The need for data research, data curation/preservation, and data
sharing has emerged at the forefront of research trends. The Association
of College and Research Libraries (also, ACRL) is heeding this call for
data management by carefully investigating, through surveys and other
means, the trends in such data research efforts. Collectively, these
needs of the research community for data is known as Research Data Services (RDS)
The Tenopir article, leads readers to believe
there are several barriers currently existing between university and
colleges' desires to provide RDS to their faculty and students and the
reality of being able to provide such services. Many institutions simply
do not have the funding necessary to provide RDS and the ones receiving
funding have made it a priority to do so. Another barrier is a
dissatisfaction over a lack of consensus with how to best share data!
According
to the article, what is described as only a "few" universities in the
United States and Canada are offering RDS (I Google searched and found
out UW is one of those universities). Libraries/universities receiving
NSF funding are more likely to provide RDS to their students and
faculty. So, money is likely one of the biggest barriers in providing RDS. Another barrier, however, is the nascent state of such data
services--not many best practices and standards exist yet.
One
important aspect of understanding research data services is learning
about the data life cycle. I found this part of the article particularly
helpful in understanding exactly how data management works in each step
of the process. The Data Life Cycle is illustrated on page 12 of the
article and clearly illustrates how data can be managed in a way that
researchers will be able to access it throughout the process. This
illustration also clearly demonstrates the librarians as central to the
data management process.
-E. Anthony
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