Where Do We Go From Here: Choosing a Framework for Assessing Research Data Services and Training

Research data management has become a critical issue for campus researchers, funding agencies, and libraries, who have made substantial investments of time, energy, and resources into support for managing and sharing data. As data management programs proliferate, however, assessment of research data services has become a notorious challenge for libraries. How can we know—and demonstrate—that our efforts are having an impact, and how can we learn to make them even more effective? In this session, we will present a survey of several frameworks for assessing research data management services. We will lead a discussion about the application of different frameworks for assessing or auditing existing skill sets, external facing services, and capacity to support an array of research data services. This discussion will be grounded in a demonstration of how we applied one framework to audit the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries’s “training ground” model, which serves the dual purpose of developing competencies within our librarians and supporting researchers in their needs to manage, preserve, and share research assets. Through an active discussion of our efforts, and the efforts of libraries around the world, we can chart a course for effective research data management that can help guide libraries already deep into the process as well as those just getting their feet wet. Note: This presentation and conference paper is derived in part from the following publication: Davis, H. M., & Cross, W. M. (2015).Using a data management plan review service as a training ground for librarians. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3(2), eP1243

Building Capacity in Your Library for Research Data Management Support (Or What We Learned From Offering to Review DMPs)

In our evolving effort to build infrastructure and support around research data management needs, we found traction in launching a data management plan review service. In doing so, we have been able to achieve multiple goals: 1) support the research process; 2) create active learning situations for subject liaisons to engage in and learn how to support data management planning; 3) find resonance with campus‐sponsored research officers; 4) collaborate with other campus research support groups including campus IT, the institutional review board, and statistical consulting; 5) and participate in the national dialogue about the tensions of data management

Support When It Counts: Library Roles in Public Access to Federally Funded Research

In November 2012, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it would begin enforcing its April 2008 mandate of public access to NIH-funded research by delaying processing of investigators’ grants reporting noncompliant publications. In response, the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries offered to assist the University’s sponsored research administration in supporting NCSU researchers who had publications stemming from NIH funding and had not achieved compliance. Since the 2008 NIH mandate, over 1,000 articles based on NIH-funding have been published by NCSU across research areas including veterinary medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, engineering, textiles, design, math, and statistics. Many were published in journals which did not automatically deposit papers to meet NIH requirements. Although familiar with biomedical literature, author agreements, and open access, we did not fully grasp the complex web of investigator, author, publisher, institution, and funder relations involved in this mandate until we were deeply engaged in the process and gained access to the compliance monitoring data. In this paper, we discuss the costs and benefits of library support for authors needing to attain compliance with an eye toward how this support may be scaled up if other federal funding agencies follow suit. We share practical strategies for supporting compliance efforts for individual researchers and at the campuswide level, as well as training newly funded researchers to facilitate future compliance. We discuss the advantages of leveraging existing relationships with publishers to help their researchers, strategies for getting involved in compliance support, and insights on how to skill-up and scale-up when engaging in this part of the research process

In defence of the Viva Voce: Eighteen Candidates’ Voices

Background: The doctoral viva voce is an under-researched field, particularly from the point of view of doctoral candidates. With increasing numbers of health care professionals undertaking doctoral study, we can develop practice by listening to their ‘living voices’. Objective: To explore doctoral candidates’ experiences of their viva. Design and methods: Using exploratory research and purposive sampling, eighteen participants who had undergone examination of their doctorate within the last five years were identified. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore these participants’ experiences of their viva. Results: Thematic analysis of the data demonstrated that: Candidates wanted to engage in academic argument but were not always provided the opportunity to do so; The viva voce examination was frequently an emotional experience, even for candidates who did not regard themselves as subject to such emotions, examiners were sometimes able to moderate the effect of these emotions; Practical aspects of the examination were not always considered; Issues of fairness were raised, both by successful candidates and by those who were required to resubmit. Conclusions: The viva voce examination, as experienced by candidates, is not always a fair one. We recommend engagement of the academic community to promote best practice in the ‘living voice’ examination