News

This post was written by Jenna Courtade, Research Data Management Librarian at University of Miami Libraries as part of her Data Services Continuing Professional Education (DSCPE) capstone which focused on improving RDAP's own data management. 

=== === === === === ===

My name is Jenna Courtade, and I am the Research Data Management Librarian at the University of Miami Libraries. I entered into this new role in February 2025. Prior to this position, I worked as a visiting archivist at the University of Miami’s Architecture Archives. While I continue to find many commonalities between archiving and research data management, it would be a lie to say this transition has not been an adjustment for me. Thankfully I was able to find many wonderful resources to support my continuing education goals during this transition, such as the Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) and the RDAP Summit hosted in March 2025. During the RDAP Summit, I attended a few presentations by people sharing their experiences with something called Data Services Continuing Professional Education (DSCPE). I wrote down this acronym and promised myself I would look into the program. 

I learned that DSCPE is a twelve-week intensive online program designed to equip early- to mid-career librarians with the skills required to deliver essential data services. The program consists of live lectures, online learning modules, and a capstone project in collaboration with a mentor. This was exactly what I needed, so I applied and was accepted into the 2025 DSCPE cohort. A few weeks later, I received my capstone mentor match. Imagine my excitement when I was paired with the very organization that introduced me to the DSCPE program in the first place: RDAP!

Over the twelve weeks, I worked with the members of RDAP’s Executive Board to complete my fifty-hour capstone project. Specifically, I was mentored by President Ali Krzton, President-Elect Abigail Goben, and Secretary Megan O’Donnell. I feel so lucky that I was matched with RDAP and these three wonderful people because not only have I learned about RDAP as an organization, but I have also been able to shadow Ali, Abigail, and Megan at their home institutions (Auburn University, University of Illinois Chicago, and Iowa State University). Their mentorship has allowed me the opportunity to sit in on RDAP Leadership meetings, attend data management consultations and data working group meetings, use DMP Tool for a data management plan review, and learn more about data curation workflows.

In addition to this educational job-shadowing, I have worked closely with Megan on a specific project: improving data management within RDAP itself. I was tasked with helping to reorganize files, folders, and project spaces in use by RDAP for nearly a decade. RDAP's primary challenge is growth and turnover; the organization is entirely volunteer run, and committee membership and leadership frequently changes. The Executive Board also experiences regular turn-over, as the President-Elect/President/Past-President is a three-year commitment and the Treasurer and Secretary each have a two-year term. Another challenge is the sheer amount of people creating and accessing RDAP’s files. Currently, there are eighty-one people who have access to the RDAP “home” drive which is used by the committees. These issues have led to uncoordinated and inconsistent (but not necessarily bad) file management. At the end of this project, I provided a summary of the enhancements made to internal data assets and to create a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) document providing guidance on file naming and organization. The remainder of this post will provide a deeper look into my experience with this aspect of the capstone. 

RDAP uses Google Drive’s shared drive feature for file storage and collaboration. I worked in the “home” drive, which has files shared among RDAP committees, working groups, and taskforces. Within this drive, I primarily cleaned up folder and file names, established naming conventions, and created README files which documented the naming conventions in use. I worked on five of the home drive’s ten parent folders. For each one, I first familiarized myself with the file and folder structure. I opened every file individually to understand its contents. When dates were important, I looked into the file metadata to determine when the file was created or last modified. In the end, I investigated and renamed or rearranged over 150 files within these five folders. I will provide an example of my process using the “RDAP_Bylaws” folder. The top-level folder originally had a sub-folder list like this:

After opening and investigating the files in each folder, it was clear to me that “Bylaws_PastVersions” contained previous versions of the bylaws as well as proposed amendments from multiple years. The other sub-folders also contained materials that could be considered “past versions.” I recommended that we rename the folders and move the files in “Bylaws_PastVersions” into the folders matching the year when they were created. If the original file name contained a date, I confirmed that the file contents matched that date. If the original file name did not include date information, I used the file metadata or the file contents to figure it out. Then, I met with Megan to discuss my suggestions and make adjustments to the plan until we were both satisfied with the changes. In this case, the word “amendments” could be removed from the folder names, as all bylaw changes are done through amendments. The final organizational scheme makes it easy to tell at a glance which years have bylaw changes:

My cleanup work had me constantly thinking about the sustainability of my suggested changes. In my short time as a research data management librarian, I have realized that half the battle in teaching data management best practices and principles is helping researchers establish good habits. With this in mind, I tried to write an SOP that was not overly complicated, demanding, or lengthy. My completed SOP was three pages long and contained three main sections: Preliminary Information, Procedure, and Revision History. 

In the Preliminary Information section, I described the purpose of the SOP; outlined relevant roles and responsibilities as they relate to file naming; and included relevant references and related documents. While describing the roles and responsibilities, I decided to specify that the Secretary would be in charge of maintaining this document in the future. I discovered that this was relevant to the Secretary’s work while browsing the “RDAP_Position_Descriptions” folder, and Megan confirmed this. 

In the Procedure section, I outlined the conventions for file and folder naming as well as how to create standardized README files. I centered the naming conventions around file naming best practices such as adopting the ISO 8601 date and time format. I initially wanted to suggest recording dates at the beginning of the file name, but after considering “good enough” data management, I decided that this was not necessary. Instead I wrote, “Be consistent with where you decide to put the date in the file name, whether at the end or the beginning,” as consistency is more important than requiring the date to be in a specific position in the file name. 

The Revision History section will allow for tracking of changes in the future. While the title page of the SOP will show the version and date last updated at a glance, the Revision History section will allow more room to explain what changes were made, and by whom. Finally, a link to the SOP was added to the onboarding documentation for new committee chairs and to the “how to” overview document within the RDAP home drive.

This capstone has been immensely helpful for me as a new data librarian. Although I have recommended that researchers write an SOP for their labs in the past, I did not have my own experience with the process until this project. I learned that it is more complicated to write a short and succinct SOP than I initially thought. The project as a whole also made me think more about the difficult realities of data management. Even RDAP, a community of knowledgeable research data professionals, has struggled to keep its own files organized and understandable, and forming habits is hard due to regular turnover. The hope is that new documentation, in the form of the SOP and README files, will help whomever comes next.

While writing the SOP for RDAP, I decided to practice “good enough” by asking myself what was minimally required and what could be left to the discretion of RDAP’s volunteers. I hope that taking this “good enough” approach to data management will make it easier to follow the naming conventions in the future. 

Overall, I had a wonderful twelve weeks in the DSCPE program and with my RDAP mentors. I have learned much about the reality of research data management, and I am excited to incorporate this knowledge into my future teaching and research consultations. I also had a fantastic experience with everyone on the RDAP Executive Board and on the Leadership team. I hope to stay involved with RDAP in the future by joining a committee. To any new data librarians looking for additional professional development opportunities, I highly recommend checking out DSCPE!

Announcing Mara Sedlins as the winner of the 2025 RDAP Volunteer of the Year Award, which recognizes an RDAP member who has made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the organization. The award celebrates the efforts of the volunteers whose work is vital to RDAP’s continued success.

Mara Sedlins, PhD., is a Data Management Specialist at Morgan Library in the Colorado State University Libraries. Mara was co-chair of RDAP’s DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism) action committee from 2023-2025, and is currently a member of RDAP’s Library Data Services (LiDS) Dataset Task Force. Congratulations, Mara!

Statement from this year's winner

We asked Mara a few questions via email, to get some perspective on the work she has been doing. Here are her responses. 

Q: What first motivated you to volunteer with RDAP, and what keeps you engaged in the community?

I’ve been involved in RDAP since I began working in data librarianship, attending my first RDAP Summit in 2017 in Seattle. My graduate degree is in social psychology, and RDAP’s learning resources and community have been instrumental in building my expertise in research data management and keeping my knowledge up to date. Eager to give back to the community, I volunteered on the Summit Planning Committee in 2019. More recently, my volunteer activity with the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIA) Action Committee was inspired by attending the first RDAP DEIA Town Hall in 2023. After participating in that discussion, I knew that I wanted to be a part of the newly formed DEIA committee. I had been involved in DEIA efforts at my local institution since 2020, and I was interested in expanding the scope of this work. In particular, as a white, cisgender, able-bodied woman working in a profession dominated by people with the same identities, I have felt a responsibility to use the privilege I have to advocate for a more inclusive profession.

Q: Reflecting back, is there a particular moment, project, or achievement from your volunteer work that feels especially meaningful to you?

I am especially proud of the work that the DEIA Action Committee did to advocate for and organize a DEIA Workshop for RDAP members in 2024. We were able to hire consultants with expertise in DEIA issues in academic libraries and data librarianship who provided a comprehensive training with topics including white supremacy and racism in libraries, identity and positionality, and working with alternative frameworks. The series of three workshops was complemented by smaller meetings with unlearning and accountability partners, where participants had the chance to discuss additional readings and implications for our own work. We also shared insights from the workshop in a panel at the 2024 RDAP Summit. By establishing a common understanding of fundamental DEIA concepts, the workshop set important groundwork for the development of DEIA competencies for data professionals, a key longer-term goal of the action committee. 

Q: How do you hope your service will influence the RDAP community and inspire future volunteers?

After helping to organize and participating in the DEIA Workshop, I created a history and timeline of the committee to onboard new committee volunteers and inform our next goals. I interviewed members of the original DEIA Task Force that had recommended the formation of the committee, aiming to capture institutional knowledge and set up the committee for a continuing vision and commitment to this work across changing committee membership and annual DEIA priorities. I also worked with committee members to expand on a list of learning resources that was crowdsourced by DEIA Workshop participants and prepare it for eventual sharing with the broader RDAP community, and we held a second RDAP DEIA Town Hall in 2025 to discuss future goals and challenges. My hope is that these activities will support the continued prioritization of DEIA perspectives in RDAP’s organizational culture during a difficult time when diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and accessibility need to be centered more than ever.

About this award

The Volunteer of the Year award recognizes an RDAP member who has made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the organization. The award celebrates the efforts of the volunteers whose work is vital to RDAP’s continued success. Learn more about the RDAP Member Awards at https://rdapassociation.org/membership/awards

Hello RDAP Members!

We launched our redesigned website almost a year ago, in December 2024. Now that everyone has had over a year to live with the changes, the web committee is seeking your feedback on the site! We will use this information to guide us in how we approach making future (and hopefully continual) improvements to the site to better serve our members. Please fill out a five minute survey and give us your thoughts.

Through a joint effort of the RDAP Sponsorship and Membership Action Committees, a limited number of scholarships are available to cover registration for the 2026 Virtual Research Data Access & Preservation (RDAP) Summit and RDAP membership for 1 year.

If you are interested in receiving a scholarship, please submit your application by Monday, January 12, 2026 through the online scholarship application form. The application will include a personal statement no longer than 250 words describing a bit about yourself and how attending the Summit will inform your scholarship or practice. Please see the application form for a link to the scoring rubric.

Go to Summit Scholarships to learn more. For questions, contact awards@rdapassociation.org.

On April 24, 2025, Research Data Access and Preservation Association (RDAP) hosted a Data Rescue Hackathon. Facilitated by members from both the Data Rescue Project (DRP) and RDAP, 147 attendees (including data professionals and members of the public) joined in on the event.

While the beginning of the Hackathon focused on the history and mission of the DRP, including information on how to get involved, the bulk of the time spent involved actively rescuing data. Participants were focused on two endeavors: adding much-needed metadata to ICPSR entries and documenting and downloading the data tables from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), a survey distributed by the National Center for Education Statistics.

By the end of the Hackathon, metadata was added to several records for ICPSR, and the NSOPF dataset was fully downloaded and later added into DataLumos. The event was well-received, and RDAP is looking forward to hosting another session June 17, 2025.

Interested in holding your own Hackathon or data rescue programming? Members of the Data Rescue Project put together a toolkit, including templates to promote, organize, and run your own event. If you have any questions about running your own data rescue event, please reach out to datarescueproject@protonmail.com.

I am Natalie Raia, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the College of Information Science at the University of Arizona. My formal training is in geology – I conducted my PhD work at University of Minnesota and my undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin. At University of Arizona, I have moved out of the geochemistry lab and into the realms of social and information science. My research seeks to understand how scientists search for physical samples and data to reuse, and what types of metadata they need to make determinations for reuse. As part of my work, I have served in working groups with Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) and the Research Data Alliance (RDA). It is exciting to see connections between this work and work presented as part of the RDAP 2025 Summit.

From Thomas Padilla’s opening keynote, I found language and concepts that resonated with me. The concept of securing resilience through both centralization and decentralization, and the balancing act required between the two, is something we currently face in the grant-funded earth science repository space. As someone who works on the user-experience side of these databases, and who gets to see translations between front-end and back-end development, the implications of centralization vs. decentralization for user functionality and database complexity, for instance, are wide- ranging, and I found this keynote thought-provoking in these ways. Heather Coates’ presentation on Tuesday [“Cultivating a Resilient Research Data Stewardship Community Through Sustained Dialog”] underscored the time it takes to build (and sustain) research data stewardship communities, and I particularly appreciated the perspectives gained and lessons learned from the work being done by teams at Indiana University to cross silos and facilitate cross-institutional dialog. The positioning (and reality) of data services programs as advocates for researchers in the development of recommendations for institutional leaders that help reduce the burden on researchers is powerful and to me tied back to the theme of the invisible labor it takes to sustain and support data stewardship communities. On Wednesday, I was joyfully introduced to the world of serious play through Kelly Burns’ and Koushiki Pohit’s presentation on RDM-related games and Amber Gallant’s inspiring micro-education program for PhD students. Injecting RDM concepts within an existing curricular structure is a powerful way to embed RDM into the research workflows of the next generation of practitioners. There are many other thought-provoking presentations I learned from over the week, but these are a few highlights.

Overall, my first RDAP Summit experience was a wonderful introduction to the RDAP community. Moving forward from this experience, I am excited by the possibilities for closer ties between organizations such as RDAP and ESIP: organizations grappling with shared data challenges and bringing different sets of stakeholders to the table. I am energized by the work being done by institutional libraries and repositories and the potential for future user-focused collaborations in these spaces. Thank you to the RDAP Association for this scholarship – this opportunity is timely for my career and research endeavors, and I look forward to continued engagement with the RDAP network.

<<Previous Winner || Next Winner>>

My name is Dr. Carl Haynes-Magyar, and I am a newly hired Research Data Librarian. I work in Hilman Library at the University of Pittsburgh. I like to say that my job is interesting because it’s very meta—as a researcher, I ran many experiments and now, as a research data librarian, I get to draw on my knowledge of the research life cycle to provide support and expertise to students, faculty, and researchers in research data management planning, data acquisition, data sharing, and computational research methods. When I found out that I got the job, I immediately started looking for a community and came across the Research Data Access & Preservation (RDAP) discussion listserv which had just posted about the scholarship to attend the Summit.

My experience started with meeting my Summit Buddy, Abigail Goben, for a chat about several things, but what stuck out to me was our conversation about gaps in the research on data management and future ideas for projects. Among other things, Goben pointed out that a "huge area that is poorly understood and explored" is on research data management and undergraduate education. She identified Kristin Partlo as having begun this work over a decade ago but commented that "no one has really looked at it recently". Goben was also clear about things we do not need such as "case studies of unvalidated surveys where 'we interviewed faculty to see what their data management needs are.'" She said, "the answer, now and always will be 'storage' and 'someone else to do it for me for free'.” This was a particularly important discussion given my experience as a researcher and my interest in collaborating with others in the field to research different phenomena of relevance and interest to our community.

One of the presentations I was looking forward to was “Understanding Researcher Needs and Challenges: Findings from a Qualitative Study on Research Data Services,” by researcher Chelsea McCracken and senior analyst Ruby MacDougall at ITHAKA S+R. They set out to explore researchers’ needs, challenges, and experiences across the data lifecycle—from data creation and management to analysis, sharing, and skill development. And they also investigate which campus resources researchers use for data support, where those resources are located, and how researchers perceive and evaluate their effectiveness. Their research resulted in recommendations for universities, libraries, IT and research computing, the research office, and funders. Notably, for funders, one way I thought to expand on this would be to better understand how they evaluate data management and sharing plans (DSMPs) as this has an impact on researchers’ incentive. In particular, the National Science Foundation is moving to a webform for DMSP, so it’ll be interesting to see what training they offer reviewers to increase the rigor with which these are not only assessed but developed and implemented by researchers to ultimately culminate in them sharing their publications and their supporting data as directed by the Nelson Memo.

<<Previous Winner || Next Winner>>

My name is Nikki Galloway, and I am a Research Data Management (RDM) Librarian within the Old Dominion University (ODU) Libraries, in Norfolk, VA. I have been in the full-time RDM librarian position since July 2024. This position is new and was created as library and university priorities and strategies evolve with the research landscape. I am a spring 2024 graduate of the ODU MLIS program and while in the program I worked with the ODU libraries as a graduate assistant and then a part-time RDM specialist in the Scholarly Communication department.

Prior to joining ODU, I completed an M.S. in Earth Sciences: Ocean Mapping and worked for 10 years as a marine geoscientist. The teams I worked on were responsible for processing, compiling, storing, delivering, and archiving the large amounts of data collected. Having participated in those activities, I recognize the transferrable nature of the skills involved, and it is exciting to expand my knowledge to different disciplines and both learn and share best practices around RDM. However, being in a new data librarian position at my institution, in addition to being relatively new to academic librarianship in general, I recognize the need to engage with a broader community. The RDAP Summit has been an ideal venue for this, and the involvement has allowed me to better understand the role of data management in the scholarly ecosystem, how it is evolving, and how I can use this information to best support my community.

It is my intention to help grow and sustain the RDM services the ODU libraries’ provide as well as work to engage with related university partners in meaningful ways to support researchers. Even though I am only a second-time Summit attendee, I have been both impressed and appreciative of the community focus many of the RDAP Summit presentations have, with direct emphasis on the collaborative efforts between people, departments, and institutions. Summit themes for this year that align particularly well with relevant goals in our library include providing timely and relevant resources to researchers, such as the restricted data repositories list [“Locating Restricted Data Repositories - Access via Data Use Agreements”] and GREI resources [“Domain Repository Not Available: Developing Guidance for Researchers Using Generalist Repositories”], exploring the relevance of institutional data repositories [“The Repository of Last Resort? Exploring the Relevance of Institutional Data Repositories”], and integrating RDM in graduate education [“Building Resilient Research Practices: Integrating RDM into Graduate Education”]. Attending the summit has provided tangible support for learning new ideas so I can adapt to the needs of my institution’s RDM services. The RDAP community is welcoming, supportive, and helpful, and it is my intention to continue with and grow my involvement with the Association.

I’d like to extend my gratitude to the RDAP Association, the RDAP Sponsorship and Membership Action Committees, Elsevier, and the RDAP members who made the scholarships possible.

<<Previous Winner || Next Winner>>

I am Mego Franks, a senior library assistant at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and this was my first time attending the RDAP Summit. The theme of building on experience and centering communities was especially poignant for me, as I only work adjacent to and not directly with data services, and I work in a small library. I rely on cross-collaboration with other, more experienced groups and departments at my institution to get our researchers the knowledge and tools they need when our library doesn’t have the capacity to provide that level of service. Communities and relationship building are at the heart of what we do in libraries – and now I know that commitment extends to data services, too.

I started my inaugural RDAP experience with a pre-conference workshop, "Programming Logic for Non-Programmers", which helped me get into a more data-minded mood. The workshop helped me think about how my brain probably works differently than the brains of the researchers I am helping, and how I can "speak their language" and understand their thought processes better to figure out what they really need. This stood out to me because it is a very similar concept to a reference interview, something I do every day, to get to the real question being asked by a patron. I understand now that learning how data is described and accessed, even if I am not using it in my own work, helps me better understand what my patrons need. Working in a medical library, this concept is familiar to me in another way – I may not understand all the terminology being used by doctor or researcher patrons, but I can understand the logic behind it. 

I was already feeling inspired going into the conference proper after that pre-conference workshop; what came next was an awesome explosion of information and community, all from people with the same passion to make research data as accessible as possible. I was pleasantly surprised by the breadth of topics that could be covered under the scope of research data access and preservation. I was happy to see a balance of technical subjects and more people-focused subjects. My goals going into this conference were to learn new skills and areas of education previously unknown to me. I did not expect to be able to contribute much as a "data-adjacent" person, but I found an incredibly engaging, thoughtful community at this conference who valued my input. This, above all else, was really the shining point of the conference theme. People who care about data need and want to build strong communities of practice, with viewpoints from librarians to researchers to data managers and beyond. Everyone can contribute in some way to research data access and preservation.

<<Previous Winner || Next Winner>>

Exploring New Paths at My First RDAP Summit

Attending this year’s RDAP Summit was a meaningful experience for me—both professionally and personally. As the new Data Services Librarian at James Madison University (JMU), this was my first time attending the conference. Thanks to the generous scholarship support, I was able to fully participate as both a poster presenter and a session speaker. It was energizing to not only share my work but also to learn from so many others who are navigating similar questions in data education and research support.

A key takeaway for me was the diversity of teaching approaches shared throughout the conference. Since I’m still fairly new to the field—and especially new to teaching—it was incredibly valuable to hear how others are designing instruction on data literacy, research data management, and repository navigation. These sessions gave me both reassurance and fresh ideas to bring back to JMU.

One of the more unexpected highlights was a session on open science ["Open Science à la Carpentries"]. I hadn’t originally planned to attend it, but I’m grateful I did. I was immediately drawn to the connections between open science principles and the data literacy concepts I already cover in the classroom. It’s made me reconsider how I frame some of those lessons and opened up new ways to talk about research transparency and accessibility with both students and faculty.

Thomas Padilla’s keynote "On Service, Services, and Maintaining the Public Interest" was especially impactful. He grounded his talk in the realities of today’s political landscape and its implications for libraries and higher education. I appreciated the practical steps he outlined for continuing this work amidst these challenges, and I left feeling both inspired and better equipped to support our campus community.

One of the things I most enjoyed about the Summit was being part of a shared presentation session. I was slotted alongside two other speakers whose work closely aligned with mine, and that format created a collaborative atmosphere I hadn’t expected. Other speakers were able to build on my presentation, and together we explored overlapping challenges from different perspectives. It was one of the most affirming and rewarding parts of the experience. And I’d be remiss not to mention the RDAP game night—it was a fun and refreshing way to connect informally with other attendees in a virtual setting!

The conference theme, Evolutions in Data Services: Forging Resiliency, truly came to life throughout the Summit. I felt that emphasis not only in the session content but also in the way attendees supported and engaged with one another. As someone just starting out in this role, I left feeling like I had found a community to grow with.

Many thanks to the RDAP Membership Action Committee for making this opportunity possible—I’m so grateful to have had the chance to attend, contribute, and learn.

<<Previous Winner || Next Winner>>