Senseable Stockholm Lab takes lead in data management pilot project at KTH
In a recently initiated pilot project, Senseable Stockholm Lab will join forces with the Research Data Team coordinated by the KTH Library to explore the opportunities and challenges of research data management. This spearhead initiative, which will work as a prototype for the rest of KTH, aims to develop and define the role of a data steward, explore how a data hub can be developed and also increase the lab’s competence surrounding research data.
Technological advances during the last decades have put new tools, such as big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and the internet of things, in the hands of researchers. This is certainly true at KTH, home of several data-driven research environments. But these new possibilities also bring challenges in areas such as ethics, privacy, IT infrastructure for storage and sharing as well as compliance with rules and regulations.
“The characteristics of Senseable Stockholm Lab make it a great candidate for this pilot project”, explains the lab’s coordinator, Christina Murray. “We handle large amounts of data harvested from a variety of sources like sensors, social media and mobile phone signals. This is data that needs to be handled with integrity in mind, and since we share information between KTH, the City of Stockholm and MIT, we have to consider the different organizations’ policies as well as differing legal systems. We also have a great asset in the lab’s ethics project.”
There are three parts to the pilot project. One is to investigate how a so-called data steward – a support function working in close collaboration with the researchers – can be developed, organized and funded. The second part consists in investigating how a data hub, an infrastructure where information is stored with high searchability and accessibility, can be developed, and also how it can be scaled into a network of data hubs at KTH. The pilot also aims to build competence around research data issues in the lab.
The project will be led by working in close collaboration with the lab and with support from the and IT department as well as the that work together in the crossfunctional .
After the pilot project is finalized at the end of February 2023 the results will be handed over to Senseable Stockholm Lab. From then, SSL will assume the long term responsibility for the lab’s data infrastructure as well as the designated data steward.
The pilot project was approved by KTH’s president on 1 March 2022 and will be funded centrally by KTH.