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Research Data Management in Academic Libraries

In this session we will use a case study method that been used extensively in the academic data curation space. For example, an early ARL (Association of Research Libraries in the USA) report used the case study approach to compare six academic libraries that were expanding their capacity to service eScience research initiatives, including data-intensive efforts in astronomy, molecular biology, and seismic engineering (Soehner, Steeves & Ward 2010).

Later case study research has focused on the development of research data management services (RDM) at universities as they respond to federal mandates in data management planning (Raboin, Reznik-Zellenk, and Salo, 2012). The most recent set of data curation case studies were offered by a group at the University of Michigan that concentrated specifically on the "prominent role of the library in providing services to educate and assist researchers with managing data before, during, and after their research projects" (Akers et al. 2014).

We will review case study as a group:

We will also look at the following case study, as an example of policy developed for data curation:

In a breakout session we will review five different additional cases:

(note: we will also cover the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in greater detail on Day 3):

For each institution try to answer the following questions:

  • Where are the research data services located (i.e. IT department, University Library, collaboration between different units, etc.)?
  • When did research data services begin at this institution? What was the motivation?
  • What types of services are offered, by whom and for whom?
  • What is the cost recovery / charge for these services? Are they offered free?
  • What institutional repository (IR) options are available for archiving data? What software do these systems use? Can you find any supporting documents for those systems? Do these IRs have any accreditation or auditing documentation available publicly?

Works cited

  • Akers, K. G., Sferdean, F. C., Nicholls, N. H., & Green, J. A. (2014). Building support for research data management: Biographies of eight research universities. International Journal of Digital Curation, 9(2), 171-191. PDF

  • Raboin, R., Reznik-Zellenk, R.C., & Salo, D. (2012). Forging new service paths: Institutional approaches to providing research data management services. Journal of eScience Librarianship, 1, 134–147. doi:10.7191/jeslib.2012.1021

  • Soehner, C., Steeves, C., & Ward, J. (2010). E-science and data support services: A study of ARL member institutions. Retrieved from Association of Research Libraries website: http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/escience-report-2010.pdf

Bibliography

Data Curation In Academic Libraries

  • McLure, M., Level, A. V., Cranston, C. L., Oehlerts, B., & Culbertson, M. (2014). Data Curation: A Study of Researcher Practices and Needs. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 14(2), 139-164. PDF

  • Choudhury, G. S. (2008). Case study in data curation at Johns Hopkins University. Library Trends, 57(2), 211-220. PDF

  • Choudhury, S., DiLauro, T., Szalay, A., Vishniac, E., Hanisch, R., Steffen, J., ... & Plante, R. (2008). Digital data preservation for scholarly publications in astronomy. Internati- onal Journal of Digital Curation, 2(2), 20-30. PDF

  • Robin Dasler, Trevor Muñoz, and Karl Nilsen. (2013). Beyond the Repository: Rethinking Data Services at the University of Maryland. Contributed paper for Special Libraries Association 2013 Conference, June 9-11, 2013, San Diego, CA. »

  • Walters, T. O. (2009). Data curation program development in US universities: The Georgia Institute of Technology example. International Journal of Digital Curation, 4(3), 83-92. PDF