image: Figure 1: JDCat Top Page view more
Credit: © National Institute of Informatics
In July, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, President: SATOMI Susumu) and the National Institute of Informatics (NII, Director General: KITSUREGAWA Masaru) launched the program “Japan Data Catalog for the Humanities and Social Sciences” (JDCat). It went into full-scale operation in November with the addition of a new set of humanities data to the Data Catalog. JDCat is a product of JSPS’s “Program for Constructing Data Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences” (*1). It was created based on the repository software WEKO3 developed by the NII’s Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform (*2) (RCOS, Center Director: YAMAJI Kazutsuna, Professor, NII Digital Content and Media Sciences Research Division). JDCat enables cross-disciplinary searches of data in a variety of humanities and social sciences provided by research institutions participating in JSPS’s Data Infrastructure Program, while providing access to the published data of each institution.
Japan Data Catalog for the Humanities and Social Sciences (JDCat)
Research data in fields of the humanities and social sciences are a means of capturing human activities and societal phenomena, and are used in various forms of societal decision-making, including policy formulation based on objective evidence. These data include individual data from social surveys, statistical tables from official statistics, texts of historical materials, image data, and many other types of data. In other countries, infrastructures are being actively developed to make data in the humanities and social sciences available to the public and share them with societies.
This July, JSPS and NII released JDCat, a cross-search system for social sciences data from four research institutes: JGSS Research Center at Osaka University of Commerce; Panel Data Research Center at Keio University; Center for Social Research and Data Archives, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo; and Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. From November 16 (Tuesday), JDCat added humanities data from Historiographical Institute, the University of Tokyo and began full-scale operation as a cross-search system for both humanities and social sciences data.
We hope that the cross searching of data in the fields of humanities and social sciences by a wide range of users will lead to the use of data in combinations that have never been seen before and to the creation of new research results and joint research that transcends disciplines.
Comments from HIROMATSU Takeshi, Director of JSPS's Center for Constructing Data Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences:
“In July, JDCat was released to the public with data cataloged in fields of the social sciences. In November, it added data in fields of humanities provided by Historiographical Institute, the University of Tokyo. This enabled the full-scale operation of JDCat as a system for cross-searching data in both the social sciences and the humanities. That said, accessible data remains limited both in terms of scope and variety. The metadata added to the Data Catalog from the Historiographical Institute comprises only a portion of the huge volume of data held by the Institute. In the future, I hope to see JDCat, which sprouted from humble beginnings, grow into something mighty.”
(*1) Program for Constructing Data Infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences:
This program was established by JSPS in April 2018 with an aim of promoting the humanities and social sciences. By building a comprehensive infrastructure for sharing and utilizing data related to humanities and social sciences research across disciplines and countries, the project aims to encourage researchers to share data together and promote joint research, both domestically and internationally. See https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-di/index.html for details
(*2) Research Center for Open Science and Data Platform:
In response to the global momentum toward open science, this research center was established within NII in April 2017 to develop and operate an academic platform to serve as an infrastructure for open science. It is expected that, through the wide sharing of academic papers and research data in academia and society, and a wide range of research activities being carried out openly, research activities will be accelerated, problem solving based on close cooperation with society will be promoted, and that this will push academic activities to a new dimension (open science). See https://rcos.nii.ac.jp/en/ for details
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About the National Institute of Informatics (NII)
NII is Japan's only academic research institute dedicated to the new discipline of informatics. Its mission is to "create future value" in informatics. NII conducts both long-term basic research and practical research aimed at solving social problems in a wide range of informatics research fields, from fundamental theories to the latest topics, such as artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of Things, and information security.
As an inter-university research institute, NII builds and operates academic information infrastructure essential for the research and educational activities of the entire academic community (including the Science Information Network) as well as developing services such as those that enable the provision of academic content and service platforms. https://www.nii.ac.jp/en/
About the Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS)
ROIS is a parent organization of four national institutes (National Institute of Polar Research, National Institute of Informatics, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and National Institute of Genetics) and the Joint Support-Center for Data Science Research. It is ROIS's mission to promote integrated, cutting-edge research that goes beyond the barriers of these institutions, in addition to facilitating their research activities, as members of inter-university research institutes.