Research data management policies in USA, UK and Australia universities: An online survey
Main Article Content
Abstract
There has been an increase in demand for research data management (RDM) policies to improve the quality of research data however, there is no clear-cut policy content to guide the process. The purpose of this study is to identify the existing RDM policies. Specifically, the study compares and differentiates the RDM policies in three developed nations (USA, UK and Australia) to ascertain how the policies vary. The RDM policies of 100 universities from the three countries, that are present online were retrieved and content analysis approach using NVivo and SPSS were performed. The results from the analysis revealed that the common underlying facts of the policies were found in the areas of access, retention, sharing, storage and ownership. All the universities share the same core values in the management of their research. They exhibit that Data Management Plan (DMP) is essential. The study concluded that the differences in the data management are mostly issues of focus areas. More so, there is no fixed retention period for research data. To resolve the few differences identified, common criteria for data management is proposed for policy considerations to ensure compliance. Finding from the study is significant to developing countries as it adds to the discourse on data management policies. The study will also enable policy makers in developing countries to draw empirical evidence from the developed world on RDM and this will form a basis for policy direction.
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Liu, G., Zotoo, I. K., & Su, W. (2020). Research data management policies in USA, UK and Australia universities: An online survey. Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science, 25(2), 21–42. https://doi.org/10.22452/mjlis.vol25no2.2
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Akers, K.G., Sferdean, F.C., Nicholls, N/H. and Green. J.A. 2014. Building support for research data management: Biographies of eight research universities. International Journal of Digital Curation, Vol. 9, no. 2: 171-191. Available at: DOI: https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v9i2.327.
Asher, A., Deards, K., Esteva, M., Halbert, M., Jahnke, L., Jordan, C., Keralis, S.D.C., Kulasekaran, S.S., Moen, W.E. and Stark, S. 2013. Research data management: Principles, practices, and prospects. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources.
Blahous, B., Gorraiz, J., Gumpenberger,C., Lehner, O. and Ulrych, U. 2016. Data policies in journals under scrutiny: Their strength, scope and impact. Bibliometrie-Praxis und Forschung, Band 5: 1-16. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5283/bpf.269..
Brown, R.A., Wolski, M. and Richardson, J. 2015. Developing new skills for research support librarians. The Australian Library Journal, Vol. 64, no. 3: 224-234.
Corti, L., Van den Eynden, V., Bishop, L. and Woollard, M. 2014. Managing and sharing research data: A guide to good practice. 2nd. ed. Sage Publishing.
Cox, A.M. and Pinfield, S. 2014. Research data management and libraries: Current activities and future priorities. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Vol. 46, no. 4:299-316.
Cox, A.M. and Tam, W.W.T. 2018. A critical analysis of lifecycle models of the research process and research data management. Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 70, no. 2:142-157. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-11-2017-0251
Daraio, C., Lenzerini, M., Leporelli, C., Moed, H.F., Naggar, P., Bonaccorsi, A. and Bartolucci, A. 2016. Data integration for research and innovation policy: An ontology-based data management approach. Scientometrics, Vol. 106, no. 2: 857-871.
Higman, R. and Pinfield, S. 2015. Research data management and openness: The role of data sharing in developing institutional policies and practices. Program: Electronic Library and Information Systems, Vol. 49, no. 4: 364-381.
Hsieh, H.F. and Shannon, S.E. 2005. Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 15, no. 9: 1277-1288.
Keralis, S.D., Stark, S., Halbert, M. and Moen, W.E. 2013. Research Data Management in policy and practice: The DataRes Project. In Research Data Management: Principles, practice, and prospects. Council on Library and Information Resources Publication No. 160, pp. 16-38.
Matusiak, K.K. and Sposito, F.A. 2017. Types of research data management services: An international perspective. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 54, no.1: 754-756.
Moen, W.E. and Halbert, M. 2012. Support for research data management among US academic institutions: Results from a national survey report, January 26, 2012, University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library.
Moles, N. 2015. Data-PE: A framework for evaluating data publication policies at scholarly journals. Data Science Journal, Vol. 13: 192-202. Available at: DOI: http://doi.org/10.2481/dsj.14-047.
Mushi, G.E., Pienaar, H. and van Deventer, M. 2020. Identifying and implementing relevant research data management services for the library at the University of Dodoma, Tanzania. Data Science Journal, Vol.19, no. 1: 1. Available at: DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-001.
Peng, R. D. 2009. Reproducible research and biostatistics. Biostatistics, Vol. 10, no. 3: 405-408.
Ray, J.M. ed., 2014. Research data management: Practical strategies for information professionals: Purdue University Press.
Ribeiro, C., da Silva, J.R., Castro, J.A., Amorim, R.C., Lopes, J.C. and David, G. 2018. Research data management tools and workflows: Experimental work at the University of Porto. IASSIST Quarterly, Vol. 42, no.2: 16-16.
Spichtinger, D., and Siren J. 2017. The development of Research Data Management policies in Horizon 2020. In Kruse, F. and Thestrup, J. (eds.), Research Data Management - A European Perspective. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Saur. Available at: doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110365634.
Steeleworthy, M. 2014. Research data management and the Canadian academic library: An organizational consideration of data management and data stewardship. The Canadian Journal of Library Information Practice and Research. Vol. 9, no.1. Available at: https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v9i1.2990.
Stoltenberg, J. and Parrish, P. (eds.). 2006. Geographic Information Systems and libraries. Library Trends, Vol 55, no, 2. John Hopkins University Press.
Sturges, P., Bamkin, M., Anders, J.H., Hubbard, B., Hussain, A. and Heeley, M. 2015. Research data sharing: Developing a stakeholder‐driven model for journal policies. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 66 no. 12: 2445-2455.
Tammaro, A.M., Matusiak, K., Casarosa, V. and Sposito, F.A. 2018. Practice of Research Data Management: Findings from the IFLA LTR Project. Available at: https://www.ifla.org/files/assets/library-theory-and-research/Projects/open-science-2018-practice-of-research-data-management-final.pdf.
Tenopir, C., Talja, S., Horstmann, W., Late, E., Hughes, D., Pollock, D., Schmidt, B., Baird, L., Sandusky, R. J. and Allard, S. 2017. Research data services in European academic research libraries. Library Quarterly Journal, Vol. 27 no.1: 23-44.
Tripathi, M., Shukla, A. and Sonkar, S.K. 2017. Research Data Management practices in university libraries: A study. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, Vol. 37, no. 6: 417-424.
Van den Eynden, V., Corti, L., Woollard, M., Bishop, L. and Horton, L. 2011. Managing and sharing data: Best practice for researchers. UK Data Archive; Colchester, UK. Available at: www.data-archive.ac.uk/create-manage.
Vardakosta, I. and Kapidakis S. 2016. Geospatial data collection policies, technology and open source in websites of academic libraries worldwide. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 42 no. 4: 319-328.
Viscusi, G., Spahiu, B. Maurino, A. and Batini, C. 2014. Compliance with open government data policies: An empirical assessment of Italian local public administrations. Information Policy, Vol. 19, no. 3/4: 263-275.
Whyte, A. and Tedds, J. 2011. Making the case for research data management. DCC Briefing Papers. Edinburgh: Digital Curation Centre. Available at: https://www.dcc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/publications/Making%20the%20case.pdf.
Williams, M., Bagwell, J. and Zozus, M.N. 2017. Data management plans: The missing perspective. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, Vol. 71: 130-142. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2017.05.004.
Yoon, A. and Teresa Schultz, T. 2017. Research data management services in academic libraries in the US: A content analysis of libraries’ websites. College of Research & Libraries, Vol. 78, no. 7: 920-933. Available at: https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/ view/16788/18345.
Zuiderwijk, A, Helbig,N., Gil-Garcia, J.R and Janssen, M. 2014. Special issue on innovation through open data- A review of the state-of-the-art and an emerging research agenda: Guest editors' introduction. Journal of Theoretical and applied Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 9, no. 2: 1-13.
Zuiderwijk, A. and Janssen. M. 2014. Open data policies, their implementation and impact: A framework for comparison. Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 31, no 1: 17-29.