New MOOC! Research Data Management and Sharing

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[Guest post from Dr. Helen Tibbo, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill]

The School of Information and Library Science and the Odum Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and EDINA at the University of Edinburgh are pleased to announce the forthcoming Coursera MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), Research Data Management and Sharing.

CaptureThis is a collaboration of the UNC-CH CRADLE team (Curating Research Assets and Data Using Lifecycle Education) and MANTRA. CRADLE has been funded in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to develop training for both researchers and library professionals. MANTRA was designed as a prime resource for postgraduate training in research data management skills and is used by learners worldwide.

The MOOC uses the Coursera on-demand format to provide short, video-based lessons and assessments across a five-week period, but learners can proceed at their own pace. Although no formal credit is assigned for the MOOC, Statements of Accomplishment will be available to any learner who completes a course for a small fee.

The Research Data Management and Sharing MOOC will launch 1st March, 2016, and enrolment is open now. Subjects covered in the 5-week course follow the stages of any research project. They are:

  • Understanding Research Data
  • Data Management Planning
  • Working with Data
  • Sharing Data
  • Archiving Data

Dr. Helen Tibbo from the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill delivers four of the five sets of lessons, and Sarah Jones, Digital Curation Centre, delivers the University of Edinburgh-developed content in Week 3 (Working with Data). Quizzes and supplementary videos add to the learning experience, and assignments are peer reviewed by fellow learners, with questions and answers handled by peers and team teachers in the forum.

Staff from both organizations will monitor the learning forums and the peer-reviewed assignments to make sure learners are on the right track, and to watch for adjustments needed in course content.

The course is open to enrolment now, and will ‘go live’ on 1st March.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/research-data-management-and-sharing

Hashtag: #RDMSmooc

A preview of one of the supplementary videos is now available on Youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhVqImna7cU

Please join us in this data adventure.
-Helen

Dr. Helen R. Tibbo, Alumni Distinguished Professor
President, 2010-2011 & Fellow, Society of American Archivists
School of Information and Library Science
201 Manning Hall, CB#3360
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360
Tel: 919-962-8063
Fax: 919-962-8071
tibbo@ils.unc.edu

MANTRA @ Melbourne

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The aim of the Melbourne_MANTRA project was to review, adapt and pilot an online training program in research data management (RDM) for graduate researchers at the University of Melbourne. Based on the UK-developed and acclaimed MANTRA program, the project reviewed current UK content and assessed its suitability for the Australian and Melbourne research context. The project team adapted the original MANTRA modules and incorporated new content as required, in order to develop the refreshed Melbourne_MANTRA local version. Local expert reviewers ensured the localised content met institutional and funder requirements. Graduate researchers were recruited to complete the training program and contribute to the detailed evaluation of the content and associated resources.

The project delivered eight revised training modules, which were evaluated as part of the pilot via eight online surveys (one for each module) plus a final, summative evaluation survey. Overall, the Melbourne_MANTRA pilot training program was well received by participants. The content of the training modules generally gathered high scores, with low scores markedly sparse across all eight modules. The participants recognised that the content of the training program should be tailored to the institutional context, as opposed to providing general information and theory around the training topics. In its current form, the content of the modules only partly satisfies the requirements of our evaluators, who made valuable recommendations for further improving the training program.

In 2016, the University of Melbourne will revisit MANTRA with a view to implement evaluation feedback into the program; update the modules with new content, audiovisual materials and exercises; augment targeted delivery via the University’s LMS; and work towards incorporating Melbourne_MANTRA in induction and/or reference materials for new and current postgraduates and early career researchers.

The current version is available at: http://library.unimelb.edu.au/digitalscholarship/training_and_outreach/mantra2

Dr Leo Konstantelos
Manager, Digital Scholarship
Research | Research & Collections
Academic Services
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia

Highlights from the RDM Programme Progress Report: August – October 2015

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The RDM Roadmap 2.0 has been completed, approved, and published online and work has started on achieving the deliverables. A copy of the Roadmap is publicly available on the RDM webpages and can be downloaded from http://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files//uoe-rdm-roadmap_-_v2_0.pdf.

The RDM Services brochure has now been published in both paper and electronic form and is proving very popular with researchers. The electronic version can be downloaded from http://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/rdm_service_a5_booklet_0.pdf

Work on DataVault is progressing well and an interim DataVault service is now nearly complete. The Software Sustainability Institute has worked with the DataVault team to road test the interim solution, as a result some optimisations to the process were identified and are being coded up. DataVault user events have been held in both Manchester and Edinburgh, both events were well attended and the general impression of the current DataVault functionality was positive. Further, round three, funding is being sought from Jisc in December to continue this joint development effort.

Jisc has provided funding for up to nine PhD students to be employed one day per week for four months within their school. Their role will be to help researchers within their school record their research data as Datasets in the PURE system, and to direct any RDM or DMP queries to the RDM team for further support. The Dataset records in PURE will provide the Edinburgh University contribution to the national Research Data Discovery Service, this will increase the discoverability of Edinburgh data and ensure that more researchers are meeting the requirements of their research funders to make their data discoverable and reusable. Applications for the first set of three PhD student interns have been received and are currently being shortlisted, the successful applicants should be able to begin work before the end of 2015.

In October some minor questions were received about the DataShare application for Data Seal of Approval (DSA), these were responded to and DataShare has now been approved for the DSA. This is a major achievement for the entire DataShare team who have worked hard to make DataShare a Trusted Digital Repository.

Over the three month period a total of 173 staff and PGR’s have attended a RDM course or workshop, an additional 20-25 staff have attended research committee meetings or small group presentations where RDM has been on the agenda. Both regular and on demand RDM sessions (courses, workshops, & presentations) will continue to be offered and we are currently in the process of scheduling 30 courses, workshops for January to June 2016 as well as a number of presentations.

The “Data Management and Sharing” Coursera MOOC is well under way with a December launch anticipated. Sarah Jones, DCC, is our video instructor, using scripts adapted from MANTRA.

National and International Engagement Activities

10th August meeting in London with other Alan Turing Institute members to discuss RDM requirements to be provided by member institutions.

17th of August a one day RDM event was organised for Danish visitors from the University of Copenhagen to present UoE RDM services, outreach activities and ELNs.

31st August Dealing with Data conference.

7th/8th September meeting with Gottingen University to talk about digital scholarship, including RDM.

7th October DataVault engagement event at Manchester University.

29 October, Educause conference, Indianapolis. Robin Rice was on a panel with Jan Cheetham & Brianna Marshall, University of Wisconsin and Rory Macneil, RSpace: “Drivers and responses toward research data management maturity: transatlantic perspectives.

Kerry Miller

RDM Service Co-Ordinator

Edinburgh DataShare receives ‘Data Seal of Approval’

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Earlier this week DataShare received the Data Seal of Approval – a peer review certification for trusted digital repository (TDR) status. The award is reviewed every two-years.

Edinburgh DataShare self-assessment statements for each of the 16 metrics (which express roles and responsibilities of data producer, data repository and data consumer) can be viewed on the DSA website at: https://assessment.datasealofapproval.org/assessment_175/seal/pdf/ (note: liberal use of white space). We aim to publish the actual seal on the home page of DataShare as part of the upcoming major release (2.0).

For more information about DSA see our web page, http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/data-library/data-repository/trustworthiness

Note: a paper will be published in the forthcoming IASSIST Quarterly showcasing institutional implementations of DSA. This follows on from a successful panel session at the IASSIST Conference at Univ. Minneapolis in June (see: http://iassist2015.pop.umn.edu/program/block6#a4)

DSA are also currently in discussion with ICSU World Data System to produce a harmonised discipline-agnostic self-assessment TDR certification scheme. This should be in place some time in 2016.

Stuart Macdonald
Associate Data Librarian