scholarly journals Research Data Management Practices: A Snapshot in Time

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Anne Kennan ◽  
Lina Markauskaite
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Data Storage ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Project Completion ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Secure Storage ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Research Organisations

There is increasing pressure from funders, publishers, the public, universities and other research organisations for researchers to improve their data management and sharing practices. However, little is known about researchers’ data management and sharing practices and concerns. The research reported in this paper seeks to address this by providing insight into the research data management and sharing practices of academics at ten universities in New South Wales, Australia. Empirical data was taken from a survey to which 760 academics responded, with 634 completing at least one section. Results showed that at the time of the survey there were a wide variety of research data in use, including analogue data, and that the challenges researchers faced in managing their data included finding safe and secure storage, particularly after project completion, but also during projects when data are used (and thus stored) on a wide variety of less-than-optimal temporary devices. Data sharing was not widely practiced and only a relatively small proportion of researchers had a research data management plan. Since the survey was completed much has changed: capacities and communities are being built around data management and sharing and policies, and guidelines are being constructed. Data storage and curation services are now more freely available. It will be interesting to observe how the findings of future studies compare with those reported here.

scholarly journals Researchers at Arab Universities Hold Positive Views on Research Data Management and Data Sharing

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-170
Author(s):  
Jennifer Kaari
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Data Repository ◽  
Research Data Management

A Review of: Elsayed, A. M., & Saleh, E. I. (2018). Research data management and sharing among researchers in Arab universities: An exploratory study. IFLA Journal, 44(4), 281–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035218785196 Abstract Objective – To investigate researchers’ practices and attitudes regarding research data management and data sharing. Design – Email survey. Setting – Universities in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Subjects – Surveys were sent to 4,086 academic faculty researchers. Methods – The survey was emailed to faculty at three Arab universities, targeting faculty in the life sciences and engineering. The survey was created using Google Docs and remained open for five months. Participants were asked basic demographic questions, questions regarding their research data and metadata practices, and questions regarding their data sharing practices. Main Results – The authors received 337 responses, for a response rate of 8%. The results showed that 48.4% of respondents had a data management plan and that 97% were responsible for preserving their own data. Most respondents stored their research data on their personal storage devices. The authors found that 64.4% of respondents reported sharing their research data. Respondents most frequently shared their data by publishing in a data research journal, sharing through academic social networks such as ResearchGate, and providing data upon request to peers. Only 5.1% of respondents shared data through an open data repository.  Of those who did not share data, data privacy and confidentiality were the most common reasons cited. Of the respondents who did share their data, contributing to scientific progress and increased citation and visibility were the primary reasons for doing so. A total of 59.6% of respondents stated that they needed more training in research data management from their universities. Conclusion – The authors conclude that researchers at Arab universities are still primarily responsible for their own data and that data management planning is still a new concept to most researchers. For the most part, the researchers had a positive attitude toward data sharing, although depositing data in open repositories is still not a widespread practice. The authors conclude that in order to encourage strong data management practices and open data sharing among Arab university researchers, more training and institutional support is needed.

Research data management practices of chemistry researchers in federal universities of technology in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatimah Jibril Abduldayan ◽  
Fasola Petunola Abifarin ◽  
Georgina Uchey Oyedum ◽  
Jibril Attahiru Alhassan
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Practice ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Data Preservation ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Research Findings

Purpose The purpose of this study was to understand the research data management practices of chemistry researchers in the five specialized federal universities of technology in Nigeria. Appropriate research data management practice ensures that research data are available for reuse by secondary users, and research findings can be verified and replicated within the scientific community. A poor research data management practice can lead to irrecoverable data loss, unavailability of data to support research findings and lack of trust in the research process. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory research technique involving semi-structured, oral and face-to-face interview is used to gather data on research data management practices of chemistry researchers in Nigeria. Interview questions were divided into four major sections covering chemistry researchers’ understanding of research data, experience with data loss, data storage method and backup techniques, data protection, data preservation and availability of data management plan. Braun and Clarke thematic analysis approach was adapted, and the Provalis Qualitative Data Miner (version 5) software was used for generating themes and subthemes from the coding framework and for presenting the findings. Findings Findings revealed that chemistry researchers in Nigeria have a good understanding of the concept of research data and its importance to research findings. Chemistry researchers have had several experiences of irrecoverable loss of data because of poor choice of storage devices, back-up methods and weak data protection systems. Even though the library was agreed as the most preferred place for long-term data preservation, there is the issue of trust and fear of loss of ownership of data to unauthorized persons or party. No formal data management plan is used while conducting their scientific research. Research limitations/implications The research focused on research data management practices of chemistry researchers in the five specialized federal universities of technology in Nigeria. Although the findings of the study are similar to perceptions and practices of researchers around the world, it cannot be used as a basis for generalization across other scientific disciplines. Practical implications This study concluded that chemistry researchers need further orientation and continuous education on the importance and benefits of appropriate research data management practice. The library should also roll out research data management programs to guide researchers and improve their confidence throughout the research process. Social implications Appropriate research data management practice not only ensures that the underlying research data are true and available for reuse and re-validation, but it also encourages data sharing among researchers. Data sharing will help to ensure better collaboration among researchers and increased visibility of the datasets and data owners through the use of standard data citations and acknowledgements. Originality/value This is a qualitative and in-depth study of research data management practices and perceptions among researchers in a particular scientific field of study.

Research data management in Turkey: A survey to build an effective national data repository

IFLA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 034003522091798
Author(s):  
Guleda Dogan ◽  
Zehra Taskin ◽  
Arsev Umur Aydinoglu
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Development Stage ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Data Repository ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Funding Agencies ◽  
Technological Research Council ◽  
Management Issues

Research data management is an important topic for funding agencies, universities and researchers. In this context, the main aim of this study is to collect preliminary information for Aperta, which is being developed by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, to fulfil the following goals: determine the research data management awareness levels of researchers in Turkey; understand current research data management practices in their research environments; and find out their experiences of policy issues. For this, a questionnaire was distributed to 37,223 researchers, with 1577 researchers completing it. The results indicated that researchers who spend more time with data have more concerns about data management issues. The levels of experience of creating a data management plan were quite low. The importance of this study lies in how it is able to show the current research data management practices of Turkish scholars during the new repository’s foundational development stage.

Research data management at a public university in Malawi: the role of “three hands”

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6/7) ◽  
pp. 467-485
Author(s):  
Winner Dominic Chawinga ◽  
Sandy Zinn
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Data Storage ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Public University ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
The University

PurposeConsidering that research data is increasingly hailed as an important raw material for current and future science discoveries, many research stakeholders have joined forces to create mechanisms for preserving it. However, regardless of generating rich research data, Africa lags behind in research data management thereby potentially losing most of this valuable data. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate the research data management practices at a Malawian public university with the aim to recommend appropriate data management strategies.Design/methodology/approachThe study is inspired by the pragmatic school of thought thereby adopting quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Quantitative data was collected using a questionnaire from 150 researchers and 25 librarians while qualitative data was collected by conducting an interview with the Director of Research.FindingsResearchers are actively involved in research activities thereby generating large quantities of research data. Although researchers are willing to share their data, only a handful follow through. Data preservation is poor because the university uses high risk data storage facilities, namely personal computers, flash disks, emails and external hard drives. Researchers and librarians lacked core research data-management competencies because of the lack of formal and information training opportunities. Challenges that frustrate research data-management efforts are many but the key ones include absence of research data management policies, lack of incentives, lack of skills and unavailability of data infrastructure.Research limitations/implicationsThe study's findings are based on one out of four public universities in the country; hence, the findings may not adequately address the status of research data management practices in the other universities.Practical implicationsConsidering that the university under study and its counterparts in Malawi and Africa in general operate somewhat in a similar economic and technological environment, these findings could be used as a reference point for other universities intending to introduce research data management initiatives.Originality/valueWith seemingly limited studies about research data management in Africa and particularly in Malawi, the study sets the tone for research data management debates and initiatives in the country and other African countries.

scholarly journals ITB Research Data Management Plan

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dasapta Erwin Irawan
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Project Level

Here's the official ITB Research Data Management Plan. We use this plan as a template to design more detailed project-level RDMP. The document came from the work of ITB Repository Team that I lead. Team members: Sparisoma Viridi, Rino Mukti (I will add this list later). I invite everyone to re-use this document for their project-level RDMP.

scholarly journals VARIABILITY IN CLINICAL RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: LESSONS FROM THE MALARIA COMMUNITY

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (Suppl 2) ◽  
pp. A19.1-A19
Author(s):  
Amélie Julé ◽  
Hazel Ashurst ◽  
Laura Merson ◽  
Piero Olliaro ◽  
Vicki Marsh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Research ◽  
Data Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Clinical Research Data

scholarly journals Challenges and Practices of Research Data Management in Selected Iraq Universities

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (06) ◽  
pp. 308-314
Author(s):  
Mahdi Salah Mohammed ◽  
Rafea Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Data Repositories ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Research Organisations

Research emphasises the fundamental role of research data management (RDM) in enhancing academic and scientific research. This paper intended to examine RDM in Iraqi Universities, identify the current challenges of RDM and propose influential RDM practices. Data collection employed a self-administered questionnaires distributed to 155 postgraduate students and 20 faculty members from five universities in Iraq. Research findings revealed that there is a lack of proper RDM. Postgraduate students and researchers were managing their own research data. Main challenges of maintaining a good RDM involve lack of guidelines on effective RDM practices, insufficient of adequate human resources, technological obsolescence, insecure and inefficient infrastructure, lack of financial resources, absence of research data management policies and lack of support by institutional authorities and researchers negatively influenced on research data management. Postgraduate students and researchers recommend building research data repositories and collaboration with other universities and research organisations.

scholarly journals Research Data Management Initiatives at University of Edinburgh

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Rice ◽  
Jeff Haywood
Keyword(s):  
Data Management ◽  
Data Storage ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Online Tools ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Future Direction

During the last decade, national and international attention has been increasingly focused on issues of research data management and access to publicly funded research data. The pressure brought to bear on researchers to improve their data management and data sharing practice has come from research funders seeking to add value to expensive research and solve cross-disciplinary grand challenges; publishers seeking to be responsive to calls for transparency and reproducibility of the scientific record; and the public seeking to gain and re-use knowledge for their own purposes using new online tools. Meanwhile higher education institutions have been rather reluctant to assert their role in either incentivising or supporting their academic staff in meeting these more demanding requirements for research practice, partly due to lack of knowledge as to how to provide suitable assistance or facilities for data storage and curation/preservation. This paper discusses the activities and drivers behind one institution’s recent attempts to address this gap, with reflection on lessons learned and future direction.

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