Help us create the materials data centre for you...
We're looking for your help. We are trying to define user requirements to help use create the materials data centre that users really want. If you are a materials researcher or end-user then we'd be very grateful if you could spare a few minutes to complete our simple online questionnaire.
Click here to open our online questionnaire...
Click here to open our online questionnaire...
Why do we need such a facility?
The engineering sector (both research and industry) currently makes significant investments in generating materials test data. Although established testing standards specify what data needs to be recorded, this data is often not recorded, or may be incompletely recorded due to:
(1) The data lifespan being longer than that of the storage facilities (computers, programmes etc.)
(2) More “important” tasks taking precedence over data storage (or conservation), such as analyzing the results and writing reports or papers.
(3) Concerns about security or IPR issues
Delays in storing the test data may also affect the quality of the information as the data become less accessible and their provenance (meaning records about origin, authenticity, and history of alterations) becomes less reliable or complete.
As surveys such as Material Information on the Internet (http://www.brinell.kth.se/part1.html) indicate, in the few cases where data are actually conserved, they are rarely made accessible to the wider community, often miss key information, and are not easy to aggregate with other complementary data sets or facilities. This all means we don’t share data effectively, or aren’t able to compare and contrast our findings in useful ways (e.g. data mining, or checking the accuracy of our own data, or finding interesting areas of new data space to explore)
The Materials Data Centre (www.materialsdatacentre.com) is one of a series of initiatives in which the University of Southampton aims to promote the capture and conservation of data in the engineering sciences. Similar data centres already exist in other domains. Such facilities allow the universal storage of data in a way that improves and simplifies access, while the application of modern communication technologies improves data storage and data searching, shortening the processing time for both.
The primary objective of the Materials Data Centre is to allow an ever increasing body of materials data to be accumulated that is of high quality and reliable provenance, with appropriate levels of user access depending on the origin of the data. These short interviews are designed to establish the requirements of users in order to optimise the data centre design and to ensure it will be useful and used (by you!). Your contribution will be recognized (if you so wish) through the acknowledgement of the involvement of your department, institution or company in reports on the requirements gathering phase of the project.
Click here to open our online questionnaire...
If you would like to talk to us in more detail and give us your views then please do get in touch below.
(1) The data lifespan being longer than that of the storage facilities (computers, programmes etc.)
(2) More “important” tasks taking precedence over data storage (or conservation), such as analyzing the results and writing reports or papers.
(3) Concerns about security or IPR issues
Delays in storing the test data may also affect the quality of the information as the data become less accessible and their provenance (meaning records about origin, authenticity, and history of alterations) becomes less reliable or complete.
As surveys such as Material Information on the Internet (http://www.brinell.kth.se/part1.html) indicate, in the few cases where data are actually conserved, they are rarely made accessible to the wider community, often miss key information, and are not easy to aggregate with other complementary data sets or facilities. This all means we don’t share data effectively, or aren’t able to compare and contrast our findings in useful ways (e.g. data mining, or checking the accuracy of our own data, or finding interesting areas of new data space to explore)
The Materials Data Centre (www.materialsdatacentre.com) is one of a series of initiatives in which the University of Southampton aims to promote the capture and conservation of data in the engineering sciences. Similar data centres already exist in other domains. Such facilities allow the universal storage of data in a way that improves and simplifies access, while the application of modern communication technologies improves data storage and data searching, shortening the processing time for both.
The primary objective of the Materials Data Centre is to allow an ever increasing body of materials data to be accumulated that is of high quality and reliable provenance, with appropriate levels of user access depending on the origin of the data. These short interviews are designed to establish the requirements of users in order to optimise the data centre design and to ensure it will be useful and used (by you!). Your contribution will be recognized (if you so wish) through the acknowledgement of the involvement of your department, institution or company in reports on the requirements gathering phase of the project.
Click here to open our online questionnaire...
If you would like to talk to us in more detail and give us your views then please do get in touch below.