Building skills and toolkits
for research data interviews
Learnings from the Monash University Library Research Data Collections Project
Jackie Waylen, Research Data Librarian; Julie McCulloch, Metadata Librarian; Paula Todd, Research Data Librarian
THE POSTER presents the approach the Monash University Library has taken to its
Research Master
Identify
Research Data Collections Project, funded by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS)
under the Seeding the Commons program. The aim of the project is to make data
collections from selected publicly funded research projects discoverable through ANDS’
Research Data Australia website and, where possible, accessible, through a trusted
repository or archive.
To achieve this, we have been interviewing researchers who have data collections that
meet a defined set of criteria. These interviews are used to capture the metadata that is
essential to describe the data collection and provide sufficient information to support
discoverability and potential re-use by other researchers. Following the successful
completion of eight pilot interviews with researchers from different disciplines, project staff
have commenced the second phase of the project and are continuing to locate research
data collections and interview researchers in order to gather information for each collection
record.
We developed a toolkit consisting of workflows, templates and agreed practices during the
pilot phase. This toolkit supports the process from the identification of a target data
collection, through to the description and addition of the collection record to the Monash
University ARROW Repository. From this repository it will be automatically harvested by
ANDS for Research Data Australia.
We report the positive responses from researchers, presenting their affirmations of the
future benefits of making research data accessible for re-use. The poster also highlights the
perspectives of library staff seconded to the project on data management as an emerging
area of librarianship and the involvement of a broader group of librarians from a variety of
disciplines. Working on such a project has offered a new professional development
opportunity and has been a way to gain further insight into the practices and needs of the
researchers.
I think it is a really
good idea to make
data collections public
- will be interested to
see whether the data
is used in the future …
I felt a little defensive
but as I saw things,
the benefit of
participating in the
interview far
outweighed my
discomfort.
Tracking spreadsheets
Project team members attending the conference can talk about the different roles of
interviewer, recorder and researcher during the interview, and how the pilot interviews have
informed the second phase of the project.
http://www.researchdata.monash.edu.au/collections-project/toolkit/index.html
Interview template
The Toolkit includes:
Interview workflows
Pre-interview contact
Pre-interview preparation
Post-interview
Spreadsheet template
Interview template
Data entry form
The enthusiasm
of the
researchers for
their projects and
their research
data is inspiring.
I hadn't thought about
other forms of data, such
as the soundbytes, as
useful data before, just
my aggregated
information. It was
interesting to see that my
data was useful and
appreciated too ... one
often feels baseline
research work re
datasets is of little value
to anyone.
Researchers’
comments on
the interview
I couldn’t think
of a better
project that
you are doing.
In retrospect it would have
been terrific to sit me down
at the beginning and say
“Let’s talk through your
project and the data you will
be collecting, this you may
encounter ….” and this
would have been incredibly
useful for me. It may not
have changed that many
things, but it would definitely
have clarified my
processes.
Data entry form
Interviewers’
comments on
the process
ARROW Repository
Describe
Emailing the researcher with
some background information
around the Data Collections
Project and its aims regarding
data and making a collection
record has been invaluable
together with clarifying that we
are not asking them to
necessarily 'share' data but
share the metadata regarding
the data and its accessibility.
The interview
template gave
structure to the
interview and to
creation of the
collection
records.
Interview
http://www.researchdata.monash.edu/collections-project
Data Interview Toolkit
I like the idea
of making my
data more
publicly
available – it
makes my data
more valid.
We are usually too busy to think
about how our data might be reused at the end of a project. It
would be good if every
researcher who received an ARC
funded grant attended a session
or received an email passing on
the information you passed on to
me. It would be good to discuss
all the issues around data
management at the beginning of
a project.
Ethics in relation to
access is an issue
which researchers have
raised early in the
interview. Once the
interviewer explains that
access to data can be
mediated and does not
have to be publicly
available the researcher
is reassured.
Research Data Australia
Register
Some researchers have
indicated that the questions
we have asked have been
helpful in prompting them
to think about issues they
may have otherwise not
thought of.
Project acknowledgement
This project is supported by the Australian National Data Service
(ANDS) through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure
Strategy Program, as well as through the Monash University
Library.
http://www.ands.org.au/