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>>