Delivering Research Data Management Services MOOC: Week 4 Recap

On this penultimate week of our Delivering Research Data Management Services MOOC we covered all things repositories, metadata, and the legal aspects of data sharing.

Each of the modules focused our participants’ attention on how to get the most ‘value’ out of data by considering the most appropriate repositories, metadata standards, and licenses. As well as giving some general background information on each of these aspects of data sharing, and an overview of how repositories gain CoreTrustSeal certification, we sought to develop participants’ skills to give them the tools to be able to answer more specific questions they may be faced with in their work.

Through the use of the Padlet, an interactive noteboard platform, we encouraged participants to engage with exercises on selecting metadata standards, repositories and licenses suited to their needs. To help narrow down the list of possible metadata standards, we pointed toward the RDA Metadata Standards catalogue, which presents metadata standards broken down by discipline and subject area. For repositories, the re3data catalogue tool was recommended for those who needed to identify an appropriate repository, while this License Selector tool allowed participants to find the most appropriate license based on the criteria of their research outputs (including data and related software). 

As ever, we received interesting feedback from participants, particularly on the usability of some of the tools we recommended. There was a general consensus that, though useful, the results that these tools offer need to be supplemented by further research on the most appropriate repositories, metadata standards and licenses to use.

This idea of developing more rounded RDM services will feed into Module 5 this week, where we will focus on developing an RDM roadmap.

Feeling left out? Join us now: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/delivering-research-data-management-services/4  (opens in a new window)