The overall direction and management for ESDS is the responsibility of the UK Data Archive (UKDA),
providing consistency and standards across the
service. It performs a broad strategic role, relating to a variety of
stakeholders concerned with the supply, funding and use of social science data,
and creates a coherent publicity, promotion and outreach strategy for
the whole service.
ESDS Management supports high quality research, teaching, and learning in the social sciences by acquiring, developing and
managing social and economic data and related digital resources; and by promoting, disseminating and supporting
the use of these resources as effectively as possible.
To achieve this, ESDS ensures that the services it offers, the data
it acquires, the advice and support it provides, are all timely, up to date, and relevant to the needs of UK
social science.
Strategic direction and management
ESDS Management provides coherence across the ESDS through integrating the activities of the data
archiving and dissemination service and the value-added services.
As a national service with activities and staff distributed
across four institutions (CCSR, ISER, MIMAS and UKDA)
the central management and planning of ESDS is critical to
provide, from the user perspective, a unified, seamless and
integrated service.
Contents management
ESDS Management reports on user and usage statistics in accordance with an agreed Service Level Definition (SLD).
The service conducts an analysis of activity-based time use to instruct and inform the development of strategies
across ESDS.
The service collates and submits the ESDS Quarterly Reports to ESRC/JISC and also
produces supporting papers for the ESRC Troika meetings and ESDS Advisory Committee.
Promotion
ESDS Management provides a supporting and co-ordinating
role for the publicity, promotion and outreach activities for
the whole service.
Over the course of a year approximately 100 events are organised
or contributed to by ESDS, comprising general
awareness raising about ESDS, workshops focusing on specific
themes or datasets, or training on methodology relating
to the use of ESDS-held data.
An important vehicle for communicating with users and
stakeholders is the ESDS quarterly newsletter, UK Databytes, with a
circulation list of approximately 2,750.
General user support
A central 'first stop' help desk service is available to answer all general procedural enquiries.
All such queries are responded to and resolved within the targets set in the Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Queries relating to specialised services are logged, re-directed to other service providers and monitored
as appropriate. Answers to repeated queries are formulated in an FAQ section of the central web site.
Standards and systems management
The service provides procedures for data preparation, preservation, processing and documentation, cataloguing
and conditions of use, and has developed and maintained common standards across ESDS, ensuring interoperability between ESDS and other services providers is achieved and maintained.
Liason with Stakeholders
The service has an advisory committee of stakeholders to help strategic planning.
Print-friendly page
