Research Data Management Services Research Articles

Research Data Management Sustainability: Services, Infrastructure, Accountability, and Planning

abstract: Libraries at academic institutions have been involved in research data management services (RDMS) for more than ten years. Institutions have adapted their service models in response to funder, journal, and federal mandates that have consequently increased RDMS demand. However, institutions that hope to start or grow their services may have difficulty extrapolating from the published literature, as few studies recount RDMS development strategies.

A research data management (RDM) community for ELIXIR

Research data management (RDM) is central to the implementation of the FAIR (Findable Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and Open Science principles. Recognising the importance of RDM, ELIXIR Platforms and Nodes have invested in RDM and launched various projects and initiatives to ensure good data management practices for scientific excellence. These projects have resulted in a rich set of tools and resources highly valuable for FAIR data management. However, these resources remain scattered across projects and ELIXIR structures, making their dissemination and application challenging. Therefore, it becomes imminent to coordinate these efforts for sustainable and harmonised RDM practices with dedicated forums for RDM professionals to exchange knowledge and share resources. The proposed ELIXIR RDM Community will bring together RDM experts to develop ELIXIR’s vision and coordinate its activities, taking advantage of the available assets. It aims to coordinate RDM best practices and illustrate how to use the existing ELIXIR RDM services. The Community will be built around three integral pillars, namely, a network of RDM professionals, RDM knowledge management and RDM training expertise and resources. It will also engage with external stakeholders to leverage benefits and provide a forum to RDM professionals for regular knowledge exchange, capacity building and development of harmonised RDM practices, keeping in line with the overall scope of the RDM Community. In the short term, the Community aims to build upon the existing resources and ensure that the content of these remain up to date and fit for purpose. In the long run, the Community will aim to strengthen the skills and knowledge of its RDM professionals to support the emerging needs of the scientific community. The Community will also devise an effective strategy to engage with other ELIXIR structures and international stakeholders to influence and align with developments and solutions in the RDM field.

Research data management competencies of researchers in selected public universities in South Africa

PurposeIn today's global and competitive corporate environment characterised by rapidly changing information, knowledge and technology (IKT), researchers must be upskilled in all aspects of research data management (RDM). This study investigates a set of capabilities and competencies required by researchers at selected South African public universities, using the community capability model framework (CCMF) in conjunction with the digital curation centre (DCC) lifecycle model.Design/methodology/approachThe post-positivist paradigm was used in the study, which used both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Case studies, both qualitative and quantitative, were used as research methods. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic rules and regulations, semi-structured interviews with 23 study participants were conducted online via Microsoft Teams to collect qualitative data, and questionnaires were converted into Google Forms and emailed to 30 National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated researchers to collect quantitative data.FindingsParticipating institutions are still in the initial stages of providing RDM services. Most researchers are unaware of how long their institutions retain research data, and they store and backup their research data on personal computers, emails and external storage devices. Data management, research methodology, data curation, metadata skills and technical skills are critically important RDM competency requirements for both staff and researchers. Adequate infrastructure, as well as human resources and capital, are in short supply. There are no specific capacity-building programmes or strategies for developing RDM skills at the moment, and a lack of data curation skills is a major challenge in providing RDM.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study can be applied widely in research, teaching and learning. Furthermore, the research could help shape RDM strategy and policy in South Africa and elsewhere.Originality/valueThe scope, subject matter and application of this study contribute to its originality and novelty.

Research data management in selected East African libraries: A survey

This article investigates the knowledge of research data management and services among library professionals in selected East African libraries. A survey research design was employed, and data was collected using a structured questionnaire from 180 respondents representing four East African countries: Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The findings reveal that only 31.1% of the selected East African librarians agreed that their institutional libraries provided research data management services. The standard research data management services offered by their libraries included data publishing, sharing and reuse, while collaboration with academic programmes was identified as an essential approach for research data management skill development. The study highlights the need for librarians to acquire legal, policy and advisory skills and knowledge of institutional and extra-institutional resources and the research life cycle for effective research data management service delivery.

Toward Redefining Library Research Support Services in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand: An Evidence-Based Practice Approach

An increasingly complex and demanding research landscape has seen university libraries rapidly evolve their services. While research data management, bibliometrics, and research impact services have predominantly featured in the literature to date, the full scope of support libraries are currently providing to their institutions is unknown. This paper aims to present an up-to-date view of the scope and extent of research support services by university libraries across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. A coding process analyzed content data from university library websites. Eleven research support areas were identified. Service delivery is split between synchronous and asynchronous modes. This paper describes a lived experience of an evidence-based library and information practice approach to improving research support services at two Australian university libraries, and while it highlights continued maturation of research support services, more research is needed to better understand influences on service development.

The role of research university libraries in research data management: The case of Türkiye

The purpose of this study is to reveal the current situation of research data management (RDM) services within the framework of data management responsibilities, policies, budget and resource competencies in libraries at research universities in Türkiye. The study also aims to present the potential of researchers from research universities to store and share their research data in data archives. Within the scope of the research, interviews were conducted with 15 participants who are responsible or have the potential to be responsible for the processes related to the RDM. In addition, the records of researchers, who are members of research universities, transferred to Zenodo and Aperta were examined within the scope of the study. According to the results, the amount of shared data sets in Zenodo and Aperta was quite small. However, almost all of the data transferred to these data archives is open access. Findings based on participant opinions showed that tools and techniques such as cloud storage, modern techniques, devices, and service providers, as well as resources such as budget, infrastructure and personnel for RDM are not sufficient at research universities in Türkiye. It is thought that this study will draw attention to the benefits of RDM services for universities by revealing what kind of roles the libraries affiliated with research universities play in the process of RDM.

Research data management services among librarians in Nigerian universities

The contemporary advancements in network technologies and scholarly communication which provide opportunities to academic libraries to look for novel means of engaging with researcher communities has necessitated librarians to retort with service innovations in data science and research data management (RDM). The aim of this study is to investigate Research data management services among librarians in Nigerian universities. A questionnaire was used to collect data on RDM services among librarians in Nigerian universities for this study. The participants were the librarians in the public universities in South-west, Nigeria. The study found that the roles of librarians in RDM services in Nigerian universities are to encourage research facilitation and promote scientific communication. The extent of involvement of librarians in RDM in Nigeria is low. The study also found that although librarians in Nigerian universities derive many benefits from RDM services, they encounter challenges such as a lack of data management plan and limited grants from research funding agencies in contributing to RDM. It was therefore recommended that universities in Nigeria should create RDM centers in the libraries to prevent data loss and for easy accessibility of research data by researchers

Research Data Management Competencies for Academic Libraries: Perspectives from Two Universities in South Africa

The rapid pace of technological change has significantly transformed the librarianship profession, impacting the required competencies for professionals working in library and information services (LIS). As new roles emerge within academic libraries, librarians need to assess their current knowledge and skills as well as identify additional knowledge and skills needed to adapt to evolving roles and responsibilities. This paper reports findings of a study conducted at two university libraries in South Africa. The objective of the study was to identify the competencies necessary for academic librarians in providing research data management services (RDM). While previous studies have explored the knowledge and skills required for academic librarians in Southern Africa and globally, there is a research gap concerning the specific competencies necessary for RDM. This study employed semi-structured interviews with librarians from two selected university libraries, using purposive sampling. The research also included document reviews and content analysis of relevant academic library job advertisements. The study’s findings highlight key competencies such as information and data management practices, repository management, data curation, data collection management, understanding funders’ policies, research Research Data Management Competencies for Academic Libraries: Perspectives from Two Universities in South Africa methods and processes, as well as ICT and digitization skills. The findings also highlight the importance of robust training and selfdevelopment through online courses, webinars, and freely available materials as strategies to support RDM.

PLANTdataHUB: a collaborative platform for continuous FAIR data sharing in plant research.

In modern reproducible, hypothesis-driven plant research, scientists are increasingly relying on research data management (RDM) services and infrastructures to streamline the processes of collecting, processing, sharing, and archiving research data. FAIR (i.e., findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) research data play a pivotal role in enabling the integration of interdisciplinary knowledge and facilitating the comparison and synthesis of a wide range of analytical findings. The PLANTdataHUB offers a solution that realizes RDM of scientific (meta)data as evolving collections of files in a directory - yielding FAIR digital objects called ARCs - with tools that enable scientists to plan, communicate, collaborate, publish, and reuse data on the same platform while gaining continuous quality control insights. The centralized platform is scalable from personal use to global communities and provides advanced federation capabilities for institutions that prefer to host their own satellite instances. This approach borrows many concepts from software development and adapts them to fit the challenges of the field of modern plant science undergoing digital transformation. The PLANTdataHUB supports researchers in each stage of a scientific project with adaptable continuous quality control insights, from the early planning phase to data publication. The central live instance of PLANTdataHUB is accessible at (https://git.nfdi4plants.org), and it will continue to evolve as a community-driven and dynamic resource that serves the needs of contemporary plant science.

Discovering research data management trends from job advertisements using a text-mining approach

In today’s data-driven culture, research data management (RDM) is essential for the research community. The demand for reusing research datasets is a challenging and diverse process for the scientific community. Despite this, it is essential in RDM to discover trends and themes using text mining, which is scarce. The purpose of this study is to employ text mining to discover insights from job advertisements associated with RDM profiles, which collected 810 advertisements. We found RDM-related patterns using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and identified three key contexts. The first is ‘research services in libraries’, with the topics of research services, research information, research universities, collection processes and library services. The second context is ‘research data’, which includes RDM, business data, university data, research data, health research, science research, social science research, data centres, data services, statistical software, digital scholarship and digital preservation. The third context is ‘workplace environment’, and the topics are leadership, work development and scientific position. Job title normalisation reveals names such as ‘data librarian’, ‘librarian’, ‘director’, ‘data curator’, ‘data manager’, ‘research data librarian’, ‘data specialist’ and ‘data officer’ are frequently employed. Focusing on titles with a single or double occurrence is new and interesting for developing nations. Reputable institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany, are the major participants in RDM practises and services. This discovery will assist higher education institutions, RDM stakeholders, which aid in the formulation of curriculum, and job seekers to familiarise themselves with the themes.

Research data management services in academic libraries: a comparative study of South Asia and Southeast Asia

Purpose This study aims to understand the research data management (RDM) services offered by academic libraries in South Asian and Southeast Asian countries. This study aims to evaluate the library and information science professionals’ required RDM skills and the challenges faced with providing RDM services. Design/methodology/approach The research methodology for this study used a survey method with purposive sampling. Data were collected through online structured questionnaires, which were used to examine the current state of RDM services offered in academic libraries in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Findings South Asian and Southeast Asian region major types of RDM services provided were data repository, data management training, maintaining Web resources, data study and analysis, and promoting awareness of reusable data sources. Little attention was given to advisory services on data analysis/mining/visualization and supporting reproducibility and workflow transparency. The results indicated that most respondents agreed that metadata standards and data management planning skills were required for RDM services in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Originality/value This study is significant because it offers a comprehensive assessment of ongoing RDM services in academic libraries of South Asia and Southeast Asia. Most current literature focuses on best practices in developed nations. This study highlights the need for more competent and dedicated academic staff for effective RDM services. Library professionals can use this study to identify the gaps in RDM services and suggest formative measures to overcome such challenges.

Leveraging socio-technical processes to support researchers

Purpose The purpose of this project was to develop research support services that address local and external research data management (RDM) support drivers within the existing organizational culture at the University of Florida. The goal was to prompt organization change to support a campus-wide electronic lab notebook. Design/methodology/approach This project used a mixed-methods research approach to cultivate an organizational change program that support technological infrastructure to benefit researchers. The mixed-methods research involved participation action research integrated with a stakeholder approach. Findings The development of the grant proposal which was unfunded led to development of continued project goals. This project confirmed the development for support for an institution-wide electronic research notebook (ERN) solution requires adherence to the summary of five key actions for developing RDM services. Failure to complete all of the key actions engenders fragmentation culture. Research limitations/implications This project includes implications for institutions to develop grant proposals with integrated budgets for research support services of funded projects; and to use the summary of key actions for developing RDM services articulated by Jones et al. (2013) in “How to Develop RDM Services – a guide for HEIs.” Both are need to support findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data for researchers. Practical implications This project has practical implications for higher education institutions interested in leveraging socio-technical processes to advance the role of libraries as collaborator, partner and stakeholder in developing institution-wide adoption, support and training for ERN as a research support service to RDM. Social implications This paper contributes to the body of developing literature on ERN as support services to RDM lead by academic research libraries. Originality/value This project contributed to the change in organization culture resulting in the successful collaboration between the Research Office and College of Medicine to support an institution-wide ERN technological infrastructure for one year as a pilot at a large academic research institution in the southeast USA.

Evolution of research data management in academic libraries: A review of the literature

This study provides insights into the evolution and conceptual framework of research data management (RDM). It also investigates the role of libraries and librarians in offering data management services and the challenges they face in this regard. The study is qualitative in nature and based on an extensive literature review survey. The analysis of the reviewed literature reveals that the idea of RDM has emerged as a new addition to library research support services. The more recent literature clearly established the pivotal role of libraries and librarians in developing and managing RDM services. However, data sharing practices and the development of RDM services in libraries are more prevalent in developed countries. While these trends are still lacking among researchers and libraries in developing countries. Creating awareness among researchers about the benefits of data sharing is a challenging task for libraries. Furthermore, institutional commitment, collaboration, academic engagement, technological infrastructure development, lack of policies, funding, and storage, skills, and competencies required for librarians to offer RDM-based services are some of the other significant challenges highlighted in the literature. Certainly, RDM services are difficult and complicated; therefore, librarians need to master the skills of research data to offer library-based RDM services.

Research data management needs assessment for social sciences graduate students: A mixed methods study.

The complexity and privacy issues inherent in social science research data makes research data management (RDM) an essential skill for future researchers. Data management training has not fully addressed the needs of graduate students in the social sciences. To address this gap, this study used a mixed methods design to investigate the RDM awareness, preparation, confidence, and challenges of social science graduate students. A survey measuring RDM preparedness and training needs was completed by 98 graduate students in a school of education at a research university in the southern United States. Then, interviews exploring data awareness, knowledge of RDM, and challenges related to RDM were conducted with 10 randomly selected graduate students. All participants had low confidence in using RDM, but United States citizens had higher confidence than international graduate students. Most participants were not aware of on-campus RDM services, and were not familiar with data repositories or data sharing. Training needs identified for social science graduate students included support with data documentation and organization when collaborating, using naming procedures to track versions, data analysis using open access software, and data preservation and security. These findings are significant in highlighting the topics to cover in RDM training for social science graduate students. Additionally, RDM confidence and preparation differ between populations so being aware of the backgrounds of students taking the training will be essential for designing student-centered instruction.

Data sharing attitudes and practices of researchers in Korean government research institutes: a survey-based descriptive study

Purpose: This study explored to what extent and how researchers in five Korean government research institutes that implement research data management practices share their research data and investigated the challenges they perceive regarding data sharing.Methods: The study collected survey data from 224 respondents by posting a link to a SurveyMonkey questionnaire on the homepage of each of the five research institutes from June 15 to 29, 2022. Descriptive statistical analyses were conducted.Results: Among 148 respondents with data sharing experience, the majority had shared some or most of their data. Restricted data sharing within a project was more common than sharing data with outside researchers on request or making data publicly available. Sharing data directly with researchers who asked was the most common method of data sharing, while sharing data via institutional repositories was the second most common method. The most frequently cited factors impeding data sharing included the time and effort required to organize data, concerns about copyright or ownership of data, lack of recognition and reward, and concerns about data containing sensitive information.Conclusion: Researchers need ongoing training and support on making decisions about access to data, which are nuanced rather than binary. Research institutes’ commitment to developing and maintaining institutional data repositories is also important to facilitate data sharing. To address barriers to data sharing, it is necessary to implement research data management services that help reduce effort and mitigate concerns about legal issues. Possible incentives for researchers who share data should also continue to be explored.

There's no "I" in Research Data Management: Reshaping RDM Services Toward a Collaborative Multi-Stakeholder Model

Objective: This article examines a reshaped service model for research data management (RDM) founded on centralized and cohesive collaboration between multiple stakeholders at a large research university in Canada. This initiative, along with a newly formed team dedicated to RDM service provision, is a joint effort by the institution’s Vice-Principal Research and Innovation (VPRI), Library, IT Services, and Research Ethics units.Methods: This article presents a single case study methodology. The authors reflect on services such as “query the panel” sessions where researchers across all disciplines bring their questions to representatives from the Library, IT, Research Ethics, and VPRI. This case study also highlights the use of Jira’s service desk software as a user management system. The authors also present descriptive statistics representing engagement with this new unit and our services.Results: Support for RDM requires expertise from multiple domains. With a collaborative approach as a guiding principle and a focus on establishing a small, but agile team comprised of a librarian along with stakeholders from IT and VPRI, it is possible to leverage resources and support for RDM from a broad range of units across an institution. Conclusions: At many institutions, RDM services are siloed within the library or an adjacent campus unit. New digital technologies have profoundly transformed academic research across all disciplines, necessitating the evolution of corresponding research data-related services. The authors will conclude by outlining specific lessons learned in reshaping digital research infrastructure-related services at their institution.

The landscape of research data management services in Malaysian academic libraries: librarians’ practices and roles

PurposeThe debate about academic librarians’ roles in research data management (RDM) services is currently relevant, especially in the context of making research data findable, accessible, interoperable and reproducible. This study aims to explore the RDM services offered by Malaysian academic libraries and the implementation progress based on the librarians’ practices and roles.Design/methodology/approachThis descriptive study involves three sequential forms of data collection: a website analysis of 20 academic libraries relating to RDM services, training and policy; an online survey of the academic libraries’ RDM implementation progress; and semi-structured interviews with three academic librarians to gauge their practices and roles in RDM services.FindingsMalaysian academic libraries provide RDM services based on their related or basic skills which are bibliographic management tools, institutional repository and openness of research data rather than impacted services to support RDM, such as data analysis, data citation, data mining or data visualisation services. Although the librarians were aware of RDM and their roles in research data services, the progress of practicing and implementation of the RDM services still has not been fully delivered to support the main RDM elements.Practical implicationsThis study illustrates the RDM roadmap on the current landscape of areas and types of services that the libraries are doing well. The list of services can be used and implemented as the best practices or strategies to be applied within Malaysian academic libraries.Originality/valueThis study highlights the gaps of RDM services in Malaysian academic libraries. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, as this is the first study in Malaysia that articulates the case of RDM services in academic libraries, it has paved the way for further research.

State of Research Data Management Practices in the Top-ranked Higher Education Institutions in India

Due to the vast amounts of data generated during research activities and mandates obtained from funding agencies, higher education institutions put a high priority on research data management (RDM). RDM is prioritized by global organizations, and India is no exception. The current work aims to address the current state of RDM in the top-ranked higher education institutions (HEIs) of India and attempts to answer the research questions posed on various aspects of RDM, such as RDM services, policy implementation, responsible stakeholders, funding support for RDM strategy and development, and so on. Furthermore, unlike most of the existing literature, the development of RDM capacity is viewed as an institutional concern in this study rather than a library concern. The survey and website analysis approaches were used to conduct this study. The outcomes of the study show that RDM is still in its early stage among India’s leading institutions.

Diseño del servicio de Gestión de Datos de Investigación en la Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas: propuesta desde el Sistema de Bibliotecas

Research data management has involved early and immediate actions in higher education institutions in Colombia and around the world. In August 2022, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Colombia published the National Open Science Policy, in which its goals and strategies express the implementation of research data management services and data repository. This research defines the research data management service at the Francisco José de Caldas District University, a public university with a population of about 28,000 students and more than 200 research groups. Through the TOPE reference methodology (Tecnology, Organization, People, Environment) an urgent need to define policies, training and accompanying strategies for the management of research data was identified, as well as support for research bodies and libraries within the institution; the diagnosis of research data published by researchers of the institution allowed to identify 599 datasets published in the last 12 years in different repositories as Mendeley Data, Zenodo, SiB Colombia - GBIF Colombia for, finally, define, using the Business Process Management Notation methodology, the approach of the institution-wide research data management service. This research poses a scenario of response to national policy and establishes new routes aimed at developing a level of maturity at the institutional level regarding the management of research data in an open science context.

Research Data Management Services in the Indian Institute of Technology Libraries

Research Data Management Services in the Indian Institute of Technology Libraries