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The data set accompanying theses is a valuable intellectual property asset, both from the viewpoint of the PhD student, who can procure employment and build publications and research grants from the work for years to come, and the university, which owns the data and has invested in the work. However, the data set has generally not been captured as a finished product in a similar manner to the published thesis. A course has been developed which walks PhD students through the process of identifying an archival data set, selecting a repository or long term storage location, creating metadata and documentation for the data package, and the deposit process. A pre- and post assessment has been designed to ascertain the level of data literacy the students gain through curating their own dataset. PIs for the projects have input into the repositories and metadata standards selected. The university thesis office was consulted as the course was developed, so that accurate procedures and practices are reflected throughout the course. This first of a kind class is open to students of any discipline at a Research-1 university. The resulting mixture of data types creates a unique course every time it is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatial data includes many formats, varying from historical paper maps, to digital information collected by various sensors. Many libraries have started the efforts to build a geospatial data portal to connect users with the various information. For example, GeoBlacklight and OpenGeoportal are two open-source projects that initiated from academic institutions which have been adopted by many universities and libraries for geospatial data discovery. While several recent studies have focused on the metadata, usability and data collection perspectives of geospatial data portals, not many have explored the backend stories about data management to support the data discovery platform. The objective of this paper is to provide a summary about geospatial data management strategies involved in the geospatial data portal development by reviewing related projects. These data management strategies include managing the historical paper maps, scanned maps, aerial photos, research generated geospatial information, and web map services. This paper focuses on the data organization, storage, cyberinfrastructure configuration, preservation and sharing perspectives of these efforts with the goal to provide a range of options or best management practices for information managers when curating geospatial data in their own institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]