Following our involvement in the pilot presentation of the “RDM Training for Liaison Librarians” course, and taking inspiration from the existing model at Purdue University in the U.S., three liaison colleagues (Marshall Dozier, Angela Nicholson, Nahad Gilbert) and I took up the challenge to create some data curation profiles here at Edinburgh. As at Purdue, it is intended that the creation of such research profiles here will enable us to gain insight into aspects of data management and assist in the assessment of information needs across the disciplines.
To this end I contacted Dr Bert Remijsen, a researcher in linguistics in the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, for which I currently provide liaison support. He had recently deposited a dataset in Edinburgh DataShare and very kindly agreed to be my case study for this pilot.
Drawing on materials at Purdue and Boston Universities, Marshall, Nahad, Angela and I collaborated at some length on the creation of a manageable data curation profile questionnaire for our own use. This was then forwarded by each of us to our respective interviewees ahead of our scheduled meetings with them.
Although I had been involved with RDM issues for some time, I nevertheless approached my own interview with some trepidation. However, I need not have worried, as all went very smoothly indeed! Sending the questionnaire ahead of our meeting ensured that Dr Remijsen had to hand all appropriate information that we might need to consult in the course of the interview.
Although I consigned each of his responses to my iPad as we worked through the questionnaire, Dr Remijsen also supplied a good deal of additional information which I captured in my recording of our meeting. The ability to listen to this a couple of times after the event greatly assisted me both in my later preparation of the final profile and my general understanding of his research and its associated dataset.
Finally, and in contrast to the apprehension that attended this pilot interview, I can honestly say that am now rather looking forward to the next one!
Anne Donnelly, Liaison Librarian, Colleges of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine AND Humanities & Social Science
