Putting the Fun in Fundamentals: Developing a new course for Health Sciences Research Data Management

Background: Research data management (RDM) is an essential component of data services in health sciences libraries, yet there are scant opportunities to engage with learning and practicing fundamental RDM skills. With more demand for data curation, management, documentation, sharing, and publisher and funder requirements, such as the National Institutes of Health’s Data Management and Sharing Policy, it is clear that education in these areas is essential. Accordingly, there is a growing need for medical librarians to learn the skills needed for a changing data ecosystem centered on data support, policy compliance, sharing, and transparency. This presentation focuses on the development of a new eight-week class for practicing medical librarians interested in learning more about research data management.

Description: A team of data services librarians developed a new eight-week course to teach fundamental concepts in health sciences research data management. The team determined which topics to cover based on their experiences working in research data management and reviewed existing materials to select readings, tutorials, videos, and other resources for the class. They also created discussion prompts and innovative assignments that provided learners with the opportunity to work on common tasks in this area of work, including reviewing an existing data management plan and critiquing a clinical survey instrument’s approach to data collection. One major focus was encouraging learners to connect with their local communities, with one assignment asking them to interview a researcher about their data needs. The class covered a wide range of topics, from the research data lifecycle through reproducibility, open science, data documentation, sharing, and more. Throughout, learners had assistance from course facilitators as well as “community experts,” who are established data services librarians who advised learners on conducting a data interview and producing a final presentation about a research data management topic of their choice. Evaluation included surveys with written feedback from learners, facilitators, and community experts.

Conclusion: More than 100 people applied, 60 were selected, and 44 completed the eight-week course. This shows a strong demand for learning in this area. Learners interacted a great deal during the course, showing a high level of engagement on the course’s discussion boards. Learner feedback was exceptionally positive — some learners are already using materials from the course in their work. The majority “strongly agreed” that the course was “engaging” and “informative.” One response said, “I am getting ready to be the data management lead for my library and the readings, the very relevant homework assignments, the discussions, and prepping for the final project presentation all were very beneficial to me.” Feedback will be considered in future classes.