hints as to how to proceed.

The DMPonline approach is attractive, because it is easy to access (being web-based) and comprehensive (mapping directly onto the DCC checklist). However, there isn’t currently a template which seems appropriate for PG students — far too much detail is required, and some of the questions that are relevant are phrased in terms that research students don’t really understand.

DMPonline is specifically designed to allow custom templates to be added easily, so it should be possible to greatly improve this situation with some work. In particular, it will be necessary to either reword some of the questions or provide some detailed guidance to clarify what each one is asking for — it became apparent from some of the discussion that part of the perceived irrelevance of some questions came from difficulties understanding them.

It would be useful to be able to not only specify which questions are included in a DMPonline template, but also what order the questions appear in so that they better mirror the research workflow and relate to the aspects of data management that students will already have some experience of.

The students fared better with the shorter templates, managing for the most part to complete them. The DataTrain template, seems a good option to fill in as part of an introductory DMP training session, but needs to be augmented with further prompts, though these could perhaps be administered to the students later as their understanding of their project improves.

The structure of the expanded DMP form appeared to aid students in working through all of the questions, with the resulting plans being fairly comprehensive, while the style of the questions in the Twenty Questions template, with example responses given, made it very easy to understand. These strengths could be usefully combined to produce a better template.

Action planning

One thing common to all of these tools is that they focus on recording facts about the researcher’s data. This is valuable, but doesn’t necessarily lead to action — too often, a data management plan is seen as something that is written at the start of a project then filed away.

For PG student training, we are more concerned with students developing the skills for data management rather than having a comprehensive data management audit for a project. It therefore seems that an action planning approach might be worth trying, along these lines:

  • Where am I now?
  • Where do I need to be?
  • What do I need to do to get there?

with the emphasis placed more on the third point than the first two. This will lead to a plan which is much easier to execute, and hopefully encourage the student to review it periodically by making it easy to measure progress against the plan.

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By Jez Cope – 2 March 2012

Research Data Management 101 — Intro & definitions

On Wednesday 15 February, we ran our first workshop/focus group with PhD students from the Doctoral Training Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies. This is the first of a series of posts summarising the outcomes of that event.

Overview

We had three aims for this session:

  • To introduce the participants to data management planning and have them start writing their own data management plan (DMP);
  • To better understand their current knowledge so that we can plan future training activities;
  • To get feedback on what DMP template would be appropriate for PGR students.

We ran the session with 10 students in the 2010 cohort, who all started in October 2010 and are currently in the first year of their PhD proper, having completed an MRes in 2011. We also invited the 2009 cohort (in their second PhD year), of whom 3 volunteered.

The session consisted of an introductory presentation, given by Professor Matthew Davidson, followed by a hands-on session during which the students worked through a DMP template with support from myself and Cathy Pink. Our colleagues Kara Jones and Katy Jordan from the library were also present, and made notes on what was discussed.

Data management definitions

Early on in the session, we split the students up into groups of 2–3 and asked them to discuss what they understood by a handful of common data management terms. Here’s what they came up with:

Data
There was general consensus (as you might expect from a single-discipline group) that data is information gathered directly by experiment, survey, etc. for the purposes of research. It became clear that with more thought, ‘data’ isn’t a hard-edged concept — processing data can produce new data, metadata is also data and so perhaps are the samples from which experimental data were derived.
Metadata
Metadata was described as data behind the data you want to use that gives context and background details. It was noted that this is distinct from the data itself. Chemistry is relatively rare in having a strong history of using metadata in the context of depositing crystallographic data.
Secure storage
The students immediately identified the two sides of security: both guaranteeing that data is (and remains) accessible to those who create and use it, and that it cannot be accessed without permission. It was generally agreed that your required level of security depends on how sensitive your data is.
Access
The most important aspect was seen as ensuring access for the researchers who created the data. Raw data was perceived as not being of much interest to third parties, but a need to better preserve and share experimental protocols was identified.
Intellectual property
It was generally accepted that, for PGR students, the university owns their data and the intellectual property therein. We’re hoping to clarify this with our legal team soon, as Bath is unusual in leaving ownership of “scholarly outputs” with the originators — it would be useful to know whether we define data as a scholarly output now. Good data management practice was identified as one way to create a ‘paper trail’ to prove ownership of ideas in the event of a patent dispute.

Thoughts

Katy Jordan made an interesting comment in her notes:

“Listening in, it struck me quite forcibly that this session needs academics from the relevant department(s) to lead it.  A good level of familiarity with the field, its processes, the department itself, and the way research is carried out, is required to make the session meaningful for the students.”

It’s occurred to me (and others) before that although the core skills of research data management are mostly discipline-independent, there is a strong need to provide “discipline-flavoured” training sessions, with relevant examples and expertise to ensure that the participants can relate to the content.

We’ll be following up soon with more posts on the later part of the session, particularly a discussion of the DMP templates the students tried. Watch this space!

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By Jez Cope – 24 February 2012

Object stores

Kitchen ShelvesAlthough my involvement in Research360 is at the level where technology and people interact, I’m also doing my best to understand how our infrastructure is developing at a much lower level so that I’m in a position to better advise non-technical stakeholders.

Bath University Computing Services (BUCS) are currently in the process of procuring a new file store which works in a very different way to our existing storage systems, and I recently had the opportunity to learn more about it from our Database & Systems Manager, Paul Jordan. Since this is a very new area for me, my apologies to you and him for anything that I’ve got wrong.

Like our existing storage, this will be arranged into tiers, with Tier 1 containing the most expensive storage with the quickest access times, and lower tiers providing slower but cheaper storage. Data will be moved between tiers automatically (and invisibly to users) based on configured policies.

Where this new storage differs from our existing systems is that the lowest tier will not be a tape carousel, but an “object store”. Where traditional a file system stores data in an ordered, hierarchical way, an object store stores individual data objects in a flat namespace.

The major advantage of this is that much more of the available space on the physical disks can be used to store actual user data: the the overhead is much lower than for traditional filesystems. By virtualising storage across a network in a new way, it’s also very much more scalable than anything we currently use — we could easily grow this to the petabyte level or expand out into the cloud if need be.

Now, most users need never know that their data is stored in an object store, just like they don’t need to know whether the disks were made by Hitachi or Western Digital. An extra layer on top does some translation, allowing you to store files over the network just like any other networked attach storage (NAS). Users can access it via a mapped drive in Windows or an NFS mount .

However the object store is also accessible directly via a RESTful API over HTTP/HTTPS (in fact, that’s how the NAS layer interacts with it too). Despite being sold as a replacement for tape archival, it’s very quick to access over the network, and authentication of users via LDAP or Active Directory is also built in. In addition to this, an object store can perform other clever functions during or after ingestion, such as transforming data into other formats or making use of metadata.

It therefore seems like the perfect back-end to a digital repository such as EPrints, DSpace or Fedora. A load of overhead could be cut down by having the repository target the object store directly, rather than doing so via files on a virtual file system using the NAS layer.

Alternatively, if the object store itself is clever enough, it could be used directly as a repository, using only a very thin user interface on top. A SWORD2-compliant interface would open up even more options.

If you’re interested in learning more, there are a number of white papers and other resources available on the Hitachi Content Platform web page.

Are other institutions implementing similar types of storage? Is it possible to integrate a repository with an object store directly via HTTP and if so has it been done?

It would be interesting to hear from anyone else who’s come across anything similar.

Image credit: Kitchen Shelves by John Martinez Pavliga

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By Jez Cope – 20 February 2012

South-west meetup

On Wednesday 1 February, we met up with representatives of three other universities in the south-west area to discuss and find common ground on our JISC Managing Research Data projects. Represented were:

Each institution has its own unique set of requirements, and one of the first things we discovered was how well our projects complemented each other. Research360 is focusing on Science and Engineering, data.bris on Arts and Humanities and UWE’s project on Health and Life Sciences; OpenExeter is further down the road than the rest of us, and is rolling out data management across the University of Exeter.

As well as these differences, we also picked out many areas of commonality in which we can work together.

Training

We identified some potential for linking up for shared train-the-trainer events to help our support staff to get up to speed. The data management agenda implies new skills to be acquired right across our institutions, from researchers and research students through to IT supporters and librarians.

Engagement and advocacy

It was noted that “advocacy” shades into “training” quite subtly — especially as many people feel that a need for training implies that they can’t do their job properly. There’s particularly a need to minimise the need for training by integrating data management processes with the research workflow as transparently as possible.

Bristol have a champion in the Faculty of Arts office who is very good at spotting and passing on bids and other queries which relate to data management — this sounds like a useful approach.

There are differing opinions (in the sector generally) about who should have responsibility for data management advice and support. In the long term new staff will need to be recruited, but in the short term it’s about up-skilling existing staff appropriately. The danger here is rising demand for support may outstrip supply, and we’ll all be working hard to manage expectations and ensure this doesn’t happen.

Repositories

We all have an institutional repository of some sort, mostly for publications, and are keen to develop digital repositories for data too. Both UWE and Bath have EPrints-based repositories and are evaluating whether EPrints will be suitable for data as well.

Research information management

As well as developing repositories for data, Bath, Bristol and Exeter are currently implementing Current Research Information Systems to aid centralised monitoring of research outcomes (especially important for REF2014). Bath and Bristol are using Pure, with Exeter already having established Symplectic — we’re all interested in ways to incorporate information about research data into these systems.

Policy

Discussing policy development is tricky, as it can directly affect competitiveness. Nonetheless, it’s clear that some collaboration can be profitable so we’ll be looking at ways that we can do this appropriately.

We’re also all planning to send representatives to the upcoming policy workshop in Leeds.

Requirements gathering

We’re all making use of various structured tools, such as DAF and CARDIO, so will be able to share information about how well these tools work for us, along with the general impressions about the results they bring us.

Conclusion

We all went away from the meeting with a lot to think about and a few interesting ideas, so stay tuned for more there. In addition to this post, there are also blog posts from Exeter and UWE for you to take a look at.

Many thanks to everyone who made the meeting worthwhile by contributing, and to Exeter for agreeing to host another in a few months time.

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By Jez Cope – 13 February 2012