1.
Engaging Academic Support Librarians in
Research Data Management Support
6th CILIP ARLG-SW DARTS Conference
Dartington Hall, Totnes, 24 – 25 May 2018
Cuna Ekmekcioglu
Data Safe Haven Manager
cuna.ekmekcioglu@ed.ac.uk
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Overview
Research Data Management (RDM) context
Role of the Library in RDM
Training for Academic Support Librarians
MANTRA & its take-up
DIY Training Kit for Librarians
RDMS MOOC & its take-up
Challenges
Lessons learned

3.
Increasing amounts of data being produced by growing
numbers of researchers across different disciplines.
Big data challenges include storing, security, preservation and
analysing large, rapidly growing, diverse data stores.
Much of this data is unstructured meaning that it doesn't
reside in a database. Documents, image files, audios, videos
and other unstructured data can be difficult to search and
analyse.
Institutions are required to provide a framework for RDM.
The libraries are well situated to be a key player in data
management, curation, and preservation, given their
extensive experience with selection, metadata, collections,
institutional repositories, preservation, curation and access.
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Changing nature of research

4.
Researchers face a variety of challenges related to the
effective management of their data: sharing, access,
searchability, ethics, and appropriate computing
infrastructure.
Funders are increasingly requiring researchers to meet certain
data management criteria.
In this new landscape, researchers will need to adjust their
workflows to accommodate new data practices.
The gaps in knowledge around data management skills and
practices reveal a clear need for data management training
and support.
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Challenges for researchers

5.
What do we mean by research data?
 Instrument measurements
 Experimental observations
 Text documents
 Spreadsheets
 Databases
 Images, video & audio
 Quantitative data
 Interview transcripts & surveys
 Simulation data, models &
software
 Slides, artefacts & specimens
 Sketches, diaries & lab
notebooks
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6.
Data management is how researchers organise,
structure, store, and care for the data used or
generated during and beyond the lifetime of a
research project. It includes:
 How they deal with data on a day-to-day basis over the
lifetime of a project,
 What happens to data in the longer term – what they do
with it after the project concludes.
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Research Data Management (RDM)

7.
The Library leads RDM initiatives in the vast
majority of cases.
However, RDM is a cross institutional activity.
It requires the Library to work together with
researchers, research office, senior managers,
research support staff, IT support teams and
other academic units to improve RDM across
the institution.
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Working together…

8.
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These will depend
on the size of the
institution.
Here are just a
few!
IT Support
Academic
Support Librarians
Research Data Support
team
Research
Administrators
Potential RDM support roles

9.
Libraries are moving from being the deliverer
of information, to being embedded in the
teaching and research activities.
They are supporting the creation of new
information, evaluating impact, managing
data, data analytics, workflow tools,
bibliometrics, research policy and planning.
This assumes reskilling or upskilling for a huge
array of new areas.
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Role of the Library

10.
To enable the transition toward more robust library
support for research data, there is a need for training
for librarians in order to increase capacity in this
area.
This need for data-related training has led to several
new initiatives aimed at reskilling/upskilling
librarians for participation in research data
management support.
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Reskilling and upskilling Librarians

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https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/research/projects/rdmrose
http://datasupport.researchdata.nl/
http://roar.uel.ac.uk/4057/
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1285313
https://www.fosteropenscience.eu/node/2125
RDM Training for Librarians
https://mantra.edina.ac.uk/ https://www.coursera.org/learn/data-management

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About the University of Edinburgh
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• Founded 1583
• 39,576 students
• 14,346 postgraduate students
• 6,816 academic staff
• Research income: £253.9
million (2015-16)
• Mission: the creation,
dissemination and curation of
knowledge
• 20 schools in 3 colleges:
– Arts, Humanities & Social
Sciences
– Medicine & Veterinary
Medicine
– Science & Engineering

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Edinburgh: Library & University Collections
https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery

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User Services
Library and University Collections
 Research Support
 Research Data Support: RDM Team & Data Library
 Scholarly Communications
 Research Information Systems
 Academic Library Support
Applications & Software Operations
Learning, Teaching & Web
IT Infrastructure
Information Security
EDINA
Digital Curation Centre
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Information Services Group

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There is a dedicated Academic Support Librarian
for each School.
Any student or member of staff,
can ask their Academic Support Librarian for advice.

16.
Induction, tours,
course-specific, on
request
How do I find…
I want to recommend…
Do you have…
Where do I get…
How to cite…
Do you know who can…

17.
Research Data MANagement TRAining
(MANTRA)
Openly licensed online learning self-
paced course in RDM for postgrads and
early career researchers.
Interactive material (text, images,
quizzes) in 8 RDM topics.
Video stories from researchers in
variety of settings.
Data handling exercises in four software
analysis packages.
MANTRA Forum (private):
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/mantra-forum
http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra
backlitbuddhaby.ashonFlickr

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MANTRA usage (internationally)
MANTRA Yearly Usage (from Google Analytics)
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Sessions 12488 17128 20772 22950 22544
Unique users 6337 9928 12438 13656 13602
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
MANTRA Usage
Sessions Unique users

20.
MANTRA sessions: top countries
2016

21.
MANTRA usage (World, Edinburgh)

22.
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MANTRA usage 2017 - 2018

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DIY Training Kit for Librarians

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Our inspiration …..
Now superseded by …..
http://datasupport.researchdata.nl/
Training Librarians: how we did it @ Edinburgh

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Training Librarians: how we did it @ Edinburgh
The challenge
With our RDM policy already in
place, we needed to get our
librarians up to speed …. quickly!
Our solution
We drew on and augmented
existing training materials.
Free online course developed at Edinburgh for those
who manage digital data as part of a research project.
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/media/2894/managingsharing.pdf
https://mantra.edina.ac.uk/

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Training librarians: How we did it @ Edinburgh
We did
Provide a hybrid course that
offered online learning and the
opportunity to learn with others
and put learning into practice.
Course elements
Independent guided study &
reflective writing.
Facilitated face-to-face sessions
with expert presentations,
interactive group work &
discussion.
Homework in the form of a data
curation profile interview with a
member of academic staff.
They said
I could work at my own pace & go
back over stuff as it is available
online.
I found the presentations by
experts very useful and the group
discussions stimulating as well as
getting the chance to hear other
colleagues’ experience.
I approached my first data
curation profile interview with
trepidation … now rather looking
forward to the next one!
A useful introduction to the basics
of RDM best practice, vocabulary
and principles.
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Research Data Mgmt & Sharing MOOC
https://www.coursera.org/learn/data-management

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Research Data Mgmt & Sharing MOOC
(Coursera)
Collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill CRADLE
project
Understanding Research Data
Data Management Planning
Working with Data
Sharing Data
Archiving Data
www.coursera.org/learn/data-management

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RDMS MOOC Q1 2017
A)
RDMS MOOC Q1 2017: The service was started in March 2016. Interest in the service continued throughout
the first three months of 2017 with another 1,123 users registered.
The MOOC has continued to add about 300-500 new users each month (slightly above the previous quarter)
and showed a particularly strong March with 483 new users.
A) Number of new enrolled learners per month.
B) Table with numbers of enrolled learners and cumulative enrolled learners per month.
C) Cumulative number of enrolled learners throughout Q1 2017.
B)
C)
5400
5600
5800
6000
6200
6400
6600
6800
Jan-17 Feb-17 Mar-17
Totalnumberofenrolled
learners(MOOC)
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Jan-17 Feb-17 Mar-17
Numberofnewenrolled
learners(MOOC)
Number of new enrolled
learners
Total number of enrolled
learners
Jan-17 338 5804
Feb-17 302 6106
Mar-17 483 6589

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Research Data Management and Sharing MOOC
100
1000
10000
Apr-17 May-17 Jun-17 Jul-17 Aug-17 Sep-17 Oct-17 Nov-17 Dec-17 Jan-18 Feb-18 Mar-18
Apr-17 May-17 Jun-17 Jul-17 Aug-17 Sep-17 Oct-17 Nov-17 Dec-17 Jan-18 Feb-18 Mar-18
New enrolled learners 299 261 207 244 236 237 216 216 229 296 227 240
Total enrolled learners 6888 7149 7356 7600 7836 8073 8289 8505 8734 9030 9257 9497
New enrolled learners Total enrolled learners

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“Thank you for offering the course. Although I've been working as a data
librarian for over 30 years, I've not had formal training or review of
research data management - this course was useful to prove to myself that
I have actually picked up knowledge about RDM and am able to apply it.”
“This course has been a very useful introduction to Research Data
Management. Being an early-career librarian, I've found myself in a
position where I have to join the RDM conversation without much
background so I was happy to find this course! I've passed it on to other
librarians I know in similar positions.”
“Thank you for a new world of information for me as librarian. My
university is beginning to work with data publishing. I learned a lot and I'm
sharing with my partners this experience.”
“Good introduction to an area where library science, information science
and archivistics come together.”
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They said…

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The major challenges include:
Gaps in knowledge, skills, and particularly
confidence related to data management.
Understanding researchers’ workflow and
needs.
Balancing the demand for research data
management with all the other tasks they’re
responsible for.
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Challenges

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There are potentially important roles for Academic Support
Librarians in contributing to RDM as well as in supporting research
more generally.
Although the role and competencies required align with existing
Academic Support Librarians’ roles, there are some major gaps in
knowledge, skills, and confidence related to data management.
Academic Support Librarians can acquire new skills through formal
learning methods and more informal approaches such as
shadowing and self-paced online learning.
In addition to training, practical, ‘real life’ experience is essential.
It is important for librarians to increase their understanding of what
research data means for researchers and to understand
researchers’ workflow and needs.
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Lessons learned

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How important do you think it is for libraries to
be leaders in RDM support?
Which data management topics would you be
comfortable teaching yourself, and which would
you call in an expert or colleague? To which
groups at your institution?
What do you see as your role: helping
researchers manage data for their project or
developing something that will become an
institutional resource?
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Reflective questions

35.
Cox AM, Kennan MA, Lyon L & Pinfield S (2017) Developments in research data
management in academic libraries: Towards an understanding of research data
service maturity. Journal of the Association for Information Science and
Technology, 68(9), 2182-2200: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.23781
LIBER (2016), Workshop Report: Skills for Supporting Research Data Management:
https://libereurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/SC-Workshop-Report.pdf
Pinfield S, Cox AM & Smith J (2014) Research data management and libraries:
Relationships, activities, drivers and influences. PLoS One, 9(12), e114734-
e114734: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0114734
RLUK: Re-skilling for Research, Conducted for RLUK by Mary Auckland, January
2012: http://www.rluk.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/RLUK-Re-skilling.pdf
Cox Andrew, Verbaan Eddy, Sen Barbara (2012) Upskilling Liaison Librarians for
Research Data Management, Ariadne: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue70/cox-et-
al#author2
UK Data Service Manage Data: https://www.ukdataservice.ac.uk/manage-data
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Links

36.
Questions?
cuna.ekmekcioglu@ed.ac.uk
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Thank You!