Node: ELIXIR Norway
Authors: Federico Bianchini, data steward and deputy training coordinator
Topics: Existing work, Gaps to action
Link services to needs that researchers already recognise. This can make data management support easier to understand and use.
It is oftentimes extremely challenging to push for cultural changes in the way research is conducted, especially when the research community does not see an immediate value in using the services offered. One way to address this is to offer a service as a direct solution to one of the obligations researchers have to fulfil as part of their job.
We present here the case of ELIXIR Norway and the Data Stewardship Wizard as an example. The Research Council of Norway (RCN) requires Data Management Plans for all projects that have been approved. Such a document is to be submitted shortly after acceptance and has to be compliant with the Common Standard endorsed by the Research Data Alliance (RDA).
Shortly after these requirements were introduced, ELIXIR Norway started advertising for practical workshops to create DMPs that conform to the aforementioned standard. These workshops were very successful among life scientists and contributed to spreading the usage of the Data Stewardship Wizard (DSW) across the country. Our national instance now has more than 750 active users and over 1000 projects (DMPs).
The workshop also helped to push more generally various crucial concepts of data management, including the usage of standards and controlled terminology, and the importance of data submission to relevant domain repositories.
Further resources
| Category | Resource | Description |
|---|---|---|
| External resource | RDA DMP Common Standard | A common, machine-actionable data model for Data Management Plans, from the Research Data Alliance. |