Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

Esther Plomp,Alastair Dunning,Marta Teperek,Nicolas Dintzner

doi:10.1629/uksg.484

Abstract

Research data management (RDM) is increasingly important in scholarship. Many researchers are, however, unaware of the benefits of good RDM and unsure about the practical steps they can take to improve their RDM practices. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) addresses this cultural barrier by appointing Data Stewards at every faculty. By providing expert advice and increasing awareness, the Data Stewardship project focuses on incremental improvements in current data and software management and sharing practices. This cultural change is accelerated by the Data Champions who share best practices in data management with their peers. The Data Stewards and Data Champions build a community that allows a discipline-specific approach to RDM. Nevertheless, cultural change also requires appropriate rewards and incentives. While local initiatives are important, and we discuss several examples in this paper, systemic changes to the academic rewards system are needed. This will require collaborative efforts of a broad coalition of stakeholders and we will mention several such initiatives. This article demonstrates that community building is essential in changing the code and data management culture at TU Delft.

Highlights

Recent reports of a reproducibility crisis in science led to increased demands for transparency in research practices and open data.[1]
While research data management (RDM) is beneficial to the scientific process as well as to individual researchers,[5] it can be difficult for researchers to know how to improve their data and code management.[6]
TU Delft is privileged to already have an appropriate technical infrastructure in place, enabling the Data Stewardship project to drive the cultural change required to RDM practices

Summary

Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

Research data management (RDM) is increasingly important in scholarship. Many researchers are, unaware of the benefits of good RDM and unsure about the practical steps they can take to improve their RDM practices. By providing expert advice and increasing awareness, the Data Stewardship project focuses on incremental improvements in current data and software management and sharing practices. This cultural change is accelerated by the Data Champions who share best practices in data management with their peers. While local initiatives are important, and we discuss several examples in this paper, systemic changes to the academic rewards system are needed. This will require collaborative efforts of a broad coalition of stakeholders and we will mention several such initiatives.

Introduction

Data Champions are leading the way

The challenge of rewards and incentives

Findings

Conclusion