Research Data Management in Social Science Faculties
The Committee on Research Integrity in Research Data Management maintains guidelines outlining best practices and requirements for ensuring the transparency of empirical research carried out in Social & Behavioural Sciences faculties in the Netherlands. The most recent biennial evaluation petitioned the Committee to broaden the scope of its work beyond data storage and reproducibility alone. The SLIPPRS project explores the development of a more comprehensive set of integrity guidelines that cover the entire research lifecycle, and the feasibility of incorporating this into the next iteration of the Guidelines.
Improving alignment between research Integrity measures at Dutch Universities
This project aims to improve the alignment between research integrity measures within Faculties of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FSBS) at Dutch universities, and align open science ideals of making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Employing a combination of qualitative policy and infrastructure analysis, co-creation, community engagement, and a national survey, the project aims to (1) map the current landscape and implementation challenges for research data management (RDM) infrastructure, policy, and practices; (2) initiate new venues for knowledge exchange among researchers and RDM stakeholders; and (3) distil community-driven insights into formal advice to be used in updating the national FSBS guideline on research integrity in research data management.
Surveying the landscape of infrastructures, policies and practices to support research data management
Desk research will be utilised to survey the landscape of infrastructure, policies, and practices currently in place to support research data management. Interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups, primarily with researchers, will be utilised to examine data and software management practices, and the bottlenecks researchers’ encounter as well as their perspectives on how these obstacles might be overcome.
Towards more responsive research data management
Athena will carry out a series of focus groups, understood as organized discussions, among a selected group of individuals with the aim of eliciting information about their views. Our co-creation approach aims not only to understand the ‘system’ at hand by combining multidisciplinary or data-practice perspectives, but also to provide action-oriented knowledge that helps communities contribute to system transformation. Concretely, this means that we will not only draw upon the insights from participants in understanding current challenges and future opportunities for improving the infrastructure and policies supporting research integrity in RDM, but we also aim for focus groups to be a venue for participants to reflect upon their own, and their organizations,’ practices, thus helping to drive deeper individual and community engagement with more responsible – and more ‘responsive’ – RDM.