Creating the New Normal: Fostering a Culture of Data Sharing With Researchers

Session Type: Workshop

Session Description
With the advent of data management plan requirements from funding agencies and increased pressures from publishers and research communities to make research data available, questions arise about how data are to be documented, described and disseminated through repositories. Answering these questions will not only require the development of a technical infrastructure but a cultural shift in how data are collected, managed, published, and stewarded. Getting to this point will require that the roles, practices, and values of data producers, librarians and repository managers across the data lifecycle are communicated and understood by all.

This workshop will focus on bridging the cultural divide between actors in data production (faculty, students) and data curation (subject liaisons, data librarians, repository mangers) through an examination of the differences in how each side generally views and is engaged in the data lifecycle. By grounding development of services in the needs and desires of the relevant stakeholders, repositories and tools can be built that scientists will actually use. Furthermore, instruction to instill a data sharing ethos consistent with community expectations will build capacity to utilize the data sharing systems being developed.

The workshop consists of two parts. In part one, presenters will introduce and discuss the perspectives of faculty and graduate students towards data management, sharing and curation that were identified as a part of the Data Information Literacy project (http://datainfolit.org). Part two of the session will be conducted through hands-on exercises, in which participants will have the opportunity to formulate what they see as the most important skills for data producers to acquire in “the new normal.” Participants will then develop responses to existing paradigms and practices with research data by identifying the needs of data producers and connecting these needs to library initiatives and repository services.

Session Leaders
Jake Carlson, Purdue University
Marianne Bracke, Purdue University
Michael Fosmire, Purdue University
Megan Sapp Nelson, Purdue University
Brian Westra, University of Oregon
Sarah Wright, Cornell University

View the community reporting Google doc of this session.