Research Data Management (RDM) Capabilities at the University of Ghana, Legon

The purpose of this study was to assess Research Data Management (RDM) capabilities at the University of Ghana (UG). The study focused on four key capability elements: policy framework, technological infrastructure, skills and knowledge, and support services. It explored the extent to which RDM is embedded in research practices at UG and provides insight into the preparedness of UG to develop RDM. A qualitative case study method was adopted for the study and data was gathered using semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The instrument for the assessment was informed by the Collaborative Assessment for Research Data Infrastructure and Objectives (CARDIO) Matrix tool and respondents were drawn from the Library, IT department, Research Office and senior researchers. The results of the study show that RDM at UG is currently underdeveloped but with immense potential for growth. Though there is no formal RDM infrastructure in place, RDM is considered an essential research integrity issue. Capabilities were generally found to be limited, uncoordinated and not officially instituted. The study recommends that a clear and comprehensive policy framework for RDM should be developed to articulate RDM aspirations and express management’s commitment. It also recommends that research support staff should be supported to build their capacity for RDM promotion and support

Research data management (RDM) capabilities at the University of Ghana, Legon

The purpose of this study was to assess Research Data Management (RDM) capabilities at the University of Ghana (UG). The study focused on four key capability elements: policy framework, technological infrastructure, skills and knowledge, and support services. It explored the extent to which RDM is embedded in research practices at UG and provides insight into the preparedness of UG to develop RDM. A qualitative case study method was adopted for the study and data was gathered using semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The instrument for the assessment was informed by the Collaborative Assessment for Research Data Infrastructure and Objectives (CARDIO) Matrix tool and respondents were drawn from the Library, IT department, Research Office and senior researchers. The results of the study show that RDM at UG is currently underdeveloped but with immense potential for growth. Though there is no formal RDM infrastructure in place, RDM is considered an essential research integrity issue. Capabilities were generally found to be limited, uncoordinated and not officially instituted. The study recommends that a clear and comprehensive policy framework for RDM should be developed to articulate RDM aspirations and express management’s commitment. It also recommends that research support staff should be supported to build their capacity for RDM promotion and support.https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2258?am2019Information Scienc

Data Management Administration Online (DMAOnline)

In the uncertain Higher Education environment today, where value for money and financial rigour is more important than ever before, it is vital that institutions create and sustain services that exhibit evidence of impact and provide value for money. In the last two years, external pressures from UK funding councils on complying with their Research Data Management (RDM) policies has caused institutions to develop services and support models urgently. These services are usually created for a fixed period, often with a short term investment in staff and/or infrastructure, and primarily because of the lack of clarity in the resultant value for money at an early stage. Monitoring compliance with funding council requirements is complex. Many institutions use Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) to handle their publication and research data catalogues. However, these systems provide only a basic level of functionality for RDM (e.g. submission of datasets information and linking it with project and publications information). Compliance reporting is not provided out of the box and essential information is usually kept in additional systems or spreadsheets by institutions (e.g. whether a data access statement exists or not). This makes the whole process of RDM compliance monitoring cumbersome and time consuming. We introduce Data Management Administration Online (DMAOnline)1, a Jisc Research Data Spring2 project, which facilitates a novel metric based analysis of an institution's compliance with RDM mandates. DMAOnline brings together key RDM information from a variety of sources and provides a normalised structure for the underlying data. This enables ingest of data from a variety of sources e.g. CRIS, Institutional Repositories or Excel sheets. Currently, DMAOnline has the capability to harvest its information from Elsevier's Pure CRIS and Excel files. It also allows users to add in additional information not available from these sources. A powerful dashboard is created for the user that provides information on compliance with RDM policies, data storage usage, data management plans, DOIs minted, datasets preserved, and basic costing. Other systems that DMAOnline already does or intends to harvest information from include DMPOnline3, Archivematica4, DataCite5, and IRUS-data UK6

DMAOnline Project Plan (version 0.1)

<p>This is the project plan for Data Management Administration Online (DMAOnline). This is part of Jisc's research data spring under the larger Research at Risk umbrella.</p

DMAOnline - Phase I report

<p>This report highlights the progress that we have made in the first phase of the Jisc funded Data Management Administration Online (DMAOnline) project. Phase I of the project started from 10th of May 2015 till the 13th of July 2015.</p> <p>DMAOnline is being developed to cover the needs of various stakeholders by bringing research data together from a variety of sources and systems. It provides data at the right time to the right set of people, providing them with information on compliance monitoring, key intervention points to enhance their compliance, develop new or on-going business case development (e.g. procurement of storage infrastructure), and to help them provide support services at the point of need. DMAOnline has received positive feedback both nationally and internationally, with a set of early adopters and beta testers already in place. A strong API model and sustainability/scalability considerations built in the dashboard allow us to move this into a national shared SaaS/cloud based service quickly.</p