RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT:
IMPLEMENTATION KICKS OFF WITH A NATIONAL CONFERENCE HOSTED AT UWATERLOO
With the completion of UWaterloo’s institutional research data management (RDM) strategy in March of last year it was time to start implementing. While research data management (RDM) isn’t new, particularly in the Library, the creation of a holistic strategy required a thoughtful approach to build on previous work.
Priority one at this early stage, according to Alison Hitchens, associate university librarian and co-chair of the RDM working group alongside Ian Milligan, an associate-vice president in the Office of Research, was to get key people in place to provide dedicated help for implementation. Anneliese Eber and Vicky Chung joined the Library this year as research data management librarian and research data management MLIS co-op student, respectively.
Eber and Chung have been instrumental in reaching out across campus to provide information about the RDM strategy and the tri-agency policy to the researchers most impacted. Chung has also been supporting the work of Sara Anderson, senior manager, Indigenous research, who is developing an Indigenous Data Sovereignty Implementation Plan and Eber has been surveying options for data preservation at local, national and international levels.
Even as strides have been made, implementation of the strategy won’t happen overnight. However, UWaterloo isn’t the only institution tackling this issue; collaboration and knowledge sharing have been the norm for academic libraries across Canada for almost a decade when it comes to developing data management strategies. Given this track record, the idea for a national conference felt like a natural next step to turning strategy into action. Hitchens and Milligan, alongside university librarian Beth Namachchivaya and colleagues at the University of Calgary and the University of Ottawa, decided to make this happen.
After securing funding from SSHRC’s Connection Grants program, the organizers here at the University of Waterloo envisioned a small gathering of perhaps eight to ten organizations. After overwhelming interest, and additional and generous support from the Office of Research and the Library, the team was able to host a large, 42-institution-strong event of almost 100 attendees. Held at the end of September 2023, “Building an Inter-Institutional and Cross-Functional Research Data Management Community: From Strategy to Implementation” was a two-day event that brought together library staff, IT professionals and research administrators.
Alison Hitchens, associate university librarian and co-chair of the RDM working group
“It’s important, as we look to implement our RDM strategies, that library staff, IT folks and researchers all come together to find a way forward. We have similar challenges but different perspectives. That was the main motivation for putting a focus on conversation at the conference,” says Hitchens.
After the two days, some key themes emerged: collaboration continues to be critical to the process, both on and between campuses, Indigenous data sovereignty is important and should be approached thoughtfully, and libraries have a key role to play in RDM responsibilities. These themes and the notes from these discussions will inform an upcoming white paper that will make recommendations about next steps for the research data management community. In the meantime, a cross-Canada online community forum plays host to lively conversations about research data management.