This document discusses the role of librarians in supporting research data management (RDM). It outlines the University of East London's (UEL) approach to RDM, including developing an RDM policy and providing training to librarians and researchers. Librarians are well-positioned to help with RDM due to their expertise in managing information and commitment to long-term research. However, many librarians lack skills specific to RDM. To address this, UEL created an online training course called "supportDM" to teach librarians how to support researchers with data management plans, preservation, and sharing data. The document encourages other institutions to make use of existing RDM resources and train their own lib

1. Sharing the load – librarians and
research data support services
Stephen Grace, Research Services Librarian
M25 Conference, Wellcome Collection, 23 April 2013

2. Outline
1. Context at UEL
2. Why librarians, and the skills gap
3. Learning resource “supportDM”
4. Setting up an RDM support service

3. UEL and data management
• Identified RDM as issue in 2009 following
„Keeping Research Data Safe‟ report
• Recruited Research Services Librarian
with prior expertise in digital curation
• Responded to EPSRC letter by drafting a
policy adopted March 2012
• Bespoke support under DCC‟s Institutional
Engagement

4. UEL and data management - 2
• Training covered in Jisc-funded project
called TraD – Training for Data
Management at UEL – with four strands:
– Reuse MANTRA for Psychology profdocs
– Create a course for Geoinformatics MSc
– Run workshops on good RDM practice
– Devise “supportDM” course for those
supporting researchers, tested with subject
librarians at UEL

5. Why are libraries leading RDM?
• Most of the Jisc RDM projects are library-
led – not all, and often working in
conjunction with IT and/or Research Office
• Close to researchers as library users
• Data are a form of information – and who
is better at managing information?
• Libraries are trusted partners committed to
long-term scientific/scholarly endeavour

6. Sheila Corrall, Univ. of Pittsburgh
“Powerful synergies exist between the longstanding
library commitment to open access and the
philosophy of open science, between the
principles underpinning library collection
management and emerging protocols for curating
digital data, between the track record of libraries in
technology adoption and systems development
and the complex demands for integrated
infrastructure and novel workflows, and between
the teaching mission of librarians and the
educational agenda for e-research.”
Corrall, Sheila (2012), "Roles and responsibilities: libraries, librarians and data", In: Pryor, G.
(ed.), Managing research data. Facet Publishing, ISBN 978-1-85604-756-2.

7. Skills gap for librarians
• Ability to advise on preserving research outputs
• Knowledge to advise on data management and
curation, including
ingest, discovery, access, dissemination, preservation, and
portability
• Knowledge to support researchers in complying with the various
mandates of funders, including open access requirements
• Knowledge to advise on potential data manipulation tools used in
the discipline/ subject
• Knowledge to advise on data mining
• Knowledge to advocate, and advise on, the use of metadata
• Ability to advise on the preservation of project records e.g.
correspondence
• Knowledge of sources of research funding to assist researchers
to identify potential funders
• Skills to develop metadata schema, and advise on
discipline/subject standards and practices, for individual
research projects
Taken from Auckland, Mary (2012), Reskilling for Research. RLUK.

8. Help yourself with supportDM
• Xerte training course of 5 modules
1. Introduction to RDM
2. Guidance and support to researchers
3. Data Management Plans
4. What data to keep, and why
5. Cataloguing and sharing data
• Supporting materials –
presentations, exercises, tasks, videos, Xe
rte modules – for blended or self-learning

9. Online: Roles and players

10. Exercise: Matching data

11. RDM Website review
University of Leicester
supportDM Module 2
Task: Review an RDM website

12. What the site covers
The site is split into the following sections:
• Data management support
• Creating data
• Organising data
• Keeping data
• Finding and sharing data
• Training
• Advice, support and feedback

13. The tone, language, look
Tone and language
• Formal approach but
easily understandable
Layout and presentation
• Very clear sections which
follow logically the data
management process
• As the sections are clear
it is easy to go straight to
the required part of the
process
• Contact details visible on
the front page

14. What we could use/copy at UEL
• All of it!

15. Beg, steal or borrow
• Other support websites
• Existing university RDM policies
• DCC publications
• Tools and techniques from Jisc-funded
MRD projects
• Training material for librarians from
supportDM, RDMRose and MANTRA
• Videos

16. Websites

17. RDM policies

18. DCC publications

19. Tools and techniques

20. Training materials

21. Exercise
1. Offer research data
management support
2. Provide metadata services
for research data
3. Develop professional staff
skills for data librarianship
4. Institutional research data
policy
5. Interoperable infrastructure
for data access, discovery
and sharing
6. Services for
storage, discovery and
permanent access
7. Promote research data
citation by applying persistent
identifiers to research data
8. Provide an institutional Data
Catalogue or Repository
9. Get involved in subject-
specific data management
practice
10. Storage for dynamic and
static research data in co-
operation with IT
LIBER (2012), Ten recommendations for libraries to get started with research data
management.
http://www.libereurope.eu/sites/default/files/The%20research%20data%20group%202012%20
v7%20final.pdf

22. Feedback from exercise
• Things we could do • Things we can‟t – or
shouldn‟t

23. Summary
• Libraries are ideal partners to share the
data load of researchers
• Plenty of existing material will help you get
started, and gain researchers‟ confidence
• Your university needs data curators (data
managers, data librarians)
• And so does the one down the road…

24. TraD is a Jisc-funded project of Library and
Learning Services at the University of East London.
The supportDM course was developed by UEL and
the Digital Curation Centre.
Stephen Grace
Email s.grace@uel.ac.uk
Web www.uel.ac.uk/trad/
Blog datamanagementuel.wordpress.com
Thank you