Hi 

Kevin's answers align exactly with my experience of the range of responses, both at the local institutional level (Leicester), and in my evidence gathering role across the many institutions funded through the Jisc Managing Research Data Programme. 

At Leicester we have an RDM Working Party that reports to a university Research Computing Management Group committee chaired by our Pro VC for Research. The Working Party comprises representatives from IT Services (where this work was pioneered and to date has been led through academic liaison roles), Library (now playing an increasing role as longer term preservation and reuse has to be addressed cf. active data storage), Research Support Office and Academic Practice Unit re training, dissemination etc. The individuals on the (now) 5 person WP are seconded from those divisions. The model adopted will vary considerably depending on available expertise of course too. The WP has successfully coordinated the online guidance at http://www.le.ac.uk/researchdata with links to both external and internal resources. It has also overseen the development of a Roadmap and research council specific guidance as well as informing future plans to address the area. 

Our experience is you really do need an individual or two to coordinate this activity in dedicated time and this has been externally funded at Leicester until now through the IT liaison roles. We haven't yet won the case for additional institutional investment over and above the (unfortunately only) fractions of time made available from each division. This is a common story nationally but far sighted institutions such as Bristol (but also smaller, less well resourced universities including Lincoln and Herts) are certainly now going further and providing additional investment. They will surely reap the benefits in coming years...

Cheers
Jonathan

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Dr Jonathan Tedds                                            Tel: +44 (0)116 229 7780

Senior Research Fellow,                                                  (0)779 504 6277

D2K Data to Knowledge (Health Sciences),                               @jtedds

PI, Biomedical Research Infrastructure Software Service (#BRISSKit)  

PI, Peer REview for Publication & Accreditation

of Research Data in the Earth sciences (#PREPARDE)
Astronomical Surveys & e-Research (Physics & Astronomy)
University of Leicester                                             
Leicester LE1 7RH, UK                                           Email: [log in to unmask]              
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On 1 Aug 2013, at 12:39, "Kevin Ashley" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Lawrence,

The DCC has been running a series of in-depth engagements with various
universities and providing support to the Jisc MRD programmes, so can give you
some reflections based on our experience of the sector. See below for responses,
which are based on collective experience rather than being my particular
view.

Our recent how to guide on developing RDM services may be of interest. We're
developing a series of case studies around this too, see:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/developing-rdm-services

We're also embarking on a series of shorter '121' engagements in which we offer
to support small, defined packages of work (e.g. helping unis to develop an RDM
policy, scoping infrastructure development for RCUK compliance, delivering
training events etc). If you would like DCC support as you begin to develop your
approach to RDM, please just drop us a line on [log in to unmask]


1. Do you have a research data manager or research data management team?

Many universities have a broad based RDM steering group, so there is generally
some awareness and participation from a variety of services within the uni and
key research champions. In terms of actually kickstarting work and delivering
services though, you may find that responsibility falls to one or two main
individuals. This if often research support librarians or repository managers.
Research offices and IT liaison staff lead in some cases too though.

In some of the larger unis that have progressed further on RDM, a small team is
working on this together. Some have employed people full-time to co-ordinate
work on RDM (e.g. Sheffield and Cardiff) and others have made business cases to
employ a small team of staff (e.g. Bristol and Edinburgh).This won't always be
new recruitment though. Various people will do a greater proportion of RDM work
as part of their existing roles.

The most common practice is to have an RDM steering group with broad
representation and one or two staff responsible / leading on RDM. These may be
full-time co-ordination roles or part of existing jobs. RDM teams are still
quite rare, though many are working towards that. 'Research data manager'
is a job title that you might often encounter in some research groups but isn't
commonly used for a post that's about university-wide services.

2. Where is the research data manager or research data management team based
(e.g. within the library? The research office?)

We've found that in the majority of cases it's based in the library. IT play a
key role though as researchers think to approach them about storage and the
research office too as they're the first point of contact when DMPs are put in
with grant applications. Wherever the individual/team is based, participation
and collaboration from others is crucial. Also, leadership on the issue doesn't
always come from the place where the team is based - Research Offices are
a close second to libraries in terms of organisational leadership for research
data but the staff to do the work are less likely to be based there.

3. If you have a research data management team, how many staff are included
in it?

Where there are teams it's usually about 5 people.

4. a) Is your research data manager or research data management team
employed
on a full-time permanent basis?

Where it's part of an existing post it's a fraction of time, but where people
have managed to secure funding and recruit it's often at least one full-time
position. From recollection I think the posts are often fixed for 2-3 years to
develop services though rather than permanent.

b) If you answered 'no' to Q3a, under what terms is your research data
manager
or research data management team employed (e.g. 2 year contract)?

Fixed-term contracts seem to prevail due to the nature of the work being about
developing pilot services.

5. Was the appointment of your research data manager or research data
management team made from existing, internal staff - or did you hire staff
externally?

Again, this is quite mixed but quite a few universities seem to be recruiting
externally of late.

6. How long did it take you to transition your research data management
project to a full service offered by your institution (e.g. did the project
which implemented relevant systems & procedures last 2 years)?

I imagine most people would still describe themselves as being at the pilot
stage, even the likes of Edinburgh, Oxford, Southampton and Bristol that have
made lots of headway on supporting RDM. The development project could easily
last 2 years, if not more.

--
Kevin Ashley. Director, Digital Curation Centre         http://www.dcc.ac.uk/
E: [log in to unmask]   @kevingashley      http://slideshare.net/kevinashley
T: +44 131 651 3823    P: DCC, Appleton Tower, Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9LE
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