Engaging Researchers With Research Data: What Works?

Submitted by: Marta Teperek

Meeting objectives:

Other important links:

The objective of this meeting is to begin the work of the Engaging Researchers With Research Data Interest Group. The draft charter for the group has been already submitted for the official RDA review. In the meantime, because the group is not yet formalised, this session is submitted as another Birds of a Feather. If the group becomes endorsed by RDA before the P15 meeting, we would like to change this meeting from a Birds of a Feather session to the first official meeting of the Interest Group.

Many interesting initiatives are utilised by research institutions around the world to effectively engage with their research communities about research data. However, typically the only way to learn about these activities is to either attend a conference where a speaker explains their initiative, or to already know someone who is engaged in that type of work. Relying on these opportunities to exchange good practice disadvantages those who cannot attend conferences, and those who are just starting with research data management and don’t yet have established connections. Our group addresses these problems by providing a network facilitating discussions and exchanging good practice, focusing on how to effectively engage with researchers about research data and developing resources to help various research organisations increase their researcher engagement. A great example of the latter is the “Engaging Researchers with Data Management: The Cookbook” which was produced in the context of our informal group activities. 

During the P15 meeting, we will have an initial short presentation on the work done so far by the informal group, and we will create task groups to start working on several new deliverables:

Meeting agenda: 

Type of Meeting: Working meeting

Short introduction describing any previous activities: 

Previous, informal activities of the group focused on gathering case studies on how institutions engage with research data. This was started as a project under the umbrella of the Libraries for Research Data IG (at P12), which culminated in a deliverable: Engaging Researchers with Research Data: The Cookbook. The group presented the progress of its work at P13 and P14.

Over this period, community interest around the topic grew beyond libraries. With the community members wishing to keep the discussions alive, it became necessary to think about the creation of a dedicated IG to allow the community to continue to exchange best practices and keep each other informed on innovative methods to stimulate researcher engagement with research data.

A new IG was discussed at P14 at a dedicated Birds of a Feather session with the current and prospective members of the interest group (70+ people on the informal mailing list) and the idea was enthusiastically received by the attendees. In addition, the attendees proposed several new deliverables that would be useful tools for the community to further stimulate researcher engagement with research data.

Additional links to informative material: 

Avoid conflict with the following group (1): Libraries for Research Data IG

Avoid conflict with the following group (2): Early Career and Engagement IG