Research Data Management: Overview

Research Data Management at the National Transportation Library

NTL is one of five national libraries, the only one within a principal Federal Statistical Agency, and serves as a open access digital repository of transportation information, including:

• Digital Collections
• Data Services
• Reference Services
• Knowledge Networking in the transportation research community

All collection materials are in the public domain, available for reuse without restriction. 

Data Services at the National Transportation Library

The National Transportation Library (NTL) has had a role in archiving Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data since NTL's founding in 1998, as part of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). NTL’s mission is to maintain and facilitate access to statistical, geographical, and other transportation research data and information needed for transportation decision-making at Federal, State, and local levels. In the 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) legislation, NTL’s role expanded. MAP-21 mandates that NTL:

• Acquire, preserve and manage transportation information for use by the DOT, other agencies, and the public;
• Serve as a central repository for DOT research and publications; and
• Become a central clearinghouse for transportation data.

NTL's roles in data management, access, and preservation were expanded again in 2015, through the USDOT Public Access Plan, titled: “Plan to Increase Public Access to the Results of Federally-Funded Scientific Research." The Public Access Plan calls on NTL to: 

• Serve as the DOT Public Access solution by preserving and sharing research publications and data;
• Maximize the impact of the Federal research investment; and,
• Preserve, index, and share data management plans

In order to help carry out our legal mandates, implement data management and data curation best practices, and to bring USDOT created and funded data management practices in line with public access policies, the NTL offers a growing range of data services.

NTL Data Services include:

• Data Management Education, Guidance & Training
• Data Public Access Guidance & Advocacy
• Best Practices Implementation
• Data Lifecycle and Curation Planning
• Data Access & Preservation
• Data Repository selection

Further, the NTL is currently working to improve data management across the federal landscape with a number of other federal agencies involved in scientific and technical information research and development through the Commerce, Energy, NASA, and Defense Information managers group, known as CENDI. NTL is playing a leading role in developing federal data management standards and best practices.

The pages in this guide describe the various data services available from the NTL, as well as giving USDOT researchers tools and best practices for improving their data management routines. Our goals include making USDOT-created and USDOT-funded datasets available to researchers, analysts, and the public for decades to come. The practices described in this guide will help us, and you, achieve that goal.

Science.gov provides access to millions of authoritative scientific research results from U.S. federal agencies.Science.gov is an official website of the U.S. government providing ready access to the massive stores of federally funded scientific research results, without needing to know which agency funded the research. Research results include scientific and technical reports, peer-reviewed scholarly publications, digital data, software, conference presentations and proceedings, and other scientific and technical information that federal agencies publish resulting from their research investments.

Originally launched in 2002, Science.gov searches content from across multiple federal agencies that fund scientific research and provides top-level results from those agencies, where users get the most relevant results for the information they search. Unlike typical web-based search engines that crawl and index web content at unknown frequencies, Science.gov uses a search technology that retrieves results in real-time. This ensures that the most recent content is available for search and retrieval by Science.gov.

• Principle 1 - VALUABLE: Data is an asset - Data is a core business assets that has value and is managed accordingly. 
• Principle 2 - AVAILABLE: Data is open, accessible, transparent, and shared  - Access to data is critical to performing duties and functions, data must be open and usable for diverse applications and open to all. 
• Principle 3 - RELIABLE: Data quality and extent is fit for a variety of applications - Data quality is acceptable and meets the needs for which it is intended.
• Principle 4 - AUTHORIZED: Data is secure and compliant with regulations - Data is trustworthy and is safeguarded from unauthorized access, whether malicious, fraudulent, or erroneous.
• Principle 5 - CLEAR: There is a common vocabulary and data definition - Data dictionaries are developed and metadata established to maximize consistency and transparency of data across systems.
• Principle 6 - EFFICIENT: Data is not duplicated - Data is collected once and used many times for many purposes. 
• Principle 7 - ACCOUNTABLE: Decisions maximize the benefit of data - Timely, relevant, high quality data are essential to maximize the utility of data for decision making.

For more information on the AASHTO Core Data Principles check out their site at https://data.transportation.org/aashto-core-data-principles/#principle

Jesse Long, Data Curator Librarian, National Transportation Library

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4962-1380

Leighton L Christenson, Former Data Curator, National Transportation Library, Data Curator / Data Librarian (Contracted to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Office of Science Quality and Library Services (OSQLS) Knowledge Management Team

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0543-4268 

Peyton Tvrdy, Data Curation and Data Management Fellow, National Transportation Library

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9720-4725

Contact Us / Help

ntldatacurator@dot.gov