The paper reports on an exploratory study of researchers’ needs for effective research data management at two Swedish universities, conducted in order to inform the ongoing development of research data services. Twelve researchers from diverse fields have been interviewed, including biology, cultural studies, economics, environmental studies, geography, history, linguistics, media and psychology. The interviews were structured, guided by the Data Curation Profiles Toolkit developed at Purdue University, with added questions regarding subject metadata. The preliminary analysis indicates that the research data management practices vary greatly among the respondents, and therefore so do the implications for research data services. The added questions on subject metadata indicate needs of services guiding researchers in describing their datasets with adequate metadata.

No abstract

The Metadata 2020 initiative is an ongoing effort to bring various scholarly communications stakeholder groups together to promote principles and standards of practice to improve the quality of metadata. To understand the perspectives and practices regarding metadata of the main stakeholder groups (librarians, publishers, researchers, and repository managers), we conducted a survey during summer 2019. The survey content was generated by representatives from the stakeholder groups. A link to an online survey (17 or 18 questions depending on the group) was distributed through multiple social media, listserv, and blog outlets. Responses were anonymous, with an optional entry for names and email addresses for those who were willing to be contacted later. Complete responses (N = 211; 87 librarians, 27 publishers, 48 repository managers, and 49 researchers) representing 23 countries on four continents were analyzed and summarized for thematic content and ranking of awareness and practices. Across the stakeholder groups, the level of awareness and usage of metadata methods and practices was highly variable. Clear gaps across the groups point to the need for consolidation of schema and practices, as well as broad educational efforts to increase knowledge and implementation of metadata in scholarly communications.

No abstract

No abstract