A three-phase Delphi study was used to investigate an emerging community for research data management in Norway and their understanding and application of data management plans (DMPs). The findings reveal visions of what the DMP should be as well as different practice approaches, yet the stakeholders present common goals. This paper discusses the different perspectives on the DMP by applying Star and Griesemer’s theory of boundary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989). The debate on what the DMP is and the findings presented are relevant to all research communities currently implementing DMP procedures and requirements. The current discussions about DMPs tend to be distant from the active researchers and limited to the needs of funders and institutions rather than to the usefulness for researchers. By analysing the DMP as a boundary object, plastic and adaptable yet with a robust identity (Star & Griesemer, 1989), and by translating between worlds where collaboration on data sharing can take place we expand the perspectives and include all stakeholders. An understanding of the DMP as a boundary object can shift the focus from shaping a DMP which fulfils funders’ requirements to enabling collaboration on data management and sharing across domains using standardised forms.

There is a current discussion in universities regarding the need for dedicated research data stewards. This article presents a set of fictional personas for research data support based on experience and requests by experts in different areas of data management. Using a modified Delphi study, 24 participants from different stakeholder groups have contributed to the skills and backgrounds necessary to fulfill the needs for data stewardship. Inspired by user experience (UX) methodology, different data personas are developed to illustrate the range of skills required to support data management within universities. Further, as a competency hub for data stewards, the development of a research data support center is proposed.

Introduction. The sharing and reuse of research data is gradually becoming best practice in research. However, multiple frictions exist between realising stakeholders’ ambitions for research and research data sharing and addressing legal, social and cultural imperatives for protecting data subjects’ privacy. Through identifying and addressing frictions between personal privacy and research, our paper offers advice to research data management services on how to approach personal privacy in research data, sharing using the research data life cycle as the context. Method. A three-phase Delphi study on a population comprising twenty-four stakeholders involved in research data curation in Norway. Data were collected during three consecutive rounds over fourteen months. Analysis. The data were analysed qualitatively using themes following exploratory sequential design methods. After three rounds of data collection, the entire corpus of data were connected and analysed thematically according to integrated analysis. Results. The findings show multiple tensions between maintaining research subjects’ right to privacy and advancing research through data sharing. This paper identifies and analyses three particular sources of tension: 1) maintaining trust with the research participants, 2) managing divergent views of privacy in international and intercultural research collaborations and 3) interpreting and applying policy. The divergent motivations and perspectives on privacy held by different stakeholders complicate these tensions. Conclusions. Researchers, research data management support staff and data organizations must reconcile these motivations and resolve tensions throughout the data life cycle, from collection to archiving and eventual sharing. Through dialogue and negotiation, all stakeholders involved in data sharing should aim to respect the research subjects’ own understandings of privacy.

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Digital research data collected in the sciences has the potential to be reused and shared openly. Several arguments for such sharing have come forward both from funders and researchers during the last decade. This study investigates the attitudes towards such reuse along with current traditions for sharing, reuse and the storage of research data in the universities, particularly the Life Sciences in Norway. A survey has been conducted among researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) collecting data on various aspects of the ‘researcher – research’ data relationship.The two main focuses are practical issues regarding storage, sharing and reuse of research data and perspectives on the future of data sharing, issues regarding publishing channels and the usage of online research collaboratories are also covered. The research aims to create an understanding of how researchers handle the data they collect, how they retrieve research data for reuse from other sources and how they imagine the future potential of data sharing was explored trough the research question “What are the attitudes and experience with data sharing among the researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences?”In order to uncover attitudes and experience with data sharing the collected data has been analyzed according to years of experience, research field and previous experience with data sharing, as well as compared with data from previous studies in the field. These comparisons led to an understanding of which factors influence the researchers’ opinion or experience. Through the study it was found to be large differences according to years of experience in how the researchers see data sharing, this presentation will focus on that aspect.The study concludes that the processes of data sharing are far from optimized as researchers today primarily retrieve data from colleagues and a collegial network for data exchange takes time to establish. For the researchers to be willing to share their data certain criteria such as first publication and accreditation for reuse must be fulfilled, in addition, the fears among the researchers for misuse must be taken into account. The attitude among the researchers towards making data openly available depends much on where the researchers are in their careers. PhD students are the most positive ones towards sharing their research data openly, whereas the researchers with 5 to 10 years of experience are the least positive ones. As the researchers become more experienced they again turn to be more positive towards giving open access to the research data they collect. This is likely to reflect how the ambition to become famous is a key motivation for the researchers, and strongly present in the early stages in the career, and then gradually become less important as the researchers gain experience.