Engaging Researchers With Research Data: What Works?

• Remote Registration Link: https://aarnet.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEtduuqrT8uJVO_x7uiwhTNhUfZNqUqIg
• Collaborative Notes Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d0xoB_F-P8RAYDi-1jFs0xhA49GCHPmgp4yl...

Other important links:

• Join the mailing list: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/engaging-researchers-data-ig
• Join the Group's Slack workspace: https://join.slack.com/t/rdaengagingre-spd8367/shared_invite/zt-d59dlb5z-9SObEJdlZeJk0zRK5dHn7w

The objective of this meeting is to begin the work of the Engaging Researchers With Research Data Interest Group. The draft charter for the group has been already submitted for the official RDA review. In the meantime, because the group is not yet formalised, this session is submitted as another Birds of a Feather. If the group becomes endorsed by RDA before the P15 meeting, we would like to change this meeting from a Birds of a Feather session to the first official meeting of the Interest Group.

Many interesting initiatives are utilised by research institutions around the world to effectively engage with their research communities about research data. However, typically the only way to learn about these activities is to either attend a conference where a speaker explains their initiative, or to already know someone who is engaged in that type of work. Relying on these opportunities to exchange good practice disadvantages those who cannot attend conferences, and those who are just starting with research data management and don’t yet have established connections. Our group addresses these problems by providing a network facilitating discussions and exchanging good practice, focusing on how to effectively engage with researchers about research data and developing resources to help various research organisations increase their researcher engagement. A great example of the latter is the “Engaging Researchers with Data Management: The Cookbook” which was produced in the context of our informal group activities. 

During the P15 meeting, we will have an initial short presentation on the work done so far by the informal group, and we will create task groups to start working on several new deliverables:

• Research engagement toolkit for low income countries

• Toolkit for researchers: how to engage librarians with data management

• Guidelines for what NOT to do when trying to engage with researchers

• Podcasts describing existing case studies

• Toolkits for how to get started for selected case studies

• Compelling arguments to convince researchers about the benefits of data management

• Interview questions to convince researchers about the benefits of data management