GMR Funds Innovative Pilot Program to Teach Graduate Students Research Data Management

Posted by Derek Johnson on June 26th, 2018 Posted in: Data Science, Funding, Success Stories, Training
Tags: Data, Data Management, Data Science, Success Stories

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The GMR office is excited to announce that Tina Griffin at the University of Illinois at Chicago has been granted a Research Data Award to develop the Research Data Management Best Practice Implementation Program for Graduate Students in STEM and Health Sciences!

Background:

Today, data management practices by students are largely learned by conforming to the laboratory culture and adopting habits from the environment in which they work. There is no known national mandatory data management training for students. The recent NLM strategic plan (PDF) recognizes the importance of the role of libraries in advancing open science and data management, and many academic libraries are heeding the call by providing research data management education services.

Project Description

This project will pilot a flipped classroom model to present students with appropriate research data management practices in an eight-week intensive program. In this program, the students are expected to engage with the instructional content outside the classroom, while using the in-person classroom time to engage in activities that demonstrate competency and understanding of the content. The 8-week program will cover the following topics:

1. Introduction to Data management principles;
2. Deep Dive – discipline standards, DMP draft;
3. Project map, project narrative starts;
4. Folder structure develops;
5. File naming, table of contents, indexing develop;
6. Templates develop;
7. DMP finalized, project narrative finalized; and
8. Ongoing practice, personal policy developed

The classroom time will be used by the students to systematically develop and holistically integrate these practices in to their research projects. This pilot project is unique in that it addresses both education about data management practices and the integration of best practices into the research workflow in a personalized manner.

Outcomes

The outcome of this pilot may introduce a new method to serve more students in a more effective manner with better long-term adoption of data management best practices. It also begins a longitudinal study to determine how these practices may contribute to successful dissertation/thesis completion and/or how they may prepare students for the workforce.