On 21 Oc­to­ber 2021, the se­cond GO Unite! mee­ting of 2021 took place. 42 par­ti­ci­pan­ts from dif­fe­rent lo­cal, in­sti­tu­tio­nal, and do­main-spe­ci­fic re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment in­sti­tu­ti­ons gathe­red to talk about the ac­ti­vi­ties of the th­ree GO Unite! working groups and to dis­cuss about new com­mon re­qui­re­ments, to­pics and chal­lenges of the community.

Anna Wałek from the Gdańsk Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­no­lo­gy Li­bra­ry ki­cked off the event. She coor­di­na­tes the Po­lish DSCC IN na­tio­nal chap­ter and pro­vi­ded in­sights into the Po­lish RDM land­scape and the ef­forts of the Po­lish DSCC IN chap­ter on data ste­ward­ship. Her en­ga­ging ope­ning ser­ved as a per­fect war­mup for the to­pics of GO Unite!

The three existing working groups of GO UNITE!

1. Con­nec­ting the net­work: Coll­ec­tion of RDM trai­ning events

Sin­ce the last GO Unite! mee­ting in Fe­bru­ary 2021, this working group coll­ec­ted ma­te­ri­al on RDM trai­ning. Be­cau­se of a sub­stan­ti­ve over­lap with other in­itia­ti­ves and net­works, e.g., the spe­cial in­te­rest group on RDM trai­ning wi­thin the DINI/nestor working group on re­se­arch data, GO Unite! is working on an in­te­gra­ti­on of the coll­ec­ted ma­te­ri­als into the on­line coll­ec­tion of DINI/nestor by ad­op­ting the me­ta­da­ta sche­me of the latter.

In ad­di­ti­on, mem­bers of the GO Unite! com­mu­ni­ty are par­ti­ci­pa­ting to a round ta­ble of Ger­man RDM in­itia­ti­ves and working groups in or­der to con­nect the­se net­works and fos­ter in­for­ma­tio­nal ex­ch­an­ge. One of the main goals of this round ta­ble is to im­pro­ve the co­ope­ra­ti­on and coor­di­na­ti­on of Ger­man RDM in­itia­ti­ves and working groups.

In the fu­ture, the working group would like to iden­ti­fy blank spots in data ste­ward­ship de­ve­lo­p­ment and set im­pul­ses for ad­dres­sing new demands.

2. De­ve­lo­p­ment of a re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment de­scrip­ti­on model

In July 2021 the working group or­ga­nis­ed a work­shop for re­pre­sen­ta­ti­ves of RDM in­sti­tu­ti­ons to talk about the pos­si­bi­li­ties of de­ve­lo­ping a com­mon and abs­tract de­scrip­ti­on mo­del for RDM ser­vice struc­tures and re­qui­re­ments. Af­ter five im­pul­se pre­sen­ta­ti­ons on exis­ting ap­proa­ches to the mo­del­ling of RDM, the 36 par­ti­ci­pan­ts dis­cus­sed about the po­ten­ti­al of de­ve­lo­ping a com­mon RDM de­scrip­ti­on mo­del on the ba­sis of ser­vice de­scrip­ti­ons made by the par­ti­ci­pan­ts about their own ser­vice structures.

A re­port on this work­shop is in pre­pa­ra­ti­on. A fol­low-up work­shop will take place in the first half of 2022.

3. In­ter­na­tio­na­li­sa­ti­on

Bes­i­des va­rious events and work­shops to fos­ter the in­ter­na­tio­nal ex­ch­an­ge bet­ween dif­fe­rent DSCC IN na­tio­nal chap­ters, e.g. at the FAIR Fes­ti­val 2021 and at the DSCC IN Work­shop in Oc­to­ber 2021, GO Unite! is try­ing to bring tog­e­ther in­ter­na­tio­nal mem­bers of the DSCC IN and the Ger­man GO Unite! com­mu­ni­ty. A pos­si­ble ap­proach could be the or­ga­ni­sa­ti­on of a data ste­ward­ship sum­mer school with dif­fe­rent par­ti­ci­pan­ts from other DSCC IN chap­ters to bring tog­e­ther va­rious per­spec­ti­ves on spe­ci­fic RDM topics.

Topic Pitches: New Requirements in Data Stewardship

1. Es­tab­li­shing RDM in cur­ri­cu­la at universities

An im­portant fu­ture need is to talk about exis­ting stra­te­gies to es­tab­lish RDM wi­thin cur­ri­cu­la at uni­ver­si­ties. One fo­cus point in this con­text could be to de­ve­lop a con­cept on how to ap­proach pro­fes­sors and rai­se their awa­re­ness for re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment. GO Unite! mem­bers plan to deepen this to­pic in the working group “Con­nec­ting the net­work” and to bring it to the at­ten­ti­on of the spe­cial in­te­rest group on RDM trai­ning wi­thin the DINI/nestor working group on re­se­arch data.

2. Enhance­ment of RDM coun­sel­ling services

An­o­ther re­qui­re­ment GO Unite! li­kes to ad­dress in the fu­ture is the ex­ch­an­ge about com­mon stan­dards on struc­tu­ring coun­sel­ling ser­vices. Cen­tral ques­ti­ons will be: what are best prac­ti­ces for coun­sel­ling ser­vices? Which tools and do­cu­men­ta­ti­on stan­dards can be used to im­pro­ve coun­sel­ling ser­vices? What are good ways to fos­ter the ex­ch­an­ge bet­ween RDM in­sti­tu­ti­ons and researchers?

3. Ethics in research

Ethi­cal ques­ti­ons in re­se­arch, data pro­tec­tion and pri­va­cy are si­gni­fi­cant­ly im­portant for many re­se­ar­chers and re­se­arch ques­ti­ons. Wi­thin GO Unite! the­re are no le­gal pro­fes­sio­nals, but the­re is an op­ti­on to coll­ect the­se ethi­cal and le­gal re­qui­re­ments (e.g. data pro­tec­tion ques­ti­ons) which GO Unite! mem­bers have iden­ti­fied in their dai­ly work. A va­lid goal would be to com­mu­ni­ca­te the­se re­qui­re­ments to in­itia­ti­ves with le­gal ex­per­ti­se so as to in­te­gra­te their work with ex­amp­les and re­qui­re­ments from the RDM community.

4. Di­gi­tal plat­form for RDM experts

The GO Unite! com­mu­ni­ty will start eva­lua­ting the pos­si­bi­li­ties of buil­ding up a di­gi­tal re­gis­ter for spea­k­ers with ex­per­ti­se on RDM to­pics to fos­ter the trans­fer of know­ledge bet­ween in­sti­tu­ti­ons, in­itia­ti­ves and among researchers.

This ar­tic­le was writ­ten by GO Unite! coor­di­na­tors Pa­trick Hel­ling (DCH, Uni Köln) and Mo­ni­ka Lin­ne (Kons­ortSWD), and Anja Busch (GO FAIR, ZBW).