Establishing a Research Data Management Service on a Health Sciences Campus

Objective : Given the increasing need for research data management support and education, the Spokane Academic Library at Washington State University (WSU) sought to determine the data management practices, perceptions, and needs of researchers on the WSU Spokane health sciences campus. Methods : A 23-question online survey was distributed to WSU researchers and research support staff through the campus listserv. This online survey addressed data organization, documentation, storage & backup, security, preservation, and sharing, as well as challenges and desired support services. Results : Survey results indicated that there was a clear need for more instruction with regard to data management planning, particularly as data management planning addresses the areas of metadata design, data sharing, data security, and data storage and backup. Conclusions : This needs assessment will direct how RDM services are implemented on the WSU Spokane campus by the Spokane Academic Library (SAL). These services will influence both research data quality and integrity through improved data management practices. The data reveal some interesting inconsistencies in respondent behaviors and attitudes around data sharing. Almost all of the respondents reported having funding from federal sources like the NIH, yet only 38% indicated that they plan to share their data at the conclusion of their research project. This seems to agree with data collected from other RDM needs assessments; Buys and Shaw (2015) found that 34% of the researchers from the school of medicine on their campus share or plan to share their data, and approximately 30% of the medical sciences researchers surveyed by Akers and Doty (2013) planned to share their data. Additionally, when asked how much they agree that it is important to openly share their data with others, 65% of the respondents indicated that they somewhat or strongly agree, which is almost double the percentage of respondents who actually intend to make their data publicly available.