The enduring potential of data: An assessment of researcher data stewardship practices at the University of Victoria
Date
2019-01-10
Authors
Quinless, Jacqueline
Khair, Shahira
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Abstract
Emerging requirements for more responsible and transparent research mandated by granting agencies and scholarly publishers are driving the need for better tools and services to support researchers in managing their research data. Against this backdrop, research libraries across Canada are exploring ways to work collaboratively with research communities to address this need and support the development of robust research data management practices. To understand the diversity of this digital landscape, the University of Victoria Libraries conducted a campus-wide, multidisciplinary investigation involving all ranks of faculty members, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students. The mixed methods approach taken by this study includes a campus-wide survey, in-depth interviews with researchers, and focus group sessions with librarians, resulting in a dynamic source of quantitative and qualitative data used to explore differences in research data management practices across disciplines, barriers research communities face in sharing their data, and gaps in current infrastructure and supports on campus. With this information, a series of recommendations are provided to inform how the University of Victoria and its Libraries can cohesively bridge research services, infrastructure, and disciplinary fields across campus to improve the support provided to researchers in managing their research data.
Description
We would like to acknowledge the Canadian Research Data Management Survey Consortium and the Portage Research Intelligence Expert Group (portagenetwork.ca) for the development and on-going management of the online survey adapted for this study.
The survey data associated with this report has been published, as follows:
Quinless, Jacqueline, 2018, "Multidisciplinary Survey of Research Data Management (RDM) Practices of University of Victoria Researchers", https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/1L8NKY, Scholars Portal Dataverse, V3
Keywords
research data management, data management, data management plans, data sharing, data storage, faculty, graduate students, University of Victoria