Thing 18: Data interviews: talk the talk

Overview

Teaching: min
Exercises: min

Questions

• Question 1

Objectives

• Learn and share tips and tricks for responding to data queries and starting a data conversation.

• Discover conversations starters about research data services, or think about how interviews uncover vital information useful for data planning

Getting started: Starting a data conversation

Thing 18 offers a simple way to think about key messages and possible responses that can be used to quickly and succinctly pitch research data management to researchers. The responses can be contextualized to suit what is available at your organization.

Starting the Conversation

1. Start by scrolling to the very last link on the bottom of this page and either open the PDF or download the Word version of the What’s my pitch? document
2. If you can, fill in the gaps in the document with your institutional services. If you don’t know the answer to some, see if you can find out. The result will be your own version of the toolkit.

Conversation Starters

Consider: What are some ideas you may have for conversation starters?

Learn more: Tools for data interviews

Option 1: Interviews to collect metadata

Imagine you are asked to gather information to complete a metadata record for either data which will be created as a result of a project or for existing data at the end of a project where the data now must be published.

1. Work through the steps in Interviewing researchers toolkit from Monash University
2. Assess the value of this toolkit. Compare it to other interview toolkits you may know of or have used.

Option 2: Interviews which explore data management practice

The Data Curation Profiles Toolkit, developed by Purdue University in the US, is meant to help launch discussions between librarians, archivists, IT professionals, data managers, and others, and researchers, in order to aid in the planning of data services that directly address the needs of researchers.

1. Start with the Data Curation Profiles Toolkit overview
2. Have a look at the description of one of the most popular Data Curation Profiles which has been downloaded nearly 500 times: History / Sustainable Development - Purdue University. Note the citation and DOI for this Profile.
3. Click on the Download button to see the actual questions asked/not discussed and the answers. It is fascinating to see the strengths and gaps in the data management skills of the researcher.
   • If you have time: Browse over the 4 documents which make up the Data Curation Profiles Toolkit. Together, they provide a step-by-step guide for creating a Data Curation Profile like the one you have just looked at.
4. Choose 1 question where the researcher did not know how to respond. What you would do to support the researcher with this concept?

Challenge me: Data Curation Profiles in depth

A Data Curation Profile is a resource for people who want information about the specific data generated and used in research areas and how that may be published, shared, and preserved for re-use. Research projects increasingly use a range of tools, instruments and software. This activity considers what questions you would need to ask and what options you could offer to include information about tools, software etc in a metadata record or website where reuse is dependent on software. Note: if you aren’t familiar with the Data Curation Profile tools, you may wish to skim over the Learn more Option 2 activity before you start this one.

Option 1: Geophysics and Seismology / Structural Geology and Neotectonics

This data curation profile covers a data set generated from research on plate tectonics. The data management needs centre around data sharing, connecting the data to publications, and making the data discoverable.

1. Go to Section 3.2 (p4) and Section 9 - Tools (pp8-9)
2. Note the information at the end of Section 9 to potential users about what compute will be needed to be able to investigate or reuse this data
3. Given the data owners want this data to be open, what would you need to include in the metadata record to ensure reuse of the data was possible?

Option 2: Sociology / Demographics

The management needs of this data set involves both visualisation and ongoing contribution by the general public and other researchers.

1. Go to Section 9 of this Data Curation Profile
2. Note the stated priorities:

   “If this data were hosted in an external data repository, it would be a high priority to be able to continue to use visualization tools such as Google Maps and Google Charts. The ability to annotate or comment on the data set was a lesser (medium) priority; possible uses would include knowing when a user reports that more recent data is available elsewhere. 3.What options could you offer the researcher to achieve their high and medium priorities? If you can’t offer advice, how could you find a potential solution?

Key Points

• First key point.