The data management tool Coscine

• Coscine is available at https://coscine.rwth-aachen.de/.
• Coscine stands for Collaborative Scientific Integration Environment
• Coscine is being developed at RWTH Aachen University and is available free of charge to researchers at TU Dortmund University
• Coscine is used via the browser and users have the option of...
  • obtain storage space on the storage of the NRW project DataStorage.NRW and archive their research data there
  • log in via SSO (TU ID) or ORCiD
  • create projects
  • upload files
  • add metadata to files
  • invite other users to the projects and assign access rights
  • request storage space for your projects (each project has a minimum quota of 100GB, which you can allocate yourself)
  • archive files (for 10 years in accordance with good scientific practice)
  • store files unalterably
  • make files available for download via a private URL for a short period of time

For an initial overview, take a look at Coscine's FAQ pages.

Contact the Research Data Management Department by e-mail: fdm@tu-dortmund.de

The Coscine documentation can be found on the RWTH Aachen University help pages.

At the top of the header is a world symbol, which can be used to select German or English.

The instructions on this page refer to the German version.

For TU members, the log-in works via the institutional accounts, i.e. you do not need a separate account.

Go to "Institutional Account" on the Coscine page, select TU Dortmund University from the list and log in as usual with your TU ID.

External users can log in via ORCiD. TU researchers have the option of linking their institutional account and ORCiD account, see here.

After logging in, the "Add project" option appears on the overview page.

On the following page, you must enter some basic information about the project. Some entries are mandatory:

• Project name: select a concise and meaningful project name.
• Display name: automatically the project name. Can be overwritten by you and is displayed on the overview page
• Project description: Information about the project
• Principal Investigator: The project leader
• Project start and project end: (expected) project dates. Note: the data entered does not affect the storage duration of your Coscine data
• Discipline: Discipline affiliation according to the DFG classification; multiple selection possible
• Participating organizations: participating institutions; multiple selection possible
• Project keywords: list of keywords to categorize the project
• Visibility of metadata: if you select "public" here, the project metadata can be found by all Coscine users through a search (the visibility of the files is not affected by this)
• Grant ID: ID of the project/grant number

Further information on project creation can be found here.

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You have the option of creating sub-projects for each project; further information can be found here.

1. Go to the overview page ("Overview" at the top left with the house symbol)
2. Select the relevant project
3. Click on "Settings" at the top left
4. Here you can edit the following settings
   • Configuration and Metadata: Metadata settings of the project (identical settings as when creating)
   • Members: here you can add other people to the project
   • Quota: here you can manage the storage space for this project

To do this, you need a project with a resource and free storage space

Select your project on the overview page and then the corresponding resource. You can drag and drop files (or folders) into the area with the files or click on "Select files" and add them.

You must then enter the necessary metadata for the files on the right-hand side and can then "Upload" them using the field at the bottom right.

If you are in the resource view, you can select files by clicking on the file icon to the left of the file name (note: if you click on a file name, the file will be downloaded).

The metadata is displayed on the right-hand side. At the top right of "Download" you can select "Delete" using the triangle.

Note: Deleting files is irreversible. Coscine does not offer any versioning functionality!

In the resource view, you can select a file (or several files) by clicking on the file icon to the left of the file name.

The metadata is displayed on the right-hand side. After you have changed the desired values, you must confirm the changes at the bottom right by clicking "Update"

In Coscine, a resource is a storage system with an assigned storage area and an associated application profile (a metadata schema). A resource is assigned to a project and a project can have several resources.

Files can be uploaded to a resource, which are enriched with information using the metadata fields defined in the application profile.

Creating a resource for a project is done via the overview area of a project, where you can"Add resource". Here you have to go through 4 steps:

Step 1: Select resource type

• Gitlab: here you can integrate a Gitlab repository
• Linked Data: consists exclusively of links to other systems
• TUDO-RDS-Web: the classic repository that you can use via Coscine. (Note: RDS stands for Research Data Storage)
• TUDO-RDS-S3: an S3 bucket that you can also use via external software. As a rule, the web resource type is the right choice compared to S3.

The following steps differ for the different resource types:

Step 1: Configuration of the resource type:

• Gitlab: You must specify the domain and the Gitlab token. Once the connection has been established, you can select the project and branch to be synchronized
• Linked Data: no further settings necessary in the 1st step
• TUDO-RDS-Web/S3: You can set the storage space for the resource size. An initial 100 GB is provided for a project, which you can distribute across all resources (you can request more).

Step 2: Select application profile

• The application profile defines which metadata can/must be collected for the files.
• There is a selection of already created profiles from which you can choose.
• The minimum profile is called "Base Profile". Here you must enter the creator, the date (these values are inserted automatically) and a title for each file
• Alternatively, you can create your own application profile. To do this, you will be directed to the AIMS platform; on this platform you can view the existing profiles

Step 3: Resource metadata

• Similar to creating a project, you must enter metadata for the resource here

Step 4: Overview & confirmation

• In the last step, you can check your entry and go back to make corrections if necessary
• Note: You can no longer change the application profile of a resource!

An application profile is a metadata schema for a resource. It specifies which information (metadata fields) must be saved for the files, which metadata fields are optional and whether there are predefined vocabularies.

Metadata in the Coscine documentation

No.

Coscine is not designed for the publication of data sets. If you want to publish your research data, please use tudodata.

100 GB of "RDS-Web" storage space is available for each project.

Tip: 25 GB are allocated initially. Via Settings -> Quota and after selecting (TUDO)-RDS-Web under Resource type, the value can be automatically increased to 100 GB using the slider.

It is also possible to request additional memory in Coscine (both RDS-Web and RDS-S3). In principle, this can be done via the project settings -> Quota and then via the so-called JARDS platform.

At present, however, we would ask you to contact the FDM department directly if you require more storage space.

The "Members" element can be found under the project settings. Here you can invite other people via the email address. You assign the role and access rights: Owner, Member, Guest.

• Owners have all access rights (write and administrative rights) to the project.
• Members can upload, delete and replace files.
• Guests have read-only access to the files.

You can find more information in the Coscine documentation.

Coscine offers the function of "archiving" resources so that the files they contain can no longer be changed (so-called WORM functionality: Write Once Read Many). Viewing and downloading is still possible.

Note: The "archived" status can be reset by project owners if files are to be added or updated.

To "archive" a resource, proceed as follows:

• Select your project. In the resource overview, move the mouse over the desired resource and click on the blue pencil that appears to access the resource settings (alternatively, you can click on the resource and click on the gray pencil next to the resource name).
• Go to the "Actions" tab and use the slider to select "Archive resource". Confirm the action.

Note: deleting a resource is irrevocable and all the files it contains will be deleted!

To delete a resource, move the mouse over the resource icon in the project overview and click on the blue pencil (alternatively, you can select the resource and then click on the gray pencil next to the resource name). In the resource settings, go to the "Actions" tab and then to "Delete". To confirm the deletion, you must enter the name of the resource and confirm.

Information on RDM can be found on the following pages or by contacting the Research Data Service at fdmtu-dortmundde

• The principles of research data management at TU Dortmund University
• Homepage of the Research Data Management Department