Managing Research Data

Managing Research Data with Collaboration in Academic Libraries

Prepared by Erin Zimmerman

Definition of Project

The project covers current research data management (RDM) programs in international academic libraries. These RDM programs cover a range of stages of implementation from the earliest phases of performing a needs assessment to developing long standing practice. The purpose of bibliography is to assemble resources to evaluate the effectiveness of various programs at different stages in order to determine key factors essential to the success of an RDM program. This information would assist others in the design or improvement of a similar program.

Annotations

Akers, K. G., Sferdean, F. C., Nicholls, N. H., & Green, J. A. (2014). Building support for research data management: Biographies of eight research universities.International Journal of Digital Curation, 9(2), 172-191. https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v9i2.327

Even though the stories of the 8 different libraries differed in terms of location, university support, and research community needs. The article includes clearly defined timelines that could be duplicated by other institutions in the development of their programs as well as in building support for their programs within their institutions. Garnering support for the RDM program within the university was a common component in the program development. A similar theme of collaboration between departments within the university, within the different libraries on each campus, and between libraries at other schools is presented in the article.

Chiware, E., & Mathe, Z. (2016). Academic libraries' role in research data management services: A South African perspective. South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, 81(2). https://doi.org/10.7553/81-2-1563

This article focuses on the getting a RDM program off the ground at a new university in South Africa. A great deal of information is given describing what RDM is and the process of implementing the program which ideally will involve collaboration from with an international collaborative. The most valuable part of this article is figure 1. the e-Research Service Model at CPUT, which lays out how an effective fully collaborative Research Data Management System should progress. An ideal RDM system shown involves the researchers, the library, modes of communication, and working with an open source infrastructure that is shared with other countries. Many of the initiatives from this article could be applied to programs at other universities that are in the beginning stages.

Cox, A. M., & Pinfield, S. (2014). Research data management and libraries: Current activities and future priorities. Journal of Librarianship and Informational Science, 46(4), 299-316. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000613492542

A survey was conducted to explore any attitudes or changes at UK universities that have RDM policies implemented. It revealed there to be some weak points not in the policies but in the implementations due to the training and skill sets of staff, supporting the program with sufficient resources, and garnering consistent support from other departments. The article provided an interesting section on advocacy in terms of collaboration to secure resources and get buy in. A lot of the future plans centered on the role of the IT department in RDM and how large that role should be in comparison with that of the libraries going forward and how that relationship might be managed.

Liu, X., & Ding, N. (2016). Research data management in universities of central China: Practices at Wuhan University Library. The Electronic Library, 34(5), 808-822. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-04-2015-0063

The article outlines the implementation of an RDM system on a project level. The interesting aspects are the assessment of the researchers needs from an RDM system, figuring out the key players needed to run the project on a small scale, and the identifying any areas that would need to be handled in order to make it work as a campus policy. Working with other departments, training librarians, and building up technical support were among some of the conclusions.

Perrier, L., Blondal, E., & MacDonald, H. (2018). Exploring the experiences of academic libraries with research data management: A meta-ethnographic analysis of qualitative studies. Library and Information Science Research, 40(3-4), 173-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2018.08.002

From the results of 12 different studies a meta-ethnographic analysis had huge amount of interesting information on how libraries have been handling RDM thus far. Like other articles it stresses the benefits of collaborating, but points out that it was likely done so out of necessity due to lack of resources in order to serve as many people as possible or what they referred to as a “strategy for impact”(p.6) which is a different perspective. While other articles stressed the importance of collaboration based on based on shared mutual goals those goals were never clearly defined. Understanding motivations for collaborations may facilitate the process. The article was also able to point out that with any new endeavor training and new skill are need for everyone involved, librarians and researches alike, but points out that the greatest weakness is in providing technical data services.

Peters, C., & Dryden, A. R. (2011). Assessing the academic library's role in campus-wide research data management: A first step at the University of Houston. Science & Technology Libraries, 30(4), 387-403. https://doi.org//10.1080/0194262x.2011.626340 What appears to be a simple survey given at a university campus showed clear results about how to handle Research Data Management. It is a classic case of assessing the needs of the community, building relationships and working together to meet those needs, and communicating relevant information. It is also a well written article what clearly laid out their research methodology for assessing their needs RDM needs.

Searle, S., Wolski, M., Simons, N., & Richardson, J. (2015). Librarians as partners in research data service development at Griffith University. Program, 49(4), 440-460. https://doi.org/10.1108/PROG-02-2015-0013

This article covers the Griffith University Library’s involvement with Research Data Management across the board from infrastructure to outreach. It covers working closely with IT to form hybrid library IT positions to handle storage concerns, helping researchers with IT helpdesk questions that require staff training. It covers considerations for discipline specific situations that arose. Overall it focuses heavily on collaborating with other departments whether that is working together to find solutions or to education researchers on best practices and also training staff. It provides lots of examples and suggestions for moving forward.

Steeleworthy, M. (2014). Research data management and the Canadian academic library: An organizational consideration of data management and data stewardship. Partnership, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v9i1.2990

This article puts a great deal of emphasis on staff rather than the institution to prepare itself for the RDM program implementation which is a different focus from the other articles that focused more at an institutional level. There is a strong call for training library staff particularly the librarian liaisons to build on subject matter they are already familiar with. There is a need to educate researchers on how information professionals are available to manage research data and guide them through much of the documentation process. There is also a paragraph dedicated to working with administration to support research as a whole, the grant process and the entire research lifecycle. Including working with the Research ethics board staff or officers which presents an excellent point regarding data management and collaborations within the campus community.

Tripathi, M., Shukla, A., & Sonkar, S. K. (2017). Research data management practices in university libraries: A study. Journal of Library & Information Technology, 37(6), 417-424. https://doi.org/10.14429/djlit.37.11336

The authors conducted an examination of 20 top international universities to gain an understanding of research data management programs currently in place. They then looked at 47 universities in India to get a feel for practices in that region and identified not only that the countries universities are in the early stages of developing such polices, but presented an exhaustive list of areas that would be essential for libraries to focus on including collaboration, computing infrastructure, and staff training in greater detail.

Wittenberg, J., & Elings, M. (2017). Building a research data management service at the University of California, Berkeley: A tale of collaboration. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 43(1), 89-97. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035216686982

This is a case study that walks through the creation of a Research Data Management Program outlining the collaboration between at the University of California, Berkeley’s Library and the Research IT department. It depicts the challenges that one would expect to find when two large departments work together to achieve a similar goal as well as a few that that you may not see coming. Such as “competing perspectives on RDM (p.91), fundamental differences in the ways departments are run operationally, and cultural differences relating to researcher privacy. Very informative for planning a similar collaborative endeavor.