Is Democracy the Right System? Collaborative Approaches to Building an Engaged RDM Community

Teperek, Marta; Higman, Rosie; Kingsley, Danny

doi:10.2218/ijdc.v12i2.561

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…To ensure wide policy adoption across the university, we believed it was essential that the top-down, policy-driven approaches happen in parallel to bottom-up, community-driven efforts (for rationale see Introduction). In September 2018, inspired by a successful initiative from the University of Cambridge (Higman, Teperek & Kingsley 2018), TU Delft launched its Data Champions programme (TU Delft Library 2018). Data Champions are researchers who volunteer to advocate good data management and sharing among their local communities.…”

Section: Bottom-up Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands, we have decided to try a different approach: policy development that goes hand in hand with practice. By combining a top-down, policydriven approach, with a bottom-up approach, researchers are more inclined to invest their time and effort in RDM and sharing their findings with others (Teperek, Higman & Kingsley 2018). Therefore, a systematic approach to engaging with stakeholders across the university was devised (Figure 1, and also section "Policy development").…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Policy Needs to Go Hand in Hand with Practice: The Learning and Listening Approach to Data Management

Cruz

Dintzner

Dunning

et al. 2019

Data Science Journal

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In this paper, we explain our strategy for developing research data management policies at TU Delft. Policies can be important drivers for research institutions in the implementation of good data management practices. As Rans and Jones note (Rans and Jones 2013), "Policies provide clarity of purpose and may help in the framing of roles, responsibilities and requisite actions. They also legitimise making the case for investment". However, policy development often tends to place the researchers in a passive position, while they are the ones managing research data on a daily basis. Therefore, at TU Delft, we have taken an alternative approach: a policy needs to go hand in hand with practice. The policy development was initiated by the Research Data Services at TU Delft Library, but as the process continued, other stakeholders, such as legal and IT departments, got involved. Finally, the faculty-based Data Stewards have played a key role in leading the consultations with the research community that led to the development of the faculty-specific policies. This allows for disciplinary differences to be reflected in the policies and to create a closer connection between policies and day-today research practice. Our primary intention was to keep researchers and research practices at the centre of our strategy for data management. We did not want to introduce and mandate requirements before adequate infrastructure and professional support were available to our research community and before our researchers were themselves willing to discuss formalisation of data management practices. This paper describes the key steps taken and the most important decisions made during the development of RDM policies at TU Delft.

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Section: Bottom-up Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy Needs to Go Hand in Hand with Practice: The Learning and Listening Approach to Data Management

Cruz

Dintzner

Dunning

et al. 2019

Data Science Journal

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Getting the Central RDM Message Across: A Case Study of Central versus Discipline-Specific Research Data Services (RDS) at the University of Cambridge

Castle

2019

Libri

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RDS are usually cross-disciplinary, centralised services, which are increasingly provided at a university by the academic library and in collaboration with other RDM stakeholders, such as the Research Office. At research-intensive universities, research data is generated in a wide range of disciplines and sub-disciplines. This paper will discuss how providing discipline-specific RDM support is approached by such universities and academic libraries, and the advantages and disadvantages of these central and discipline-specific approaches. A descriptive case study on the author’s experiences of collaborating with a central RDS at the University of Cambridge, as a subject librarian embedded in an academic department, is a major component of this paper. The case study describes how centralised RDM services offered by the Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) have been adapted to meet discipline-specific needs in the Department of Chemistry. It will introduce the department and the OSC, and describe the author’s role in delivering RDM training, as well as the Data Champions programme, and their membership of the RDM Project Group. It will describe the outcomes of this collaboration for the Department of Chemistry, and for the centralised service. Centralised and discipline-specific approaches to RDS provision have their own advantages and disadvantages. Supporting the discipline-specific RDM needs of researchers is proving particularly challenging for universities to address sustainably: it requires adequate financial resources and staff skilled (or re-skilled) in RDM. A mixed approach is the most desirable, cost-effective way of providing RDS, but this still has constraints.

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Establishing, Developing, and Sustaining a Community of Data Champions

Savage¹,

Cadwallader²

2019

Data Science Journal

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Supporting good practice in Research Data Management (RDM) is challenging for higher education institutions, in part because of the diversity of research practices and data types across disciplines. While centralised research data support units now exist in many universities, these typically possess neither the discipline-specific expertise nor the resources to offer appropriate targeted training and support within every academic unit. One solution to this problem is to identify suitable individuals with discipline-specific expertise that are already embedded within each unit, and empower these individuals to advocate for good RDM and to deliver support locally. This article focuses on an ongoing example of this approach: the Data Champion Programme at the University of Cambridge, UK. We describe how the Data Champion programme was established; the programme's reach, impact, strengths and weaknesses after two years of operation; and our anticipated challenges and planned strategies for maintaining the programme over the medium-and long-term.

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Is Democracy the Right System? Collaborative Approaches to Building an Engaged RDM Community

Cited by 3 publications

References 2 publications

Policy Needs to Go Hand in Hand with Practice: The Learning and Listening Approach to Data Management

Policy Needs to Go Hand in Hand with Practice: The Learning and Listening Approach to Data Management

Getting the Central RDM Message Across: A Case Study of Central versus Discipline-Specific Research Data Services (RDS) at the University of Cambridge

Establishing, Developing, and Sustaining a Community of Data Champions

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