Notes from the first New England RDM Roundtable Discussion

Submitted by Donna Kafel, Project Coordinator for the New England e-Science Program, donna.kafel@umassmed.edu

The inaugural New England Research Data Management Roundtable was held last Tuesday, August 18^th at the Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. This roundtable is the first in a planned series of roundtable discussions targeted for New England librarians who are engaged in research data management services or who want to learn more about data librarianship. Sponsored by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, New England Region, the NE RDM Roundtables will provide opportunities for New England librarians to compare notes, ask questions, share lessons learned, explore new working models, acquire fresh ideas for their workplaces and develop new partnerships.

This particular Roundtable event was specifically intended for librarians in the RDM Community of Practice, i.e. librarians who are currently actively engaged in planning and/or delivering RDM services. (Note: future NE Roundtables will also be planned for an RDM Community of Interest). It was also preceded by a tour of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, MA. Twenty four librarians from multiple institutions, including four of the five University of Massachusetts campuses, University of Connecticut, Boston University, Boston College, Harvard, MIT, University of New Hampshire, Brandeis, Northeastern, Mt. Holyoke, and Drexel University discussed the topic “Organizational structures for research data management services at our institutions.” Attendees were divided into five tables with four to five other attendees per table. At each table a member of the NE Roundtable planning team served as moderator for the discussion. The program was divided into two 45 minute sessions. During the first session, the discussion topic was structures within the library for delivering RDM services. The second session focused on partners on campus that support RDM services. The discussions revolved around specific questions. Time was given between the two sessions and at the end of the second session for each roundtable to report out.

Feedback on the Roundtable event has been quite positive. Attendees have noted that they like the opportunity to hear what their colleagues are doing and to discuss RDM issues, challenges, strengths, and their libraries’ service models. The New England e-Science Program plans to coordinate future Roundtables three times a year. Topics for these roundtables will be based on attendee recommendations.

The following is a summary of questions and bulleted attendee responses and comments from the Roundtable Discussion tables. For Topic 1 questions 3-6 and Topic 2 questions 1-5, the bulleted responses are grouped by theme.

Topic 1: Library Structures for Delivering RDM Services

1. What is the current structure for data management services at your library? What staff is involved and what are their relationships to each other and the work?

Library director appointed a non-librarian project manager to be DM liaison between Office of Research and the Library. The library is not providing DM services but is incorporating “digital measures”—digitizing faculty CVs for all time (historical)

Small undergraduate science library just starting out in RDM, no organizational structure yet. Science librarian has been assigned the DM role recently and is learning. He gave presentation about RDM with 2 other librarians to faculty.

Engineering and Data Services librarian started a year ago. He oversees all aspects of data services in library. Other librarians are involved –science librarian as liaison to science faculty and NE e-Science program, metadata librarian for help with metadata and ontologies, and Systems dept for software support (such as DMP Tool).

An eScience team made up of three librarians from the Science Library led by one of these three.

Working group made up of librarians from different disciplines and systems librarian. Most librarians involved are science/engineering, and IT is involved.

Large research university library has had a DM task force for “way too long.” This includes librarian representatives from special collections, science library, social sciences, library systems, scholarly communications that is coordinated by the director of the science library. Having a DH librarian on team has helped the team not to focus exclusively on STEM fields.

Private academic health sciences library has DM working group with reps from the library/archives/research labs, postdocs, IT. The group meets 6x/year. The working group would like to hire a data expert to focus on archiving large longitudinal study

Has Library Data Services Advisory Group, which started 1 ½ years ago. The group is made up of scholarly communications librarian, IR librarian, Associate Library Director, two outreach librarians, Head of Office of Sponsored Research, and representative from Research Computing.

2. How did this service begin and how has it changed over time?

Service did not begin at small public university until data services librarian started. It has changed with tweaks to the library’s Data Workshop series for faculty, PhD students and some staff, has RDM libguide based on NSF requirements, slightly customized DMP Tool

Started in 2012 with E-Science Institute, an RDM services working group began last year (includes ~ 12 people—IR librarian, desktop services, 3 dept liaisons (science, soc science, and gov docs), and academic technology, analysis expert

Started somewhat informally several years ago by three science & engineering librarians who co-created an RDM libguide. Always been more of a collegial staff than a hierarchical one. Some team members are specifically part of the Data and Specialized Services Dept.

Got started by teaching workshops a while ago, were more successful with grad students than faculty.

Started since the ARL “Future of Science Librarianship” conference, the library formed a team of subject specialists, scholarly comm. librarian sits in.

3. What strengths does your library have related to data management and how did you fill them?

Staffing

Has a dedicated RDM fellow
Has a dedicated RDM librarian
University is small enough so that small library team can manage all requests, enough background among library staff to serve most of population. Research population tilts more toward the natural/physical sciences so there are fewer disciplines to keep abreast of.
Library has expertise in metadata services, building collections, describing information, enabling access. Staff is dedicated to helping faculty/students/staff. The library has a vision to create RDM jobs among the library staff.
Some capacity for more in-depth consultations
Focused team approach, specialized knowledge plus shared responsibility

Infrastructure

Library invested in infrastructure to support researchers—e.g. repository, research computing
Has a Data & Specialized Services department
Lots of varied expertise in large research university
Strong IR
A merged department with IT is very useful as IT people have good ideas about implementing DMPs
New library administrator has strong RDM background and is committed to growing library RDM services

Perception of Library

Library has established a good reputation through IR
Library has existing working relationships with campus constituencies
Good working relationship with Office of Research

Outreach

Developed short “quick bites” RDM introductions instead of long workshops
Broader committee brings in stakeholders across campus (IT, sponsored programs)
Getting the word out to the community, having services that resonate with users, built relationships with researchers
New library administrator has strong RDM background and is committed to growing library RDM services

4. What weaknesses does your library have related to data management and how do you address them?

Uncertainty

Not sure if there are needed RDM services that the library is not aware of
Struggling with a campus wide lack of cohesive outlook on RDM that makes for confusion
Defining data management—it means different things to different people
Haven’t been able to get researchers and students to enroll in library’s RDM courses
No courage to stop doing what we’ve been doing for 20 yrs—e.g. reference shifts, low level
Not clear how to avail expertise from the librarians who are outside of the data services team
Instruction

Staffing

Short staffing limits what library can do
Many liaisons are more focused on collections, don’t see relevance of RDM services or are fearful of change
No central focused person to head library’s RDM team
Members of RDM working group can’t dedicate time to work with liaisons

Infrastructure

Lack of RDM policies (common among many institutions)
Lack an institutional repository or a holding center for data in progress
Lack of funding

Outreach

Trying to initiate new library services as a lower level staff person—need support of library administrators and their involvement in securing campus buy-in
Difficult to bring researchers together on a Balkanized campus
Isolation from researcher community that library serves

5. What are your main program elements for data management services in the library and how do you conduct them?

RDM Working Groups (see descriptions of working groups in question 1)

Instruction

Developed LibGuide (noted by multiple individuals)
Data Management Workshop series-an overview of RDM theory and applications—hour long sessions that are held 1-2x/week; LibGuide, DPM tool, Consultation Services by appt.
DMP Consultations
RDM team is made up of several librarians who consult on DMPs
Library offers consultations, workshops, conducts training during Responsible Conduct of Research sessions

Archiving

Archiving older data sets, got a CLIR grant for collection of data, archiving a large longitudinal study of child health and clinical data, trying to hire a data person to focus on this.

Outreach

Work with Office of Sponsored Research to find out new grants and reach out to PIs

6. What would you like to be doing (as a library and as an individual) related to data management that you are not doing now?

Institutional Involvement

Have a seat at the table—a place in the formal campus structure where decisions on infrastructure and services are made
Collaborate with Digital Humanities
Have contact with research team throughout grant and project cycle

Infrastructure

Create a data IR (one library noted goal to use Dataverse for its data IR)
Create an infrastructure similar to Purdue where library is the portal and telling the story and IT provides the infrastructure and the Library works closely with Office of Research on compliance
Track where data is going

Staffing

Would like to get more liaison librarians involved with data management
Have a dedicated librarian who is a focal point for RDM

Education

Have RDM training incorporated into 1^st year grad student requirements
Conduct RDM training in conjunction with Responsible Conduct of Research training
Get an RDM course into the curriculum

Topic 2: Collaborations on Campus

1. Who are your current partners on campus?

Uncertainty and problems

In early stages, trying to learn as much as possible
Not sure where this is going
We’re trying to figure out what to do next
Very do-it-yourself and there are pockets everywhere
How do services connect when there is no commitment to collaborate?
Until there is a policy behind it, they will not fund/go further
Recognize a need for campus-wide “thing” but getting it moving – what do researchers what?
Always library initiated
When personnel change, connections change; developing relationships takes time
Keep liaisons in the loop when working with faculty
Sometimes faculty don’t come to the library or know of services, many are doing it on their own
We’re making headway
With IT and sponsored research, it can be one-sided and difficult at times
Some campus admins are on board, some are not

Planning and ideas

Library is the one thinking about this, talking with potential partners
Services being offered: consultations, education, websites
Library has back-channel communication with IT staff
Repository available for some but not all institutions
Going to create a team
Putting together meeting of stakeholders on campus
Partnerships are in their infancy. We want to reach the full community
Survey on data needs
We are doing the DMP Tool
Considering a campus data summit
Connections from open access policy are useful for data management policy/ practice discussion
Ongoing discussion about campus infrastructure
Finding ways to get to the faculty
Relationships can lead to partnerships
Partnerships stem out of just talking to other people
Helps to have culture of open doors, availability to at least discuss
Academic computing relationship is informal to semi-formal
Referrals from Office of Research, this is a collaboration “waiting to happen”

Actual Partnerships:

Research computing
Office of research site–links to library data services
Policies for data ownership and management
IT
Working on DMP Tool single sign-on
repository
co-host meetings for faculty
host ELN jointly
workshop participation, such as on data security & active storage topics
Post-Doc office
Office of sponsored programs
info for libguides
funding policies
info about grants currently funded on campus
access to dmps already written
instruction for DMP Tool
Labs & offices
small scale instruction
data to ingest into repository
IRB
workshop on how to write proposal, including DMP training
training in specific areas
Grad student office
instruction and orientation, for example on cloud storage
eScience institute
building training modules
Scholarly communications office
open access
public access policies
IR
Office of general council

2. On what programs do you collaborate with campus partners?

DMP’s:

Customizing the DMP Tool
DMP consultations

Presentations:

Co-presentations with sponsored programs
Co-presentations with scholarly publications
Outreach – visit seminars and institutes
Tech fair – library repository

Services:

Three services: webpage, consultations, education.
Three data services: consultations for DMP’s or general data management topics; education and training; and data archiving either in data repositories or in our institutional data repository

Websites:

Have a data management libguide
Data Services webpage
Webpage for services – spells out what we mean by RDM; points people to the different contacts on campus for data lifecycles; everything in one place

3. Who would you like to collaborate with?