Engaging the researcher in RDM
Stuart Macdonald
Associate Data Librarian
EDINA National Data Centre &
Edinburgh University Data Library
Stuart.Macdonald@ed.ac.uk
ANDS Data interviews webinar 13 August 2012

EDINA and University
Data Library (EDL)
together are a division
within Information
Services of the
University of Edinburgh.
EDINA is a JISC-funded
National Data Centre
providing national online
resources for education
and research.
The Data Library assists
Edinburgh University
users in the discovery,
access, use and
management of research
datasets.

What is a Data Library
A data library refers to both the
content and the services that foster
use of collections of numeric, audio-
visual, textual or geospatial data sets
for secondary use in research.
Focus on re-use of data
Building relationships with researchers via PG teaching
activities, research support projects, IS Skills workshops,
Research Data Management training and through traditional
reference interviews.

Data Reference Interview
1 hour appointment to discuss
research question / context
Establish whether data the
researcher requires is available,
suitable level of granularity , suitable
and accessible format, assess
licensing, cost, use conditions,
software dependency
Research Data sharing via research
data repository Edinburgh DataShare
- embargo, keywords, licenses (ODC),
formatting, documentation, depositor
agreement, copyright, dataset
associated with publication

RIN Disciplinary Case Studies:
understanding the information
needs of life science researchers
(Oct. 2008 – July 2009)
Seven case studies were
conducted across a diverse range
of laboratories and research
groups from botany to clinical
neuroscience.
http://tinyurl.com/d9j3yxs
Deployed a range of qualtitative methods and tools designed to ‘enhance
understanding of how researchers locate, evaluate, organise, manage,
transform and communicate information sources as an integrated part of
the research process’.
5-day information diaries (x55)
F-2-F interviews, (x24)
Focus groups (1 per case)

Interviewing researchers
– considerations
Research data can be much more complex
than the post-publication content that
librarians typically encounter.
The data interview should be driven by the
researcher and guided by the interviewer /
librarian
What constitutes data may be interpreted
differently by different people at different
times in different contexts
Research data will have discrete issues or
challenges associated with them thus it is
important that the research data that are
the subject of the interview are clearly
defined

Interviewing researchers – considerations
• Identify base level of knowledge about
domain-specific research process
(librarian)
• Identify base level of knowledge about
research data management (researcher)
• Iron out ambiguities / domain-specific
jargon as definitions may differ across
disciplines
• Use the ‘research data lifecycle’ as a
framing device: Plan, Create, Use, Appraise,
Publish, Discover, Re-use

University of Edinburgh RDM Strategy
Establishment of IS RDM Steering and Action group
High profile ‘champion’– Peter Clark (Professor of Physics at the
University of Edinburgh & CERN Fellow)
IS RDM Action group working on service implementation plans
• Data management support
• Data management planning
• Active data infrastructure
• Data stewardship
Pilot studies with research groups
• feedback into service implementation plans re. tools and services
• who to engage with
• Case studies
RDM Awareness Raising sessions with library & information
professionals
Services Roadmap

Engagement tools
Data Asset Framework
(DCC/HATII) –
http://www.data-audit.eu/
provides organisations with the means to:
- find out what data assets are being
created and held within institutions
- explore how those data are stored,
managed, shared and reused
- identify any risks e.g. misuse, data loss
or irretrievability
- learn about researchers’ attitudes
towards data creation and sharing
- suggest ways to improve ongoing data
management.

Data Curation Profiles
Toolkit (Purdue University)
http://datacurationprofiles.org/
Data Curation Profiles can:
• provide a guide for discussing data with researchers
• give insight into areas of attention in data management
• help assess information needs related to data collections
• give insight into differences between data in various disciplines
• help identify possible data services
• create a starting point for curating a data set for archiving and
preservation

‘Librarians will need to move beyond our focus on
researchers’ needs as information consumers, and
work towards building awareness of their
disciplinary and sub-disciplinary information
cultures and norms ..…. acquiring this depth of
knowledge needs to be made a pre-requisite
before new infrastructures or services for research
data are developed. Conducting data interviews
with researchers is one approach towards
achieving this foundational understanding.’
Jake Carlson (2012)

FIN !!
All Images by PropagandaTimes - Attribution-
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REFERENCES:
Jake Carlson, (2012) "Demystifying the data interview: Developing a foundation
for reference librarians to talk with researchers about their data", Reference
Services Review, Vol. 40 Iss: 1, pp.7 – 23
Kristin Partlo (2009) “The pedagogical data reference interview”, IASSIST
Quarterly, Vol. 33 Iss: Winter, pp.6 – 10 -
http://www.iassistdata.org/downloads/iqvol334_341partlo.pdf