##  Introduction to the DyVirt project

The research carried out through this network will go beyond the now
ubiquitous process of creating computer-based simulation models of structural
dynamics. Obtaining a valuable virtual model is no longer a question of
computing power, but now rests in the more difficult problem of developing
trust in the model through the process of Verification and Validation (V&V).

In the DyVirt research programme, a ‘virtualisation’ will be a computer model
validated to previously unreachable levels of trust in its capability. By the
invention of new techniques in Verification and Validation (V&V) and the
development of new understanding of how substructures and components assemble
into full structures, it will be possible for the first time, to trust
computer models for design cycle decision-making in the absence of more
complete test data from prototypes or fullscale testing. This research will
substantially extend the reach of current technologies that can only guarantee
trust in models in more restricted circumstances.

For large engineering structures that operate in (often extreme) dynamic
environments, such as wind turbines, aircraft, gas turbines and bridges, the
process of virtualisation presents particularly difficult challenges. This is
because the dynamic behaviour during operation needs to be fully captured by
the computational model, but is highly sensitive to very small changes in (or
disturbances to) the structure. For example, small differences in
manufacturing tolerances, mechanical joints, or the operating environment
(temperature, humidity), can all lead to apparently large changes in dynamic
performance.

Although the virtualisation process has been attempted in some domains, it has
never been properly applied to engineering applications operating in highly
dynamic environments; therefore, our research aim is to create a dynamic
virtualisation capability that for the first time will address this
limitation. The methodology for DyVirt will be to focus on structural
dynamics, and bring in new knowledge from the fields of sensor technology,
data mining, decision theory, machine learning, optimisation, signal
processing, statistics, aerodynamics, fracture mechanics, materials science
and computational mechanics.

##  Overview of data management

Virtualisation requires extensive use of datasets for V&V procedures. Our
research will include data collected from material, component, substructure
and system tests, optimally collected at different levels of assembly using
strategically placed sensors/actuators and/or optimal excitation features.
Some of these datasets are subject to confidentiality, where they include data
from industry. Records of experiments and outputs of simulations and models,
including (but not limited to) graphical software package files, other
analysis files, reports, analyses and communications including Emails will be
collected. These will be produced by the Universities and, in some cases, also
Industrial Partners. The data will be collected or created by secure transfer
of data, by agreement from the University and Industrial Partners.

Our data management plan is to collect and preserve, well documented, and
wellorganised data sets from all work packages in the network. Within WP1, a
centralised, shared knowledge base will be created and linked to raw data,
metrics, models, methods, requirements and model specifications. To achieve
this, a data repository specifically dedicated to structural dynamics and
virtualisation will be established using the USFD Library resources that
already have the required einfrastructures in place. It will be informed by
developers and end-users and will exploit intranet design-sharing protocols in
order to achieve a secure and reliable data management plan. Ontologies will
be explored as a semantic web approach for encoding large, complex and
heterogeneous domain knowledge. The idea will be to develop a novel V&V
ontology using the Ontology Web Language and achieve knowledge storage based
on WWW protocols and Resource Description Frameworks (RDF).
Confidentiality/security of data will need to be assured with appropriate
agreements (NDA, sharing accesses etc.).  1  ,  2  ,  3

We note that for earthquake engineering, that ground motion records have been
publically available for many years, we will use our website as a portal to
give researchers access to these and other relevant sources of data. Where
possible, and as appropriate, we will make this data available for sharing via
OpenAIRE. We will also include “open code” to share algorithms and computer
code developed as part of the project.

#  FAIR DATA

_3.1 Making data findable, including provisions for metadata:_

Metadata refers to “data about data”, i.e., it is the information that
describes the data that is being published with sufficient context or
instructions to be intelligible for other users. Metadata must allow a proper
organization, search and access to the generated information and can be used
to identify and locate the data via a web browser or web-based catalogue.

For reports and communications the documentation itself will be produced such
that its purpose is explained within the document. For graphical software
package and analysis files, the metadata will be included in all available
metadata tags provided by the software package used or developed. In the
context of data management, metadata will form a subset of data documentation
that will explain the purpose, origin, description, time reference, creator,
access conditions and terms of use of a data collection. The metadata that
would best describe the data depends on the nature of the data. For research
data generated in DyVirt the metadata will be based on a generalised metadata
schema, which includes elements such as:

  * Title: free text 

  

  * Creator: Last name, first name 

  

  * Date: 

  

  * Contributor: It can provide information referred to the EU funding and to the DyVirt project itself; mainly, the terms "European Union (EU)" and "Horizon 

  

2020", as well as the name of the action, acronym and the grant number

  * Subject: Choice of keywords and classifications 

  

  * Description: Text explaining the content of the data set and other contextual information needed for the correct interpretation of the data. 

  

  * Format: Details of the file format 

  

  * Resource Type: data set, image, audio, etc. 

  

  * Identifier: DOI 

  

  * Access rights: closed access, embargoed access, restricted access, open access. 

  

Additionally, a readme.txt file could be used as an established way of
accounting for all the files and folders comprising the project and explaining
how all the files that make up the data set relate to each other, what format
they are in or whether particular files are intended to replace other files.

_3.2 Making data openly accessible:_

The H2020’s open access policy pursues that the information generated by the
projects participating in that programme is made publicly available. However,
as stated in EC guidelines on Data Management in H2020, “As an exception, the
beneficiaries do not have to ensure open access to specific parts of their
research data if the achievement of the action's main objective, as described
in Annex I, would be jeopardised by making those specific parts of the
research data openly accessible. In this case, the data management plan must
contain the reasons for not giving access.” In line with this, the DyVirt
consortium will follow the strategy in Figure 1 to decide what information is
made public according to aspects as potential conflicts against
commercialisation, IPR protection of the knowledge generated (by patents or
other forms of protection), meaning a risk for obtaining the project
objectives/outcomes, etc. There may be restrictions on data sharing required
whereby experimental data or datasets are produced by or in collaboration with
the Industrial partners.

**Fig 1.** Process for determining which information is to be made public
(from EC’s document “Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and
Research Data in Horizon 2020 – v1.0 – 11 December 2013”)

Institutional repositories will be used by the project consortium to make the
project results (i.e. publications and scientific data) publicly available and
free of charge for any user. According to this, several options are
considered/suggested by the EC in the frame of the Horizon 2020 programme to
this aim:

**For depositing scientific publications:**

  * Institutional repository of the research institutions (e.g. Open Access at The University of Sheffield uses the White Rose repository https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/) 

  

  * Subject-based/thematic repository 

  

  * Centralised repository (e.g. ZENODO) **For depositing generated research data:**

  

  * A research data repository which allows third parties to access, mine, exploit, reproduce and disseminate free of charge (e.g. ORDA at The University of Sheffield https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/rdm/orda) 

  

  * Centralised repository (e.g.ZENODO) 

  

The academic institutions participating in DyVirt have available appropriate
repositories. Data will be stored during the research according to the best
practice of the host university of the researchers involved. Outputs will be
stored in the form of analysis files or incorporated into reports, and shared
with the Academic and Industrial partners by saving them on a secure project
data repository. Access to primary data will be managed according to the host
university of the researchers involved. Access to data shared under Open Data
Policy will be managed according to the recommended best practice and
capabilities of the repository of the host university producing the data. Data
will be shared amongst the University and Industrial partners by means of the
project Google site, and, for larger datasets, via the data repository of the
host university producing the data. Data selected for longterm preservation
and sharing will be stored on centrally provisioned University of

Sheffield virtual servers and research storage infrastructure
(https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics/research) for at least ten years. Records of
these data will be published in ORDA, a registry of research data produced at
the University of Sheffield.

The ESRs will have the opportunity to publish results arising from their IRP
as publications in the highest-ranking journals in this subject area (e.g.
Journal of Sound and Vibration; Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing;
Structural Control & Health Monitoring; Journal of Wind Energy; Renewable
Energy; IEEE/ASME/ASCE Journals). The majority of these journals allow an open
access modality and the author’s post-print version can be deposited in a
repository. This is in line with the Horizon 2020 requirements.

The DyVirt project website will act as a portal for (i) an ESR and supervisor
intranet, that will enable sharing of information and project documentation,
(ii) the data management platform for the project, and (iii) open access
publications from the project, via a link to the OpenAIRE portal. Some of the
academic institutions participating in DyVirt have available appropriate
depositories for scientific publications which are linked to OpenAIRE.
Institutions/organisations that don't have appropriate depositories or
repositories that link to OpenAIRE will ensure that publications are deposited
directly in OpenAIRE (https://www.openaire.eu):

#  The University of Sheffield

Type: Publication Repository

Website URL: _https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/openaccess_

#  The University of Liverpool

Type: Publication Repository

Website URL: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/

#  Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zurich

Type: Publication Repository Website

URL: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/

#  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universitaet Hannover

Type: Publication Repository

Website URL: https://www.repo.uni-hannover.de

#  Liege Universite

Type: Publication Repository

Website URL: https://orbi.uliege.be/

#  Panepistimio Thessalias

Type: Publication repository

Website URL: _http://ir.lib.uth.gr_

#  Akademia Gorniczo-Hutnicza IM. Stanislawa Staszica W Krakowie Type:
Publication repository

##  Website URL: _http://www.bg.agh.edu.pl/en/node/1376_

Apart from these repositories, the DyVirt project will also use the
centralised repository ZENODO to ensure the maximum dissemination of the
information generated in the project (research publications and data), as this
repository is the one mainly recommended by the EC’s OpenAIRE initiative in
order to unite all the research results arising from EC funded projects.
ZENODO is an easy-to-use and innovative service that enables researchers, EU
projects and research institutions to share and showcase multidisciplinary
research results (data and publications) that are not part of existing
institutional or subject-based repositories. ZENODO enables users to:

  * Easily share the long tail of small data sets in a wide variety of formats, including text, spreadsheets, audio, video, and images across all fields of science 

  

  * Display and curate research results, get credited by making the research results citable, and integrate them into existing reporting lines to funding agencies like the European Commission 

  

  * Easily access and reuse shared research results 

  

  * Define the different licenses and access levels that will be provided 

  

ZENODO also assigns a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to all publicly
available uploads, in order to make content easily and uniquely citable and
this repository also makes use of the OAI- PMH protocol (Open Archives
Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) to facilitate the content search
through the use of defined metadata. Metadata Schema according to OpenAIRE
Guidelines. The short- and long-term storage of the research data in ZONODO is
secure and it uses digital preservation strategies to storage multiple online
replicas and to back up the files (Data files and metadata are backed up on a
nightly basis). This therefore fulfils the requirements of the EC for data
sharing, archiving and preservation of the data generated in DyVirt.

  3. _Making data interoperable:_

  

  

Records of datasets will be published in _ORDA_ , the University of
Sheffield’s registry of research data produced at the University, which will
issue Data Cite DOIs for registered datasets and promote discovery

  4. _Increase data re-use (through clarifying licenses):_

  

  

Apart from earthquake ground motion records, mentioned above, there has until
now been only limited publically available data on dynamics of infrastructure.
We anticipate, that the DyVirt data portal will radically improve the digital
science activity in this field, specifically by encouraging more open
collaborations amongst researchers, giving SMEs and other industrial
organisations wider access to research data, and allowing policy makers and
governmental bodies to have more access to well documented and archived data
on this important area of policy. The University of Sheffield’s Good Research
and Innovation Practice (GRIP) Policy follows UKRI principles for data sharing
( _https://www.ukri.org/funding/information-for-awardholders/data-policy/_ ).

All DyVirt team members will ensure that a data access statement is put in the
Acknowledgements section of all their research publications.

Examples of data access statements:

"All data created during this research are openly available from the
University of X data archive at http://XXXXXXX”

"All data supporting this work are provided as supplementary information
accompanying this paper."

"All data are provided in full in the results section of this paper."

"This publication is supported by multiple datasets, which are openly
available at locations cited in the references" "No new data were created
during this study"

"This study was a re-analysis of existing data that are publicly available
from http://XXXXXXX" Commercial restrictions

"Supporting data will be available from the University of X data archive at
http://XXXX after a Y month embargo from the data of publication to allow for
commercialisation of research findings"

"Due to confidentiality agreements with research collaborators, supporting
data can only be made available to researchers subject to a non-disclosure
agreement. Details of the data and how to request access are available at the
University of X data archive: _http://XXXXX_ ."

It is also encouraged to use publications that allow supplementary files to be
uploaded with the publication in order to more directly link the data files
being published to the publication itself.

Data should be retained, shared and / or preserved where it may be used to
reproduce conclusions from publications arising from the research program,
where it may provide additional information, or where it may be considered
useful. The longterm preservation plan for the dataset is for it to be
preserved as long as it is considered useful and economic within the data
policy of the host institution that originally produced the data.

#  ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES

The resources required to deliver the plan are available within the budget of
the DyVirt project in conjunction with the facilities provided by the project
Partners.

The University of Sheffield research data storage facility allocates 10TB
storage free to research groups during the lifetime of a project. If a larger
quota is required then this will involve charges. Long-term archiving of data
may involve charges also. ORDA (https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/rdm/orda),
the University of Sheffield research data repository for managing and sharing
research data is free to use.

Contacts for project data:

Project Manager – Dr Victoria Hand (University of Sheffield)

Project Administrator – Grace Stokes (University of Sheffield)

#  DATA SECURITY

Data and definitive project documentation will be stored on centrally
provisioned University of Sheffield virtual servers and research data storage
infrastructure throughout the lifetime of the project. Both Windows and Linux
Virtual Servers with up to 10TB of storage are made available to research
projects. Access control is by authorised University computer account username
and password. Off-site access is facilitated by secure VPN connection
authenticated by University username and remote password. By default, two
copies of data are kept across two physical plant rooms, with a 28-day
snapshot made of data and backed up securely offsite at least daily. This
service is maintained by the University’s Corporate Information and Computing
Services. Google Drive is used for more flexible collaborative working but
only where non personal-sensitive information is involved. Where Google Drive
is used, copies of complete and definitive documents will be transferred to
the main project repository on the University research storage infrastructure.

#  ETHICAL ASPECTS

Copyright and IPR issues shall be managed as noted in the Project
Collaboration Agreement. The Ethics committee will be asked to oversee the
data management process to ensure that data are collected and preserved in
accordance with all ethical considerations, including any potential
confidentiality and copyright issues.

#  OTHER

**Data Management Policy & Procedures; Data Security Policies and Data Sharing
Policies. **

**University of Sheffield:**

**Data Management Policy & Procedures: **
_https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/govern/dataprotection_

**Data Security Policies:**
_https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics/policies/infosec_

**Data Sharing Policy:**
_https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/rdm/expectations_

**University of Hannover:**

_https://www.uni-hannover.de/en/datenschutzerklaerung/_

**University of Liverpool:**

#  Data Management Policy &

**Procedures:** _https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/library/research-data-_

_management/_ **AND**
_https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/computingservices/r esearch-data-
management/researchdatamanagementpolicy.pdf_

**Data Security Policies:**
_https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/csd/security/informationsecurity/_ **AND**

_http://www.liverpoolac.uk/media/livacuk/computingservices/regulations/informatio
nsecuritypolicy.pdf_ **Data Sharing Policy:**
_https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/computingservices/research-
datamanagement/researchdatamanagementpolicy.pdf_

#  Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zurich

**Data Management Policy & Procedures: **
_https://www.library.ethz.ch/en/ms/DigitalCuration-at-ETH-Zurich/Research-
data/Research-data-managemen**t** _

**Data Security Policies:** _https://www.ethz.ch/en/footer/data-
protection.html_

**Data Sharing Policy:** _https://www.library.ethz.ch/en/ms/Digital-Curation-
at-ETH-_

_Zurich/Research-data/Publishing-research-data_