Creating and Maintaining a Sustainable Research Data

Management Service: Where Do Librarians Fit?

Jill Evans, Gareth Cole & Hannah Lloyd-Jones (University of Exeter)

Introduction

• Who are we?– The Open Exeter Project– JISC funded: looking into Research Data

Management issues at the University of Exeter– Inter-departmental

Open Exeter• Main work strands:

– Follow the Data• Working with six PGRs• DAF survey

– Advocacy and Governance– Technical Development

• Creation of Exeter Data Archive– Creation of Training Materials

• Researcher Development Programme (RDP)• Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PCAP)• One-stop shop website• Lunch byte workshops

Research Data Management (RDM)

• What is RDM?• Why is it important?• Why should librarians be involved?• What can research data encompass?

What can Research Data be?Types of data used by participants at the Debate, Discuss and Disseminate Workshop:

o Paper, i.e. printouts of experimento Word documentso Excel spreadsheetso Interview transcriptso Audio files (recordings of interviews)o Mapping datao PDFso Raw data in CSV formo Post-processed data in text fileso Graphso Tables for literature reviewo Search data for systematic reviewo Interviews and surveys: audio files, word transcriptso Photographso Photocopies of documents from the archiveso NVivo fileso STATA files

What can Research Data be? (2)

Over To You

• What do you know about RDM issues?• What would you like to know about RDM that

you don’t currently know?• What training would you like to have on

RDM?– What format would you like this training to have?

Training

• Who for?– Researchers– Professional Services Staff

• What form should training take?– One-to-one sessions– Workshops– Presentations– Online modules

How Researchers at Exeter want to be Trained

Training (2)

• What should be included in the training?– Data Management Plans– Organising research material– File and Document Management e.g. versioning– Ethical and confidentiality issues– Bibliographic Software– Institutional Repositories and Open Access– Any others?

What RDM Training Researchers at Exeter want.

Training Area Number

How to Develop a Data Management Plan

144

Organising Research Material 123

File and Document Management 112

Legal and Ethical Issues 115

Bibliographic Software 83

Institutional Repositories and Open Access

121

Policy

• How do librarians fit in?• Where do librarians fit in?

– Research and Knowledge Transfer staff– Assistant College Managers for Research– Computer Development Officers– Central IT Services

• Who should have responsibility for what?– Need for a clear structure otherwise researchers will not become engaged

Sustainability - Institutional

• Needs to be sustainable:– Sticks:

• Research Councils’ policies• Government initiatives on Open Access

– Carrots:• Increased chances of collaboration for inter-disciplinary

research• Increased citations for researchers• Recognition to researchers for ALL their work• Librarians become more integrated and involved in the

research process

The Librarian’s role is changing

• Re-skilling for Research report (January 2012)• Evolutionary process• As information professionals, academic

librarians need to be experts on managing information as well as finding it

• Increased awareness of the needs of the research community

Any Questions?