THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT INSTRUCTION

AT CARLETON UNIVERSITY

Wendy Watkins

Ernie Boyko

Carleton University Library Data Centre

DLI Ontario Training

London, Ontario

April 2015

WHAT’S BEEN DONE IN RDM TRAINING(THAT WE’RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT)

InternationalIASSISTCASRAIOpenRespositories

NationalDLI National TrainingCanadian Science Policy ConferenceCARL

RegionalDLI Regional TrainingRegional/Provincial Library Workshops

WHAT WE ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT:

OUR LOCAL INITIATIVES - 1 How we got started Professional Research Skills for

Graduate Students Why concentrate on Graduate Students Content of 1st session Evaluation results How we changed things What we learned after round 2 Revamping again

Invitation from the Research Office: Carleton Scholar Project

WHAT WE ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT:

OUR LOCAL INITIATIVES - 2 2015 update

Another Graduate Student Workshop Carleton Scholar take 2 – A Lesson in

Marketing

Still to come RDM for Academic Computing Committee RDM for Liaison Librarians Redeveloping the Research Data

Management website

The Road Ahead and Miscellany

HOW WE GOT STARTED

Began by teaching librarians (2009)

Realized that was fine nationally and regionally but wasn’t going to work at the local level

Our interested librarians (and there were a few) were better served by meeting in a larger venue

Graduate Studies had run with our UL’s idea of Research competencies, including Data Managment

We thought we’d get a better bang for our buck working with them

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

Graduate Studies promoted 5 one-day workshops giving practical training in several areas

They took care of the publicity and registration Counted as TA hours for those students with

teaching assistantships Ours was an introduction to research data

management We scheduled it over 2 half-days 1st half day was the theory behind the practice 2nd half day was a review and then a guided tour

of MANTRA It was a sell-out

WHY CONCENTRATE ON GRAD STUDENTS?

First, Grad Studies asked us to do it Felt that grad students were more fertile

ground than faculty Faculty tended to be set in the ways they

conducted their research projects Graduate students were likely involved in

most of the nitty-gritty data work Newer generation; might be more malleable

early in their career Gave us a chance to start off with best

practices at the outset of the students’ research experience

EVALUATION RESULTS

Keeps: Ratings were about 4.7 / 5 Students seemed to be very engaged and

enjoyed the course Loved MANTRA

Changes: Found it difficult to schedule 2 half-days Suggested shortening the theory end and

combining it with MANTRA Wanted it earlier in their research careers—even

at the Honour’s level Wanted it earlier in the academic year

HOW WE CHANGED THINGS

Incorporated their suggestions Reduced the time to one half-day Gave 2 sessions; one each at the start of the

Fall and Winter sessions Cut back on some of the historical detail Condensed some of the principles Simplified the life-cycle part of the

presentation Kept this part to the first ¼ day Kept MANTRA but had them relate it to their

research projects

MORE WORKSHOPS

Grad Studies asked us to give more workshops Again, they advertised Provided TA credit hours for attendance

Jane Fry gets her MLIS and joins the team

Education Development Centre became involved We developed formal learning outcomes

Granting Agencies were also moving

Required a major overhaul

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING: INTRODUCING DATA MANAGEMENT

PLANS

TC3+ discussion paper published Seemed that the granting agencies would be requiring

Data Management Plans Kept the abridged theory session Developed a fillable form based on elements from

the DMPtool template Had students bring in a description of their data

projects to use in an exercise Students who weren’t at that stage simply paired

with others Kept MANTRA on the back burner as a research

resource Students like the practical experience of creating a

plan for their own research

INVITATION FROM THE RESEARCH OFFICE:

CARLETON SCHOLAR PROJECT

Research Administrators developed a skills program for faculty to improve teaching and research skills

Wanted a workshop in Research Data Management in preparation for the TC3+ DMP requirement

Research Office decided that Grad Students would not be included

Advertised to all faculty and sessionals Attendees were one member of the Academic

Research Computing Committee representing the Engineering Faculty and 3 liaison librarians

WHAT THAT TAUGHT US

More than just grad students and faculty had a need for these workshops

Faculty academic computing committee members were being tasked with doing something with students’ research data when they graduated Faculty in Engineering merely handed off the data to

the IT group who had no idea what to do with it

Liaison librarians needed to be brought into the picture

Faculty needed to be lured another way

2015 UPDATE: ANOTHER GRAD STUDENT WORKSHOP

Hybrid of past workshops plus new material Did the usual introduction of:

Defining research data Explaining their importance Extolling the benefits of sharing

Added: Introduction of tools

DMP Builder from the University of Alberta Dataverse from Scholars Portal

Hands-on session with the ‘real deal’ Once again, evaluations were positive

2015 UPDATE: A NEW APPROACH FOR FACULTY

Based on our first try where we attracted NO research faculty, we decided that: Marketing was at fault, not content If researchers don’t have to do something NOW, they won’t

until it becomes NOW

Rewrote the blurb changing from “Managing your research data” to: Your grad students have flown the coop taking your research

data

Attracted about a dozen researchers from several faculties

Lesson: make the pitch relevant to the researchers’ situation

STILL TO COME:

RDM training for the Academic Computing Committee

RDM training for Liaison Librarians

Redeveloping the Research Data Management Website

And most important: Developing an Institutional Research Data Management Policy

THE ROAD AHEAD If RDM is going to be successful at your school you

will need an institutional research data policy Policy should be developed by a broad-based

committee and led by: your Research Vice President your CIO and your University Librarian

Service providers are key and they don’t all live in the library Scientific and computing labs are also essential The library may be a logical place to provide instruction

but leadership will be required if it is to be a player And then the researchers

They are going to be a hard sell Successful case studies are amazingly powerful

TWO EXAMPLES OF BEST PRACTICES PROMOTING RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT

Data Day at Queen’s University last May Half-day, with over 50 attendees For more information, talk to Jeff and Alex

Research Data Management Week at the University of Alberta, April 2014 Fully-loaded week of presentations on policy,

services and practice led by senior administrators, service providers and starring researchers

For more information, see Chuck

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Presenting a video that really got our researchers’ attention

Questions?