Assessing Research Compliance for Federally Funded Projects: The Good, the Bad, and the Publicly Accessible

In 2016, Utah State University launched a program to ensure their campus’ federal grant recipients were in compliance with funder mandates to share any data or publications produced as a result of the award. This paper discusses how a cross-institutional team of librarians and administrators evaluated the success of this program using online asynchronous focus groups (OAFG) in conjunction with a traditional survey. The challenges and successes of using OAFGs to assess library services are also examined. An OAFG gave participants greater convenience, flexibility, participation, and time to craft answers, eliminating some of the hurdles to traditional focus group participation

An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding Researchers’ Data Management Practices at UVM: Integrated Findings to Develop Research Data Services

This article reports on the integrated findings of an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design aimed to understand data management behaviors and challenges of faculty at the University of Vermont (UVM) in order to develop relevant research data services. The exploratory sequential mixed methods design is characterized by an initial qualitative phase of data collection and analysis, followed by a phase of quantitative data collection and analysis, with a final phase of integration or linking of data from the two separate strands of data. A joint display was used to integrate data focused on the three primary research questions: How do faculty at UVM manage their research data, in particular how do they share and preserve data in the long-term?; What challenges or barriers do UVM faculty face in effectively managing their research data?; and What institutional data management support or services are UVM faculty interested in? As a result of the analysis, this study suggests four major areas of research data services for UVM to address: infrastructure, metadata, data analysis and statistical support, and informational research data services. The implementation of these potential areas of research data services is underscored by the need for cross-campus collaboration and support

Research Data Management Policy & Organizational Compliance: An Exploratory Study in the Academic Context

Research data management (RDM) describes a broad array of processes and activities aimed at ensuring that data are documented, organized, findable, and preserved for future access. In January 2023, the National Institutes of Health will begin enforcing the strictest data management requirements of a U.S. federal agency to date, including potential consequences for organizations whose researchers fail to demonstrate compliance with commitments to data management and sharing. This dissertation makes two major assessment-based contributions in support of organizational preparedness for policy compliance. First, it reports the results of a pilot study at a high research institution for a survey instrument, which has been designed to extend current known RDM assessment practices. More specifically, the survey addresses new factors such as the sensitivity of the data, items that expose knowledge gaps about specific actionable tasks that comprise RDM, and items that reveal organizational communication challenges in terms of researcher uncertainty about institutional support. Additionally, a second pilot study is conducted that demonstrates the assessment for data availability messages tool (ADAM). ADAM has been developed as an analytical workflow and measurement system for extracting messages from publications about what researchers communicate in regards to data sharing. Finally, an open-source library of all data visualization and processing scripts needed to interpret the results has been provided. For a test institution, results from the two pilot studies identify current trends and knowledge gaps in RDM, which should be addressed to ensure the organization\u27s ability to comply with relevant data policies

NN/LM NER e-Science Program, Researcher Support Committee White Paper on Supporting Researcher Needs

As more libraries become involved with Research Data Management (RDM) services, and the new strategic plan of the National Library of Medicine has a data focus, it is important to consider the researchers who create or collect data. There are many surveys and reviews in the literature about how researchers are managing their research data, as well as many case studies and surveys on how libraries are working to provide data management services. But anecdotal evidence and some surveys show that researchers aren’t always going to the library for data support. What can be done to change these perceptions and insure that libraries and librarians are valued partners in research data management? The Committee reviewed the literature and online information to learn more about what researchers actually want help with for data management, as well as what they probably need help with, although they don’t realize it. Whether surveys were conducted by librarians or other researchers, the top things researchers want are storage, including help with the various formats of data that need to be combined, help with analytics and other computational needs, and help with sharing. Many surveys show a need for metadata help, although researchers aren’t asking for it. This suggests that libraries developing data services need to provide, or facilitate access to, data storage and data analysis. They also need to learn about funder sharing policies and required and/or reliable outlets for sharing all types of data. Another survey result is the lack of awareness many researchers have about library data services. Some researchers do not think libraries are capable of storing data or helping with research, but others just aren’t aware that the service exists. Librarians setting up data services will need to make sure that outreach and marketing are part of the planning process from the beginning

Balancing Access to Data And Privacy. A review of the issues and approaches for the future

Access to sensitive micro data should be provided using remote access data enclaves. These enclaves should be built to facilitate the productive, high-quality usage of microdata. In other words, they should support a collaborative environment that facilitates the development and exchange of knowledge about data among data producers and consumers. The experience of the physical and life sciences has shown that it is possible to develop a research community and a knowledge infrastructure around both research questions and the different types of data necessary to answer policy questions. In sum, establishing a virtual organization approach would provided the research community with the ability to move away from individual, or artisan, science, towards the more generally accepted community based approach. Enclave should include a number of features: metadata documentation capacity so that knowledge about data can be shared; capacity to add data so that the data infrastructure can be augmented; communication capacity, such as wikis, blogs and discussion groups so that knowledge about the data can be deepened and incentives for information sharing so that a community of practice can be built. The opportunity to transform micro-data based research through such a organizational infrastructure could potentially be as far-reaching as the changes that have taken place in the biological and astronomical sciences. It is, however, an open research question how such an organization should be established: whether the approach should be centralized or decentralized. Similarly, it is an open research question as to the appropriate metrics of success, and the best incentives to put in place to achieve success.Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, Organizing Microeconomic Data

Planning for the Lifecycle Management and Long-Term Preservation of Research Data: A Federated Approach

Outcomes of the grant are archived here.The “data deluge” is a recent but increasingly well-understood phenomenon of scientific and social inquiry. Large-scale research instruments extend our observational power by many orders of magnitude but at the same time generate massive amounts of data. Researchers work feverishly to document and preserve changing or disappearing habitats, cultures, languages, and artifacts resulting in volumes of media in various formats. New software tools mine a growing universe of historical and modern texts and connect the dots in our semantic environment. Libraries, archives, and museums undertake digitization programs creating broad access to unique cultural heritage resources for research. Global-scale research collaborations with hundreds or thousands of participants, drive the creation of massive amounts of data, most of which cannot be recreated if lost. The University of Kansas (KU) Libraries in collaboration with two partners, the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA) and the Great Plains Network (GPN), received an IMLS National Leadership Grant designed to leverage collective strengths and create a proposal for a scalable and federated approach to the lifecycle management of research data based on the needs of GPN and GWLA member institutions.Institute for Museum and Library Services LG-51-12-0695-1