I began my role as a new Research Data Librarian with Laupus Health Sciences Library in June 2024. This position requires me to work with researchers, clinicians, and other healthcare professionals on managing and curating research data. This job is incredibly interesting and rewarding, as I will not only contribute to the research projects by supporting the research lifecycle, but also educate and train researchers and students on data management practices, tools, and technologies. However, it is also a challenging role, because data management and sharing (DMS) activities are relatively new not only to researchers but also to data professionals and librarians. The evolving landscape, driven by emerging technologies like AI and the principles of open science, adds complexity to our work.
The RDAP Summit provided an excellent platform for professionals engaged in DMS to share their achievements, challenges, and concerns while learning from one another. I gained valuable insights from the presentations which covered a range of DMS practices and strategies.
Elizabeth McCall’s talk "We’re New, Want to Talk?": Conducting a Listening Tour as the First Step in RDM Outreach" was particularly relevant to me. She shared her experience as a new librarian reaching out to researchers, promoting data services, and building relationships with patrons – an invaluable perspective for someone new to a data services role like me.
Unlike other library reference services, data services require specialized expertise in data management and strong institutional collaboration. Libraries must partner with multiple stakeholders to effectively support researchers in managing their data needs. On-campus collaborators may include IT offices that oversee research computing and central and collegiate research offices. Many speakers in the session Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration and Partnerships emphasized that collaborations and partnerships could strengthen data services. However, effective partnerships require mutual understanding. Deb McCaffrey et al. in their talk "Send it away, or put it on display? How to talk with research computing staff" highlighted the different perspectives and terminologies used by data service providers and computing professionals. Their insights will help us develop strategies for fostering stronger collaborations with campus partners.
Chelsea McCracken and Ruby MacDougall shared their findings from interviews conducted at 29 institutions, highlighting researchers' needs in data services. Many of the concerns they identified, such as data custody, data size challenges, lack of awareness of library data services, are common at my university as well. Their recommendations for enhancing collaboration among data service partners were particularly useful.
At my institution, we are recently planning to host an institutional data repository. Andrzej Rutkowski et al.’s presentation, "Building Resilience in Research Data Services: Establishing a Dataverse Instance at USC," provided practical guidance on identifying key partners for such a project and fostering engagement throughout implementation. What’s more, Bryan Gee’s presentation, "Development of an Open, Automated Workflow for Gaining Bibliometric Insights Into University Research Data Publishing," and Claire Warner’s talk, "Developing a Dataset Catalog for the University of Alabama at Birmingham," offered valuable insights on tracking data/harvesting metadata from multiple repositories and ensuring data curation and reproducibility.
I also greatly appreciated both the opening keynote and closing keynote. Each provided in-depth discussions on critical issues in data services and offered thought-provoking perspectives. The RDAP Summit has been the most impactful conference I have attended since stepping into my role as a Research Data Librarian. I am deeply grateful to all the speakers for their contributions and for the wealth of knowledge they shared.
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My name is Madiareni Sulaiman, and I serve as a research data librarian at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN Indonesia). I am currently in my third year as a PhD student in Information Studies at UCL, with a focus on Research Data Management (RDM). This is my second time attending the RDAP Summit. Previously, I was a lightning talk speaker, and now I am participating as a scholarship recipient!
This Summit is truly inspiring and has given us food for thought. The term resilience was mostly addressed during the Summit in the context of its sustainability, particularly when a speaker from Invest in Open Infrastructure highlighted that funding issues perpetually recur [“Stronger together: Ecosystem-level approaches to strengthening data sharing infrastructures”]. Regarding that issue, my key takeaway from the "Collaborative Modalities for Data Services Instruction and Outreach" is to continue focusing on iteration and growth. By concentrating on the evolving roles of data librarians, we can better meet the high demand for skills necessary to serve our stakeholders, especially in relation to research data across various disciplines.
In addition, the session that inspired me the most was the "What is "Curation" In a Self-Mediated, Open Repository?". Many researchers rely upon open repositories, with the subject of this session being Open Science Framework (OSF). I had not given it much thought, as I assumed that the generalist repository would typically fall short in curation and quality. However, it seems that we can curate them, although researchers may still need to participate actively. And as an institution, we do not have direct access to the data deposited because it will be done by researchers themselves anyway. But it turns out that as curators, we could facilitate it.
The OSF initiatives aimed at facilitating curators in generalist repositories actually align closely with my interest in RDM collaboration, as they provide data librarians with the opportunity to actively participate in research projects beyond the confines of institutional repositories. The session highlighted the synergy among generalist repository providers, the accountability of researchers, and the role of institutional access in enhancing the FAIR principles of research. The shown dashboard enables institutions to access the metrics report, while curators can efficiently perform their tasks to curate the dataset. During the session, I asked about when this curation might take place and whether it can be done while the data is still active. And the speaker responded that it is feasible, provided the researchers grant access to the dataset as the research project commences.
Greetings, my name is Talisha and I'm a Document Control Librarian at the Air Force Civil Engineering Technical Information Center. This is my second time attending the RDAP Summit as my first time was back in 2023 when I was a library student. I wanted to attend again as librarian and compare my experiences and also see what more I can learn now that I'm an information professional.
This year's summit was impactful. I thought the theme Evolutions in Data Services: Forging Resiliency was important not only due to exploring concepts such as "technical, human, and organizational durability and flexibility" but also due to the current times that we're in. With a hostile administration, rapid disinformation, attacks on libraries and other institutions and book banning, it's essential that information professionals are equipped to face these challenges and changes in research and data service needs.
Though work was busy—mostly due to a potential government shutdown—I was able to attend the Summit all four days. On Monday I attended the workshop "Job Crafting with Purpose: Elevating Wellbeing In Research Data Services." This workshop helped me take a new look at my job and how I view it. The workshop had a workbook which featured exercises that attendees worked on in small groups. These exercises helped me think more about what my duties are and how I view them. I learned that work engagement is a positive work outcome. I also learned that flourishing is the opposite of burnout. A term that I hadn't heard before the workshop is job crafting which is the "proactive process of reshaping your work to create more meaning, fulfillment, and alignment with your strengths and values" which I hope to learn more about.
Tuesday started off with an excellent keynote session that informed me more on what role I as an informational professional can play in maintaining public interest during these tumultuous times. For the remainder of the day I attended the sessions Institutional Policies and Resilience ["The Tenuous Juggle: Navigating Research Needs, Policies, and Institutional Challenges"; "The repository of last resort? Exploring the relevance of institutional data repositories"; "Locating Restricted Data Repositories – Access via Data Use Agreements"; "Unwilling, Unable, Unsafe: Policy to Meet Unusual Sharing Requests"] and Enhancing Repository Practices ["Cultivating a resilient research data stewardship community through sustained dialog"; "Lessons Learned: Looking back on 10 Years of DMP Feedback"; "Domain Repository Not Available: Developing Guidance for Researchers Using Generalist Repositories"; "Automation Through Collaboration: Building Trust Across Teams"] which were informative. Throughout the week I attended sessions that were both informative and fascinating and provided and equipped me with information that I'll use to enhance my skills and assist customers. Thursday's closing keynote [Casey Fiesler’s "When Data Is People: Ethics, Privacy, and Ownership for Research and AI Uses of Public Data"] was also excellent.
Overall I enjoyed this summit and this fulfilled my wish from my 2023 blog post to attend again. I want to continue to be a member of RDAP and attend future summits. I'm grateful to the association for granting me a scholarship and I firmly believe that RDAP is an essential organization that provides resources and insightful discussion for librarians and other information professionals.
My name is Homeyra Banaeefar, and I was privileged to receive a scholarship to attend the RDAP Summit 2025. I am currently an Information Resources Specialist at ICPSR and halfway through obtaining my MLIS from San Jose State University. Notified about RDAP through IASSIST’s email list, I found that the Summit aligns perfectly with my long-term career goals in data librarianship. I am deeply grateful to the sponsors for funding my scholarship, which not only made my participation possible but also underscored the importance of accessibility in professional development.
The RDAP Summit offered a unique platform to connect with many exceptional individuals from the field. While I have attended other conferences such as ALA and SAA, RDAP’s focus on data and its community of like-minded professionals was particularly enriching. The convenience of a virtual conference format allowed me to engage more comfortably and effectively. At the New Members and First-Time Attendees Get-Together, I had the opportunity to meet and converse with some professionals, enriching my network and understanding of the field.
The summit kicked off for me with the "Programming Logic for Non-Programmers" workshop. Although I possess basic Python skills, exploring other programming languages has always piqued my interest. This workshop reinforced that understanding the underlying logic can facilitate the transfer of skills across different programming environments. Another highlight was learning about the DSCPE program, which I believe would significantly enhance my capabilities in data librarianship. Interacting with recent DSCPE graduates and hearing about their capstone projects showed how much librarians can benefit from shared knowledge. I aspire to join this program and contribute to this vibrant learning community. Despite the concurrent scheduling of sessions, the collaborative effort in note-taking by the RDAP community was invaluable. It allowed me to access presentations I could not attend in real-time. Enhancing Repository Practices was one of my favorite sessions, where valuable resources like the "Generalist Repository Comparison Chart," the "Repository Selection Flow Chart," and the "Guide for Including a Generalist Repository in an NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan" were shared. I plan to distribute these resources among my classmates, as they provide essential, straightforward information beneficial for any librarian.
The Summit concluded with a powerful keynote by Casey Fiesler, who focused on ethical best practices in using social media data for research. Her presentation, especially the section on five questions to ask when collecting data, was thought-provoking and emphasized the importance of ethical considerations in research. These insights remind us that thorough preparation and ethical deliberation are crucial before collecting any data and undertaking any research.
In conclusion, the RDAP Summit 2025 was an incredibly rewarding experience that has greatly influenced my professional path in data librarianship. The knowledge gained and the connections made are invaluable assets as I continue my education and career. I look forward to applying these insights and contributing to the field in the future. Thanks again for selecting me as a scholarship recipient and giving me the opportunity to attend this wonderful event.
As a PhD in chemistry, my route to the RDAP Summit was not straightforward. With academic activities in biochemistry and molecular biology, I had a scientist job in a biobank for two years. In early 2024, I joined the Research Service team in the Bernard Becker Medical Library at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis as a senior support scientist. The RDAP 2024 Summit provided me with a quick overview of the field and a networking opportunity. The main benefit was helping me quickly adapt to a new environment. After one year experience as a data management and sharing consultant, as well as a manager of our institutional repository, I gained much deeper appreciation of the various sessions in the RDAP 2025 Summit. Hopefully, the new knowledge will translate into more efficient work.
Without formal librarianship training, it is important for me to know many data service resources. I collected a resource list during the Summit and would like to share it with scientists who recently entered the Research Data Access and Preservation field.
The new RDAP LinkedIn page. One way to support RDAP is to follow the page and share posts with your LinkedIn circle.
The RDAP Discuss listserv. The listserv community is an important resource for information related to data service.
Research Data Alliance (RDA). Joining RDA’s individual membership gives one opportunity to work with others around the world to develop and adopt infrastructure that promotes data-sharing and data-driven research. The RDA-US community has a slack channel for data service-related discussions.
The DataCure slack channel. DataCure is an informal group of librarians and other information professionals whose members have significant roles or responsibilities in providing services in managing or curating research data. This document contains more information about this group. I am happy to help others joining the group.
The Public Interest Corpus is a new project focused on developing large-scale, high-quality AI training data from the world’s libraries and archives to serve the public interest. With the rapid growing interest in AI, this project may become a major resource for publicly available AI training data.
The Digital Library Federation (DLF) has a few working groups that are useful for the data service community. For example, the Metadata Support Group has a slack channel on metadata-related discussions.
The Data Curation Network (DCN) offers annual workshops for data professionals to improve their skills. Travel expenses for workshops may be covered by DCN.
The Data Services Continuing Professional Education (DSCPE) is a program for early-to-mid-career librarians to gain essential skills in data services. The best candidates are within three years of data service-related positions.
I attended two interesting workshops before the main event. The workshop materials are in the following links: Evolving the 3-2-1 backup rule for more resilient data and Programming Logic for Non-Programmers.
Finally, I would like to thank RDAP and the Summit sponsors for the generous scholarship.
My name is Aubrey Jarvis and I am attending Syracuse University online to obtain my Masters of Library and Information Science degree. One of the reasons I am seeking my MLIS degree is because of my passion for archival work primarily related to digital spaces. 2025 marks the near completion of my first year in graduate studies.
When a colleague shared about the RDAP Summit opportunity, I saw an organization that was passionate and mission-oriented about data. In an effort to network with other colleagues and to expand my understanding, I applied for the RDAP 2025 Summit.
While I do not currently have a job in librarianship or data services, I appreciated the opportunity to connect with other colleagues and participate in discussions within the field. I worked as a Technology Director for K-12 schools in Oregon for seven years before I sought my MLIS. Much of what was being discussed actually felt familiar.
Without the scholarship, I wouldn’t have been able to attend this important summit. I wouldn’t have been able to listen to panels, such as Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration and Partnerships regarding collaborative work with researchers, supporting researchers, and strengthening relationships we have with other colleagues. I wouldn’t have been able to learn about the Data Rescue Project and their vital mission of cataloging public data. I wouldn’t have been able to attend the opening keynote that validated our feelings as researchers and reminded me to "focus on focus."
While this conference may have been centered around data access and preservation, the most valuable lesson I took away was that of community. I saw many researchers, archivists, librarians, data scientists, and others coming together in times of crisis to support one another. I saw researchers sharing strategies, waving flags, and detailing road maps. I saw resilience in action surrounded by what matters most: our data and our humanity. Our strength is in our interdependence. I left the conference knowing there were so many doing the work to keep our data safe and that there were a variety of researchers continuing to do excellent work despite the ominous future ahead.
More than likely, I will find a career along these lines of research data, access, and preservation. I look forward to re-joining the RDAP community and attending conferences in the future. Thank you to RDAP, my summit buddy Talisha Harrison, Amy Koshoffer, and those who conducted the New Members and First Time Attendees Get-Together. I felt welcome and I wish you all the best of luck.
Thank you to everyone who filled out the Summit Modality survey and the RDAP 2025 post-conference survey. The Executive Board met after the Summit to review the results and, after consultations with the 2026 RDAP Conference Planning Committee, has decided to hold the RDAP Summit 2026 online. While the Executive Board was really looking forward to seeing everyone in-person in 2026, we have no control over current events and can only respond to the scenario we are in. The biggest contributing factors in our decision were the elimination of institutional professional development funds many RDAP attendees rely on to attend the Summit and the travel safety concerns brought forward by RDAP members. We understand that in-person events are more effective for networking and building community. Therefore, we will be reaching out to regional and international data conferences to explore the possibility of holding RDAP meetups at their in-person conferences. Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to seeing you online at RDAP 2026 or in-person at a future RDAP meetup.
If you have any questions, please send them to the RDAP President email, president@rdapassociation.org.
By: Nina Exner and Megan O’Donnell
On December 12, 2024, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced in the Federal Register that there would be an “Agency Information Collection Activity: Comment Request.” The comment request specifically opened a public comment period about a Draft NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) for 2026 due February 10, 2025.
The PAPPG is a long document that outlines both how to apply for NSF awards and what is expected of those who are awarded NSF grants. Of note to RDAP members, it is where the NSF data management plan (DMP) policy and guidance about public access compliance is documented (although there is also additional information on the NSF website, particularly on directorate-specific pages.).
Nina Exner, (Virginia Commonwealth University), sent the Executive Board an official request for RDAP to respond to the draft as it contained significant changes to data management plan requirements. The Executive Board approved the request in early January and appointed Megan O’Donnell (RDAP Secretary, Iowa State University) and Nina Exner to lead the response task force.
Due to the release of the draft shortly before many of us took holiday leave, there was a tight deadline for assembling the task force, analyzing changes, and drafting comments. However, less than 24-hours after the call for volunteers was sent out we had more volunteers than we could easily organize and capped membership to the first six respondents.
Three sections were identified for response:
Even with this limited scope there was a considerable amount to analyze and comment on as there were some significant and surprising changes to data management and public access requirements. The biggest change was the change of how the DMSP (formally DMP) would be submitted. Instead of a separate document, it would be completed through a web form on the research.gov proposal platform. Some of the sections of the DMSP also showed changes and there was new information about DOIs, how to submit dataset metadata to NSF-PAR, and new metadata and intellectual property issues related to data and data sharing.
We recommend that RDAP members who work with NSF funded research read the yellow-highlighted text of pages 70, 71, 185, and 187 of the draft. While not final, the draft provides insight into where and how DMP/DMSPs and public access requirements are likely to change.
A copy of the comment RDAP submitted to NSF is available through the RDAP OSF archive.
Thank you to all of the commenters that gave us input and insights through Slack and email, to the RDAP executive board officers, and to our stellar task force! Because of the holidays we ended up with a quite short timeframe to do the work and we appreciate every bit of insight and effort contributed.
The task force members who drafted RDAP’s comment are:
Nina Exner (co-lead)
Association members can request an official association response by contacting the Executive Board. More information about this can be found on the Advocacy Request page.
Hi RDAP members,
As we enter another year, we are grateful to our colleagues and fellow RDAP members who continue to put in the work to better our professional community and the world around us. An example of such work is the RDAP Digitally Accessible Data and Data Repositories Working Group, which is now up and running. Meetings started in November 2024, and the group anticipates working for 12 months as it moves toward final dissemination of its results later this year. As a reminder, the group is charged with summarizing relevant ADA rules, current knowledge and the state of the field on accessibility of repositories and data; and proposing best practices for creating actually accessible research data to assist institutions in complying with ADA. The group as a whole can be contacted at access-wg@rdapassociation.org. Learn more about this working group and other action committees and task forces.
We hope you enjoy this first RDAP newsletter of the new year and we look forward to seeing you all (virtually) in March at the 2025 RDAP Summit!
Happy New Year from the RDAP Executive Board! Wishing you all the best for the year ahead.
As the Executive Board wrapped up 2024, we had great discussions with the Library Data Services (LIDS) research team about the transfer of maintenance of this informative dataset to RDAP. The LIDS dataset gives a snapshot of data services offered by libraries at US R1 and R2 institutions and by maintaining the dataset, we’ll be able to expand the institutions included and see the changes in data services over time. We will be looking for volunteers to help with the update after the Summit as part of our regular volunteer recruitment.
The Executive Board has also been reviewing our finances for ways to reduce administrative expenses as we start budgeting for our in-person Summit in 2026. We are also continuing our aim to make sure all RDAP working and archival documents are on the RDAP-owned Google Drive.
The new year brings changes in the wider data landscape as well. The National Science Foundation recently released their new Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) with big changes to the data management and sharing plan section. Thank you to everyone who responded to our call for volunteers to draft a response from the RDAP community which is being organized by Nina Exner and Megan O’Donnell.
If you haven’t already, I would encourage you to check out RDAP’s new website. It looks amazing! Thank you to the Website Committee for all their hard work. Looking forward to seeing many of you at the RDAP Summit in March and the annual business meeting on March 13. A link for the annual business meeting will be sent out to all RDAP members and you are welcome to attend even if you are not able to attend the Summit this year.
The RDAP Executive Board welcomes your input and feedback. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at execboard@rdapassociation.org (or reach out to the President directly at president@rdapassociation.org).
The RDAP Board,
The Turing Way: Towards reproducible, ethical and collaborative research
The Turing Way is an open science, open collaboration, and community-driven project. It is a global community dedicated to making research and data science open, collaborative and ethical for everyone. After five years of existence, The Turing Way has produced several resources in support of open (data) science. You have probably encountered graphics from The Turning Way in presentations over the past several years.They are typically credited as "illustration from Scriberia and the Turing Way Community", such as this example:
The moonshot goal of The Turing Way is to make reproducibility “too easy not to do”. This image was created by Scriberia for The Turing Way community and is used under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3332807
A significant output of this community has been a book, available at https://book.the-turing-way.org/index.html, which provides information for those involved or interested in research on how to make data projects more reproducible and reusable. The Turing Way was developed by a diverse community of contributors in order to make data practices accessible, comprehensible, and effective for as broad an audience as possible.
The Turing Way book is made up of five guides: Reproducible Research, Project Design, Communication, Collaboration and Ethical Research. These guides introduce good practices and improve research habits within data projects. Topics are introduced in accessible language and paired with curated resources encouraging readers to dive deeper into topics of their choice. All the content, including chapters and images, is available under a CC-BY licence, allowing others to reuse these for their own purposes. The Turing Way is designed to be ever-evolving. We embrace a version-controlled workflow, modelling the principles outlined in the book, allowing us to keep track of how data science practices are changing as well as a history of The Turing Way itself.
Our community members and general audience includes, but are not limited to:, undergrad students, PhD researchers, postdocs, software engineers, project leaders, team coordinators, community managers, data stewards, librarians, data science educators, open science practitioners, and more. As of June 2024, The Turing Way community has been joined by more than 1000 members and the handbook has over 6000 monthly users worldwide.
An example of content created by The Turing Way is the chapter on Research Data Management, which includes information on the FAIR principles, data storage and organisation, curation, and sharing. Sections in this chapter have been added since The Turing Way began, and continue to be extended and updated by a wide variety of experts in data management, such as data stewards, researchers, students, community managers, bioinformaticians, research assistants, and librarians.
An illustration about why Research Data Management is important if you want to be able to use the data of research projects. This image was created by Scriberia for The Turing Way community and is used under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3332807
Role of Community in Advancing Practices
Diversity, intersectionality, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are woven into the fabric of The Turing Way community. The community spaces are purposefully created to ensure the involvement of a diverse range of contributors, representing varied interests and applying equitable approaches in addressing them. Contributors from different domains and expertise are welcomed and supported to collaborate under a Code of Conduct, ensuring enjoyable and safe engagement for everyone in the community. Details about how to contribute to the Turing Way works are outlined in the contribution guidelines.
“All contributions are valued in The Turing Way - from fixing a typo to adding new content and sharing examples from your work. Whatever you can do right now, in this moment, is what we need and what we appreciate.” - The Turing Way
The Turing Way is a living book, written collaboratively by a community of learners, educators and practitioners creating something that is better than what each individual could achieve on their own. As of June 2024, The Turing Way book has been co-authored by more than 450 diverse contributors, details for which are available in the Contributors Records.
The Turing Way book serves as a Digital Public Good and has been listed as one by the Digital Public Good Alliance (DPGA) for its alignment with “Sustainable Development Goals 4 (SDG4): Quality Education”. In this context, The Turing Way acts as a high-quality reference and educational material for people at different stages of their learning in data science.
Getting involved
We invite you to explore the book! If you are looking for information on a particular aspect of open (data) science and you cannot find that information in the book, please help to develop it and join the community!
You can join the Slack channel, sign up for the newsletter, or join an upcoming Collaboration Café (regular online co-working call of the community). Please visit the Start Page for more ways to get involved.
Author biography
Esther Plomb is a member of The Turing Way. If there are questions about this article or about The Turing Way, please reach out to her at e.plomp8@gmail.com
Registration is now open for RDAP Summit 2025, which will take place March 11-13, 2025, with workshops on March 10. Workshop descriptions and a detailed schedule for the Summit are available on the event website.
Summit registration is $30 for members/students/those with a financial hardship (please be sure to log in for membership rates) and $40 for non-members. The deadline to register is March 1, 2025.
RDAP Summit is for all who work toward management, access, and preservation of research data. The program includes presentations, lightning talks, panels, keynotes, and workshops. Optional social activities are also offered.
The theme of RDAP Summit 2025 is “Evolutions in Data Services: Forging Resiliency.” The Call for Proposals solicited presentations that explore concepts such as technical, human, and organizational durability and flexibility in response to challenges and changes in research and data service needs. The Call for Proposals is now closed.
If you have any questions about the Summit, please email rdapsummit@rdapassociation.org.
No updates at this time.
RDAP is creating a promotion/tenure dossier archive. This members-only resource will let RDAP members view dossiers from other members to help prepare their own portfolios during the promotion/tenure process. Dossiers will be for member-use only and we request that they not be shared further. At this time, we are calling for submissions of successful promotion/tenure dossiers to the archive. We welcome materials from members in tenured/tenure-track positions as well as non-tenured positions that require submission of a portfolio for promotion and continuing appointment. More information is available through the Resource Hub on the RDAP website.
On January 23, the Education and Resources Committee offered “Accessibly Create & FAIR(ly) Share Visualizations”. In this interactive webinar participants explored strategies to determine the accessibility of a graph, and learned tips for creating accessible graphs. Another opportunity is coming April 22. In the webinar “Mapping your RDM curation skills to historic data: a hands-on introduction to curating analog data,” participants will learn how to critically review historic datasets (both analog and born-digital), how to create adequate metadata to improve discovery and reuse, and what options are available to preserve it for the long-term.
RDAP Webinars are free to attend - register through the RDAP website. If you missed a webinar, past recordings are available to RDAP members through the Resource Hub on the RDAP website.
The Marketing is excited to announce the addition of a new co-chair, Kelly Burns from Purdue University Libraries, and a new committee member, Jocelyn Swick-Jemison from University at Buffalo Libraries.
The Marketing Committee has created a LinkedIn account for RDAP and look forward to engaging with members and potential members there. Please connect with us and share the page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rdap-association/.
Please visit our new membership page, which went live this month! Membership has redesigned this page in collaboration with the Website Committee to better highlight the benefits of active RDAP membership.
We have also been working on highlighting founding members through badges in the directory. Founding members are those who joined during the initial member drive and whose donations helped seed the initial costs of forming an independent organization. Founding members retain the status as long as they maintain membership. If there are current members who believe they should have received a badge, they can get in contact with us via the membership email (membership@rdapassociation.org).
Our next news update has to do with the upcoming RDAP Summit! Are you familiar with our Summit Buddy Program? The Summit Buddy program is a way for participants who are new to RDAP to match with someone who has attended an RDAP Summit before. The Buddy Program is flexible and is a great way to expand one’s network. The RDAP Membership Committee hopes the program makes the Summit more inclusive, approachable, and useful for all participants. While there are no formal expectations for the program, we want Buddies to connect with each other. The time commitment for participating in this program is minimal, roughly 2-3 hours over the course of 2 weeks. Sign-ups are through the Summit registration form. We will begin matching mentors to mentees at the end of February until Summit registration closes (on March 1st).
We are also planning the New Member Event for the Summit. New members are encouraged to join us for trivia, prizes, and a chance to meet leadership. Keep an eye out for the date and time when this event will be held during this year’s Summit.
We are pleased to share that the 2024 RDAP Summit Special Issue is now published. We thank our longstanding partners at the Journal of eScience Librarianship who have made the publication of this seventh (!) issue possible as well as the members of the RDAP Publishing Committee who served as guest editors. You can access the full edition of the 2024 Special Issue on JeSLIB’s website.
Our dedicated Sponsorship Committee has been hard at work reaching out to potential sponsors, including both new organizations and those who have supported us in the past. We're thrilled to report that we're making great strides!
A huge thank you to everyone who has shared ideas for potential new sponsors - your input has been invaluable! If you have more suggestions, please don't hesitate to reach out to the committee at sponsorship@rdapassociation.org.
The Web Committee officially launched the redesign of the RDAP website in mid-December. A major thank you to all the RDAP members who generously provided feedback and suggestions throughout the process, from the initial site architecture review to the final design elements.
The redesign, integrating Bootstrap’s HTML, CSS, and JavaScript framework, allows us to bypass many of the limitations and accessibility issues in the default provider interface. It also enables us to be more flexible and dynamic with how we maintain our content and provides a better structure to introduce new features and member benefits, such as the upcoming Promotion & Tenure documentation.
Do you have feedback on the redesign? Content you found difficult to find? News you’d like us to feature on the homepage? Please get in touch with us via this short feedback form or by emailing webmaster@rdapassociation.org.
Got a member update to share? Members are invited to share recent great things you've done or will be doing! Tell us about your data policy papers! Invite us to your forthcoming data webinars! Send us your updates for our next newsletter (due out late April/early May): https://forms.gle/k2Nuciw1sWvLTQoV9.
February 5/12/19: Data Literacy in Action Webinar Series: From Principles to Practice: Data Literacy in Academic Libraries https://ci.unt.edu/dlcc/webinars/webinar-registration.html
RESCHEDULED February 11, 2025: Join Kristin Briney and Megan O’Donnell for a webinar on “Making Repositories and Data Digitally Accessible.” https://knowledge.figshare.com/webinar/making-repositories-and-data-digitally-accessible
Ashley Jester has joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute as the Director, Research Data and Library Services and Co-Director, MBLWHOI Library
Corey Barber has joined IU Indianapolis University Library Center for Digital Scholarship as a Data Services Librarian
Congratulations to our 2024 RDAP member award winners! These awards celebrate significant contributions to the Association and to the field of research data access and preservation.
As our inaugural “Volunteers of the Year”, we congratulate the following individuals for their exceptional work on various RDAP committees:
Thank you for all you've done and continue to do for RDAP!
“Work of the Year” is awarded to Kristin Briney for The Research Data Management Workbook, a collection of exercises designed to help researchers improve their data management. This work is an excellent example of the significant work that our RDAP members contribute to, and we offer a huge congratulations to Kristin!
We would also like to highlight the Working Group on NIH DMSP Guidance, as an honorable mention.
Thank you to all those who submitted nominations and keep your eyes peeled for the next round of nominations!
