Data Flash: New Year’s Data Resolutions

Posted by Ann Glusker on January 14th, 2019 Posted in: Data Science, News from NLM, News from NNLM, News From NNLM PNR, Technology
Tags: data services, listservs, online courses, professional organizations, research data management

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This Wednesday, the PNR and PSR (so, the whole west coast!) regions of the NNLM are joining forces to offer what promises to be a fantastic webinar, by data guru Margaret Henderson (who literally wrote the—or at least a—book on research data management for librarians).  She will talk about how to get data services started at your institution, after taking one of the many online (and in-person) courses on research data management (RDM) available these days.

But, what if your new year’s resolution is to actually TAKE one of the courses?  Where do you find the one that will work for you?  Or, what if you just want to know more about the RDM scene in general?  This post is for you!  Here are some ideas for finding the right offering for you…

–Get a sense of the issues in the field by reading generally; articles like “Libraries and the Research Data Management Landscape” from CLIR can set the stage (as can Margaret’s book!)

–Consider what your personal goals are, and assess what kind of course would best meet them… Or maybe you want to be networking? Or learning Python? Courses aren’t the thing for every person or goal!

–Look for LibGuides that collect and describe some of the options out there; here’s a good one from Columbia University

–Look at offerings from professional organizations; here is a fabulous list of resources from ACRL

–Look for news and even list-servs that discuss data (the ones from RDAP and IASSIST are good places to start), which will have posts on the latest courses available; or, perhaps, a webliography?

–Look beyond the US—Europe, Canada, Australia, and others have been doing RDM work for even longer than we have, and there are some sophisticated and accessible offerings! Take a look here and here and here…

–Look at offerings within particular academic disciplines (not just explicitly health-related); check out this one from the American Society for Engineering Education!

And, watch this space! You may be aware that the NNLM has offered an intensive RDM 101 course (spring and fall 2018), and RDM 102 is about to begin.  The NLM’s director, Patti Brennan, is data savvy and data focused, so there are sure to be more offerings in the coming years!  I’ll leave you with this recent talk she did, the closing plenary for the Coalition for Networked Information, titled “NLM & NIH Partnership in Accelerating Discovery Through Data”.  Enjoy!