Navigating Disciplinary Differences in (Digital) Research Projects Through Project Management

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-86
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivonne Anders ◽  
Swati Gehlot ◽  
Andrea Lammert ◽  
Karsten Peters-von Gehlen

<p>Since few years Research Data Management is becoming an increasingly important part of scientific projects regardless of the number of topics or subjects, researchers or institutions involved. The bigger the project, the more are the data organization and data management requirements in order to assure the best outcome of the project. Despite this, projects rarely have clear structures or responsibilities for data management. The importance of clearly defining data management and also budgeting for it is often underestimated and/or neglected. A rather scarce number of reports and documentations explaining the research data management in certain projects and detailing best practice examples can be found in the current literature.  Additionally, these are often mixed up with topics of the general project management. Furthermore, these examples are very focused on the certain issues of the described projects and thus, a transferability (or general application) of provided methods is very difficult.</p><p>This contribution presents generic concepts of research data management with an effort to separate them from general project management tasks. Project size, details among the diversity of topics and the involved researcher, play an important role in shaping data management and determining which methods of data management can add value to the outcome of a project. We especially focus on different organisation types, including roles and responsibilities for data management in projects of different sizes. Additionally, we show how and when also education should be included, but also how important agreements in a project are.</p>


Author(s):  
Robert J. B. Hutton ◽  
Gary Klein

Lessons learned from experienced researchers can provide an invaluable resource for any organization. The purpose of this project was to interview successful researchers from the Armstrong Laboratory (AL/HEA) at Wright-Patterson AFB to learn from some of their successful projects. The ultimate goals of the project were threefold: to provide AL/HEA with an alternative way to capture and describe the successes of their researchers; to identify themes that emerged from these projects regarding researchers' problem-solving, project leadership, and project management skills; and finally, to provide recommendations to the organization which would promote and support ways to increase opportunities for successful projects. Eleven interviews were conducted. Each of the researchers was interviewed about a project that had provided some concrete benefit to the Air Force. We used a form of the Critical Decision method to elicit 15 accounts. Several themes were identified that characterized the research projects, and recommendations were made to encourage the initiative of laboratory personnel and increase opportunities for successes.


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