Issue 32 / Contents / Page 11 of 18 : Research data management

What’s your research data management diagnosis?

Answer these nine questions to find out whether your university is in A1 shape, or needs some corrective surgery.

As part of new research grant applications process, Research Councils and funding bodies are increasingly requiring evidence for UK universities to provide adequate and appropriate provision from their data management and curation.

What do you think are the risks associated with poor data management?

Our institution is fully aware of the potential risks associated with poor research data management. We view research data management as part of good research practice which underpins our institutional reputation. We have taken concrete steps to provide our researchers and support staff with a working environment that fosters good research data management practice.

We know that research data management is important for maintaining our institutional reputation and are keen to minimise any risks associated with poor data management. We are currently working to identify our main risks and to develop mitigation strategies.

We’d like to understand more about the risks associated with poor data management so that we can assess our infrastructure and identify areas that could be improved.

What do you know about funding body and research council mandates relating to data management?

Our support staff and researchers are fully aware of funding bodies and researcher councils’ data management requirements and understand how these relate to our institutional research activity.

We are aware that funding bodies and research councils have issued some new data management requirements but we aren’t really sure how these relate to our research activity or how we can best comply with these mandates.

We aren’t very familiar with the new funding bodies and research councils’ data management requirements. We’d like to understand these requirements better.

What are your organisation’s polices relating to data management?

We have developed and implemented specific policies relating to data management at our institution.

We have some policies that loosely cover aspects of data management but nothing specific. We are planning to develop specific policies relating to our data in the near future.

We don’t have any data management policies in place at the moment. We’d like to learn more about developing and implementing effective policies for data management.

What’s your position on training support and guidance for researchers?

We have developed training, support and guidance materials to help our staff adhere to our data management policies and those of external funding bodies and research councils.

We have some training, support and guidance on issues relating to data management but currently don’t offer anything specifically focused on data management issues.

We don’t have any training, support or guidance at the moment that cover data management issues.

What do you think are the risks associated with poor data management?

We offer secure storage and run regular back-ups. Our research staff are fully aware of this service and know where to store their working data to benefit from back-ups.

We offer secure storage and regular back-ups but we’re not sure that our researchers are fully aware of this service and how it can be of value to their research activity.

We run back-ups and provide access to some secure storage but these services could be improved at our institution. We’re not sure how aware our researchers are about these services and their potential benefits.

What is your organisation’s current position on institutional repositories?

Our institution has a repository/repositories where researchers can store, access and share their publications and data.

Our institution has a repository to allow researchers to deposit and access publications. We are currently considering how we might best capture and store related data sets.

Individual research groups and departments may run their own publications repositories but we don’t have any institutional service that covers publications or data at the moment.

Do you have plans for managing your IT infrastructure?

We are confident that our current IT infrastructure will be able to cope as the volume of our institutional research data and storage demands grow.

We have enough storage space for the next year or so but may need to increase our capacity if there is a significant growth in research data generation.

We are currently finding it difficult to provide researchers with enough storage to meet their needs. Additional demands on storage space would be hard to accommodate with our current infrastructure.

Do you know how much funding you need to support research data management?

We have a pretty good idea of the costs associated with sustaining our research data management infrastructure and have allocated a portion of our operational budget to cover these costs over the longer-term.

We tend to rely on securing short-term research grants to develop and pilot components of our research data management infrastructure. So far, we’ve been pretty successful but we’re not sure how we can sustain our infrastructure for the longer term.

We don’t have access to any funds – institutional or external – to support our research data management infrastructure development.

How are your staff taught about data management skills?

There are staff at my institution that can provide dedicated guidance on specific aspects of research data management (e.g., data protection, ethics, data licensing). These individuals are well-known to researchers.

We have members of staff who are very knowledgeable in aspects of research data management but they are not always well known to researchers.

We don’t have many members of staff who are able to deal with specific aspects of research data management. Those we do have are often unknown to researchers.

You scored

a) b) c)

Your score has been created into a ‘sound research data infrastructure (RDI)’ means having more than storage and networks. It relies also upon skills, organisational support and rating which rely upon the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders at various points in the data curation lifecycle. A good balance of organisational backing, technical infrastructure and appropriate staff skills all of these elements are essential for ensuring that data management is adequately supported at your institution.

A sound research data infrastructure (RDI) relies upon the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders at various points in the data curation lifecycle. A good balance of the following key elements is essential for ensuring that data management is adequately supported at your institution:

1. organisational backing
2. technical infrastructure
3. appropriate staff skills

How can you tell if you and your organisation are effectively planning your data management? Do you understand what data your institution holds? How it is being generated and managed? Have you thought about how or if it will be shared? Or how long you need to keep it?

Joy Davidson, director at the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), shares with JISC Inform how its Cardio toolkit can help universities establish whether its organisation has its finger on the pulse of data management activity or whether it needs a booster shot to get its research data infrastructure into good health.

Select answer a, b or c to each of the questions and your score will be automatically calculated.

Mostly C’s – booster needed

Your RDI could use a booster shot! You should start by getting a better grasp on what data management involves and how poor data management can affect your institutional reputation. The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and UK Data Archive offer some useful introductory guides and overviews that can help explain the bigger picture. The DCC also offers a handy at-a-glance guide that helps to explain current research council and funding bodies’ data management requirements.

It will be difficult to improve your institutional infrastructure without an overall understanding of the data you currently hold and how researchers at your institution are managing their data. The Data Asset Framework (DAF) implementation guide and toolkit offers some useful examples of questionnaires that you can circulate to your researchers to help get an idea of the scale and nature of their research data holdings and data management activity. We’d recommend starting small – ideally at the project/research group or department level to help you build up a picture of current activity.

The JISC managing research data projects offer practical examples of RDI activity being undertaken by other UK HEIs in the same boat. In particular, the newly funded JISC MRD 07/11 strand A1 projects could offer extremely valuable blueprints for kick-starting research data management at your institution.

Mostly B’s – good state of health

Like most UK HEIs you’re aware of the increasing need to improve RDI and are making a good start on consolidating your RDI strategy. Now you need to keep the momentum going.

We recommend taking stock of your current infrastructural strengths and weaknesses using the DCC’s Collaborative Assessment of Research Data Infrastructure Objectives (CARDIO) toolkit. A key goal for CARDIO assessments is to give each stakeholder a voice in identifying what is working well and what isn’t working so well with regards to research data management infrastructure. The assessments focus on improving the overall understanding of researchers’ data management requirements and improve awareness of services and support that are available within the institution. You may want to consider consolidating disparate sources of institutional data management support and guidance via an institutional portal. The JISC MRD funded Incremental project provides a useful model for this approach.

You may also wish to develop and implement research data management training and support within your institution. There are a number of training resources that were produced by the DCC and the JISC RDMTrain projects that are freely available for reuse. We’d recommend looking at these before starting to develop your own from scratch – you can probably tailor these existing materials for use within your own institution with minimal effort.
It can be tough to secure ongoing senior management commitment for research data management as HEI funding continues to shrink. The recent DCC briefing paper on Making the Case for Research Data Management helps managers in research institutions gain support for their efforts in developing new services and support systems. It also provides a snapshot of some of the JISC Managing Research Data programme projects which could serve as useful exemplars and a source of peer support. The paper also introduces some new JISC activity which will explore shared services and the cloud. Shared services are an increasingly appealing option for many UK HEIs as they may lead to demonstrable cost savings.

If you’re trying to pin down your research data management costs, you might consider reviewing the Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) work carried out by Neil Beagrie on costs/benefits. The DCC has adapted the KRDS activity model spreadsheet to enable HEIs to maintain journals which can help to identify time spent on specific data management activities and their costs.

Mostly A’s – finger on the pulse

Your institution has its finger on the pulse. You know what you need to achieve and have made great progress in securing senior management support and in embedding RDI support throughout your institution.

You’re ahead of the curve but now is not the time to rest on your laurels. It is important to remember that research data management infrastructure is only as good as your weakest link. For instance, you may currently have a member of staff who is skilled in developing and delivering data management training but what would happen if that individual moved to another institution? Would you still be able to design and run training courses? You should aim to review your RDI risks and mitigation strategies regularly – at least once a year – and plan for sustainability and ongoing improvement. The DCC’s Collaborative Assessment of Research Data Infrastructure Objectives (CARDIO) tool provides a simple way to monitor your success and to identify targets.

Now that you’ve implemented general research data management policies, procedures and support you may be looking to develop departmental or disciplinary specific guidance for your researchers. The DCC’s data management planning checklist and DMP Online tool can help you to define more specific issues and include pointers to local support and policies.

You may wish to consider cooperating with other HEIs in your region to share best practice. You may find that there are opportunities to pool regional resources to minimise costs and maximise RDI. The 3TU federation in the Netherlands offers an interesting model for institutions who wish to collaborate on delivering aspects of research data management infrastructure. You may also wish to act as a mentor for other HEIs in your area who have less advanced RDIs.

Whether your institution is in need of an RDI booster or has its finger on the pulse, the DCC can help you to assess, improve and plan to sustain your data management activity. For more information on how we can help your institution please contact the DCC at info@dcc.ac.uk.

Equally split between A's, B's and C's

A balance between technological infrastructure, staff skills and organisational support is important for supporting data management practice at your institution. You seem to be very strong in some areas but not in others. It could be that this imbalance is due to misconceptions about what is actually in place at your institution. You may be stronger in some of the areas you aren’t confident about than you think. We recommend you re-assess your strengths and weaknesses using the DCC’s Collaborative Assessment of Research Data Infrastructure Objectives (CARDIO) toolkit. A key goal for CARDIO assessments is to engage multiple stakeholders in identifying what is working well and what isn’t working so well with regards to research data management infrastructure. The process highlights and helps to dispel any misconceptions about research data management infrastructure and also provides recommendations for improving weaker areas.

Kevin Ashley on the importance of data management

Kevin Ashley, director of the Digital Curation Centre, on the importance of research data management and its impact on a university’s reputation.

Data management podcast

Listen to an MP3 recording over Skype (08:28) with Nalin Thakker, Associate Vice-President for Research Integrity at the University of Manchester about his views on data management.

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