Implementing Research Data Management Services in a Canadian Context

Abstract

Research data management (RDM) has become an increasingly pressing issue for academic libraries as they strive to assist researchers in addressing new public funding requirements surrounding data dissemination and preservation. Briney, Goben, & Zilinski (2015) reviewed several characteristics of RDM service provision efforts by 206 American research universities. Following a similar methodology, the author reviewed RDM service development within Canadian research universities and compared the results to the American efforts. The main area requiring development in Canada is the provision of RDM services. Therefore, some current best practices for implementing RDM services were gathered through a literature review. The successful approaches highlighted in the literature include awareness of funder and institutional data policies, reaching out to data service providers on campus and beyond, understanding researcher data management needs and finding RDM champions, implementing research data services strategically, planning for growth in RDM services, marketing the RDM services, and creating incentives to create data management plans and utilize RDM services. Third Place DJIM Best Article Award.

Research data management systems and the organization of universities and research institutes: A systematic literature review

“…Incentives can be seen as an additional factor to support a cultural change in data handling as well as to increase the awareness of researchers for RDM (Burgi et al, 2017; Chawinga and Zinn, 2019). Whereas monetary incentives could be a successful way, in the most cases they are not realized due to budget restrictions (Grynoch, 2016). But the implementation of Data Steward and Data Champion programs that incorporate researchers and support their data management activities was described as quite successful incentive (e.g.…”

“…Incentives need to be connected with institutional goals (Shen and Varvel, 2013). They can be realized in different ways such as through monetary motivators or the rewarding of data champions Grynoch, 2016;Plomp et al, 2019;Savage and Cadwallader, 2019). Before implementing incentives, technical aspects for RDM need to be in place (Plomp et al, 2019).…”