Open Research Data at Gdańsk University of Technology – from project's assumptions to the integral part of scientific infrastructure

One of the significant challenges for the academic environment-oriented to developing Open Science is Research Data Management (RDM) practices and infrastructures and their popularization among different stakeholders.

On the 1st of October 2018, the Bridge of Data project was launched to support data curation and sharing for scientists, especially from Northern Poland. The Bridge of Data project is unique in this part of Central Europe and is the continuum and built upon the previous project called the Bridge of Knowledge that was foremost concentrated on Open Access. 

The Bridge of Data project includes not only the research data repository (Open Research Data Catalogue) but also a Polish Publishers Copyright Polices database, a Virtual Microscope to present medical images, and a reliable system for publishing journals (based on OJS) and conferences (based on Indico).

The project development emphasizes research data and provides technological innovations such as hosting the private, self-hosted computing cloud and storing the data on the Cepch Object Storage. Searching the data is available through open text search due to implementing the NoSQL database – ElasticSearch. Moreover, the project allows researchers to perform Big Data Analysis by Jupiter platform and Apache Spark Engine on the supercomputer Tryton (40.000 cores, 1,5 PFLOPS). 

Additionally, the Open Science Competency Center was established at Gdansk University of Technology (GUT) Library and provides support and training among researchers from all scientific disciplines on RDM activities such as Data Management Plans or legal issues of sharing research data.   

This poster will demonstrate the capabilities of the project's components relevant for repository managers, IT staff and developers, librarians, and researchers. It will cover technical as well as substantive aspects of the project. Our poster will include graphical and textual information that will provide the main key points necessary to understand The Bridge of Data project's background and assumptions.