The data researchers and scholars collect in the course of their work are the stuff of discoveries and breakthroughs, leading to new or deeper insights.

But how that information is stored and shared hasn’t been will thought out, leading to data getting lost in the system, being unavailable to the wider research community or even violating basic principles such as research participant confidentiality.

To that end, the Research and Scholarship Policy Committee is calling for faculty members to join its Research Data Management (RDM) Strategy Working Group. The working group will draft an institutional strategy for Brock to build capacity in all aspects of RDM.

“To ensure a robust and relevant strategy applicable across all Faculties, the working group needs diversity in representation of research experience on the Working Group, in terms of methodologies, data formats, and disciplinary cultures regarding data sharing,” says Associate University Librarian Nicole Nolan.

She says the Working Group will begin during the winter term and run for about one year.

This builds on efforts by the federal government to put in place a national strategy to ensure the efficient and ethical storage and use of data.

Portage Network, Canada’s national organization for RDM, describes a Research Data Management strategy as improving institutional capacity to support researchers in the management of research data and adhere to the emerging federal government policy requirements.

The specific objectives of this policy are to:

• promote research excellence within the university and research community through the adoption of good data management practices
• support institutions in evaluating their current capacity in the area of RDM
• identify what changes are needed in order to comply with funder policies and other RDM requirements
• define a roadmap to develop institutional capacity for research data stewardship
• ensure research data storage, retention, and availability for access and reuse, where appropriate.

If you are interested in joining the working group, please contact Nicole Nolan at nnolan@brocku.ca by Friday, Dec. 18 at noon, with a brief statement indicating your knowledge of RDM and the type(s) of data and methodologies you work with, such as numerical data & quantitative analysis, video & mixed methods, climate measurements & geospatial analysis, among others.