News

I am currently a student at the University of Alberta, and I am in my second year of the Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) program. In the Fall, I took a course on database design for information management and became really interested in this area. This pushed me to want to learn more and informed my attendance at the RDAP Summit. The skills and knowledge I gained at the Summit will help me as I work towards completing my MLIS. For example, Ruby MacDougall’s talk, “Connecting the Links: Helping Humanities Researchers Use the Digital Infrastructure,” inspired me to investigate digital humanities courses at my institution that I can take as part of my degree. Before her talk, I had never even considered taking a digital humanities course. I thought that the data quality checking guide that Wei Zakharov presented in her talk, “Student Inclusion as Co-Creators to Develop a Data Quality Checking Guide,” was very interesting and it is something I hope to utilize as I continue to work through my program.

One of my favorite parts of the Summit was Dominique David-Chavez’s opening keynote. It really emphasized to me the importance of Indigenous communities being involved in any research about them. Indigenous people have always been data stewards and it is important that we recognize Indigenous intellectual property. I left the talk wanting to learn more about Indigenous data sovereignty, especially here in Canada, and have already started exploring the First Nations Information Governance Centre website.

The Summit exposed me to new ideas and ways of thinking, and I can also use it as an experiential artifact. At the end of my program, I need to complete a capping project and provide artifacts that show I have met the Program Level Learning Outcomes. One of those outcomes is “Professional Engagement” and attending this Summit is one way I can demonstrate this.

I really enjoyed how the Summit was online. As someone who works full-time and has two young children, the virtual format made it more accessible for me to attend. I was hoping to participate in some social activities and network more, however, my youngest daughter was sick (story of my life lately) so that kept me busy outside of conference sessions. Overall though my first Summit was a great experience. I left feeling motivated and inspired, and I hope to return next year.

Attending the 2023 RDAP Summit was an informative and rewarding experience. I am grateful to be chosen as a scholarship recipient and to get the opportunity to meet so many diverse people in the data and information fields. I attended only a couple of presentations for the full duration. One of the sessions that I attended was “Communication Skills for Data & Information Science Professionals” facilitated by Christopher Eaker. Professor Eaker’s presentation made an emphasis on effectively communicating. He broke down the presentation into three parts:

• Communicating with a Purpose
• Communicating about Problems
• Communicating about Complexity

The topic of purpose Professor Eaker emphasized getting to know the audience. Whether you are making introductions for the first time or meeting people you have met in the past, the point is to establish a familiarity so that sharing your ideas and interests is more acceptable. Once your audience is open and engaged with your presentation, providing resources of information, materials, or processes would be a bit easier to present and put into context. This session was an excellent presentation on how to explain complex topics to a wide variety of people.

I got a chance to attend Malik Redwood’s presentation “Python for Quantitative Research” which was an introduction to how Python was used for quantitative research along with programming Python tutorials. Malik’s presentation defined the differences between quantitative and qualitative analysis. In his presentation, he defined what descriptive data was used for determining mean, median, and mode along with how inferential data is used to determine correlations or regressions using quantitative methods. The most rewarding part of the presentation was going through the tutorials on coding challenges as a group. The tutorials were a great addition to the presentation which provided insights on how to use Python to provide quantitative analysis.

The RDAP Summit has been a fun and rewarding experience for me. The communication session I attended helped me better understand how to break the ice with introductions which should relax the audience and it should help me become a better presenter. I enjoyed the Python sessions because of the tutorials that I can go over later in the summer for practice. The most surprising thing about the summit was meeting so many interesting people working in different fields of industry and learning how data can be and should be used. I plan to attend the summit next year and hopefully attend more sessions.

Michael Rozier, Master of Science in Information Management student, University of Washington

My name is Rachel Austin, and I am currently a student at the University of Southern Mississippi. I am working towards my Master of Library and Information Science and a certificate in archives. I have become increasingly interested in data and wanted to learn more about how to work with it in the library field. I am so glad to have gotten the opportunity to attend the RDAP summit this year because now I feel confident that I would like to explore research data positions as a librarian in the future!

The first skill I was able to learn at the summit was Python. The Introduction to Python workshop was very informative and allowed me to gain a new skill. I learned how to use the code to present data in various ways. During the remainder of the summit, I learned about the research data field and what professionals were accomplishing. This really inspired me to network with fellow professionals, which Whova made very easy. I was able to put myself out there and share my experiences and qualifications with others. I also saw who around me were professionals in the field and what opportunities were available.

One speaker I felt very inspired by was Amy Neeser. As an aspiring librarian, Amy showed me the wide world of research data in academic libraries. Amy spoke about how we can make the field more accessible and open to everyone. This gave me ideas of how to be a great leader in the field and the progress that we can make to involve everyone and hold diversity and inclusion as a top priority. This presentation inspired me to do similar work and made me excited for my future profession.

The summit has helped me grow as an early career professional. I have gained skills by attending workshops and hearing from other professionals. This will help me find opportunities in the research and data field. It allowed me to explore my interests that will help me reach my career goals. I look forward to contributing to RDAP in the future and attending the summit next year.

The Research Data Access and Preservation Association (RDAP) Summit 2023 was a huge success, with attendees from various academic institutes, research centers, and respective industries. The event brought together researchers, data managers, librarians, and other experts to discuss the latest trends in this field.

The key theme of this summit was “Building on Experience: Centering Communities in Data Creation and Access” which beautifully addresses inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) emphasizing the importance of including all voices and perspectives in the creation and use of data. When communities are centered on data creation and access, it ensures that the data reflects the diversity of the people it is meant to represent. This can help to improve the quality of the data and make it more useful for decision-making. Additionally, centering communities can help to build trust and relationships between data users and the communities they serve. There is no doubt that centering communities in data creation and access is an important way to promote IDEA and create a more inclusive and equitable society.

These are some of my takeaways from the sessions like repositories, teaching, outreach, and research data management ecosystem:

• Approach to design responsible conduct of research training;

• Data quality and various pertinent elements;

• The different aspects of building a reliable data repository;

• How librarians at a range of institutions are helping a specific discipline like humanities navigate the digital infrastructure by building stronger ties with their respective scientists; and

• Implement a mentorship program and build scalable analytical tools to facilitate research engagement with web archives with scholars.

I found the closing note very informative and insightful, especially in showing the steps to getting from a librarian to a research data advisor and combining data and computing. Moreover, this was my first time attending a virtual poster display which I found productive. The platform was Whova, an all-in-one event management platform that creates engaging and interactive events like this.

This summit provided a wealth of information and resources that will be helpful to all professionals engaging in this field. My gratitude goes to the RDAP for organizing such a successful event. This is a wonderful opportunity for me to attend this year, and I really appreciate it.

Greetings, my name is Talisha, and I am an MLIS student at San Jose State University and a Library Public Services Assistant of 11 years at an academic library located in Central Florida.  A few years ago, I started learning about data science and data librarianship. While I was conducting my own research on these topics, I learned about RDAP, so when the organization announced their annual RDAP Summit, I wanted to attend. 

As someone who is new to RDAP, I signed up for the RDAP Summit Buddy Program and was paired with a great mentor. We spoke via Zoom ahead of the summit and had a great discussion on various aspects of librarianship and we are going to continue to stay in touch. I recommend new members to sign up for the program when they get a chance. 

I attended each day of the summit and had the opportunity to attend two of the workshops that occurred on Monday before the summit officially kicked off. The two workshops I attended were “Communication Skills for Data and Information Science Professionals” and “What if It [Didn’t] Happen: Data Management and Avoiding Research Misconduct.” Both were very informative and insightful. I also liked that we were able to break out into smaller groups and interact with other attendees. 

Throughout the summit, I found myself learning about new things regarding data science and data librarianship. I will say that because I am still a newbie on these topics, there were many times where I was not fully understanding the terminology being discussed, but aside from that, I did enjoy the sessions I attended. It was hard to pick a session because of my curiosity regarding the topics presented, but I did appreciate that for most of the sessions, slides were available for almost each presentation. 

One of the sessions that I found enjoyable was the “Social: New Members and First-Time Attendees” session. It was helpful in explaining more about RDAP and there was a game portion of the session which was fun! In every session, the presenters did an excellent job of conveying the information that they wanted to share with us. They were very passionate about what they were doing and even answered the many questions that came their way effectively. One speaker that I was inspired by was the opening keynote speaker Dominique David-Chavez-who spoke on “Indigenous Ethics and Data Stewardship: Enhancing Protocol, Policy, and Practice for Our Shared Data Futures” - as she was passionate about her work.

Overall, I enjoyed the RDAP Summit, and I would like to attend next year. It was an excellent experience and it got me more interested in learning more about data science and data librarianship. I encourage RDAP members to attend. 

The deadline for both RDAP Executive Board nominations and action committee volunteers this year is April 14, 2023.

Please consider running for a position on the Executive Board! The Treasurer and President-Elect positions are open this year. You can access the nomination form here.

RDAP is also looking for volunteers to serve on - and in some cases, chair - one of our several action committees. Indicate your willingness to serve and your preferences by filling out the volunteer form.

You must be a member of RDAP to run for a position or volunteer on an action committee. You can check your membership status on the RDAP website (under your member profile), or you can join today.

If you have any questions about the RDAP elections or volunteer recruitment process, please email our current President-Elect, Rachel Woodbrook, at woodbr@umich.edu. 

The Research and Data Access and Preservation Association applauds the OSTP and the proposals put forward in the 8-25-2022 Office of Science and Technology Policy Nelson Memo to ensure immediate and free access to federally funded research outputs. RDAP has long advocated for free access to research output including data, and this memo is a needed step towards developing national policies that promote this access. The memo leaves out many details on how to accomplish the goals set in the memo, particularly with regard to needed infrastructure and metadata standards to achieve FAIR data. For example, currently there is not a national repository infrastructure to host all of the data generated through federal funding. Research data information professionals at many research institutions can advise on writing data management plans, using institutional repositories or finding other repositories, identifying metadata schema or enriching metadata, and much more. The many members of RDAP stand ready to assist researchers in complying with funder mandates that result from this memo. We hope that the national conversation continues in this direction of this memo toward an open research culture of excellence.

The 2022 RDAP Summit was a phenomenal and informative experience for me. I was truly honored and surprised to have been chosen as one of the scholarship recipients and sought to learn as much as possible from this event. As a newer librarian who has become immersed in the Research Data Services (RDS) team at my university, I was truly intrigued by the various data-related initiatives that many institutions were implementing, and I fully intend to bring some of these ideas to my team as inspiration for our growing services. I attended nearly every talk I could, so I will speak on the few that touched on areas that affect my role on the RDS team.

I was truly impressed by the UC Berkeley Data Lab, headed by our Keynote speaker Claudia von Vacano. The Data Lab gave graduate students an opportunity to grow professionally in the data space. Students were able to develop programming skills and technical skills, both of which are very important when performing quantitative and even some qualitative research. Providing students with that type of training upon graduation is a fantastic way to prepare students for the job market, which is becoming inundated with a need for those with data-related skills such as these. This is an initiative which is like what our RDS team has tried to implement, but now we have somewhat of a blueprint to follow. What a wonderful talk that was! There was also a talk on the Data Fellows at Florida State University, which had similar threads to this talk. The fellows would be mostly graduate students, though there were also undergraduate fellows, and they would co-teach workshops, man the data ‘Ask Us’ service, perform Love Data Week outreach and then work on those projects throughout the semester. We (our RDS team) are always engaged in thinking about how to engage our students in a data-related capacity, and these two talks had me brimming with ideas!

There was a fascinating talk where researchers were to fill out a questionnaire on what data they wanted to use for research purposes and what potential risks data sharing may have. Then, those researchers would receive tips on how to avoid this. Our RDS team works closely with the Office of Grants and Research at our institution and would benefit highly from a form/questionnaire such as this. I was thinking that this form (or some iteration of this form) could also give the RDS team an idea of the training, workshops, and resources we need to provide to ensure researchers are given an easier avenue to follow proper protocol when doing research.

As the Data Visualization specialist on our RDS team, the one talk that sparked my personal interest was from Negeen Aghassibake who spoke on the "Best Practices to Inclusive Practices." Though I understand the mechanics of data visualization tools, this talk really opened my eyes beyond the technicalities and exposed me to the many ways that data visualization can be inclusive, but also non-inclusive if one is not careful and cognizant about visualization decisions being made. The solutions provided were very helpful, and I intend to incorporate some, if not all, of these practices into my work.

Overall, RDAP Summit 2022 was a success! I was so engaged throughout and was #1 for engagement! I met a lot of wonderful people and am now collaborating on a study with 3 other individuals from institutions I may not have communicated with otherwise. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at this summit, and I cannot wait for the next one!

As a statistics student and data fellow at Florida State University, not only is this the first RDAP conference I have ever attended, but RDAP 2022 was my first experience with any data conference. I was eager to learn some new things and expand my horizons as an aspiring statistician. While I am part of the LGBTQ community, it’s not a topic that would have struck me as notable for my professional development and career. I am not used to being addressed within the sphere of data analysis outside of the rare times where another researcher has considered inclusive survey design or times where LGBTQ+ data is the specific topic of a study. So, I was interested in what the theme of “Envisioning an Inclusive Data Future” would look like in practice with my personal goal for RDAP: gathering as many resources as possible to implement at FSU.

One resource from RDAP 2022 that stuck with me is the book “Queer Data” by Dr. Kevin Guyan. I did expect LGBTQ+ data inclusive data futures — however, I was pleasantly surprised with how extensive this reference was. RDAP 2022 has been the first time I have seen something about LGBTQ+ data beyond a small footnote, and I would like to hope that an inclusive data future includes LGBTQ+ statisticians like myself who can step in and provide context for the data that impacts our lives.

Another resource that stuck with me was the website littlesis.org. Some of the work I do for my data fellowship in FSU Libraries involves work with data visualization and advocating for data literacy. Hence, the fact that Little Sis breaks down complex data and turns it into effective data visualizations for the general public is interesting. Additionally, the data that Little Sis works with deals with information that is relevant to populations that are different from me; namely, they have data visualizations on topics such as corporations that impact immigration rights and racial justice. Hence, I found it to be extremely important for making a more inclusive data future and seems like a way to introduce as many different marginalized groups as possible to data.

One last resource that stuck out to me was the WAVE browser extension (https://wave.webaim.org/extension/) in the context of accessibility of academic databases. This was a resource I found interesting from the perspective of someone who is able-bodied but values inclusivity. When thinking about accessibility of resources, it made me think back to the accessibility of FSU Libraries research databases, and how that might be a useful tool for future work on our diversity and inclusion efforts.

In conclusion, I would like to say that RDAP’s theme of “Envisioning an Inclusive Data Future” was surprisingly refreshing and informative. Not only did the conference provide me with the confidence to think of myself as included as an LGBTQ person in the field of statistics, but it also illuminated ways to include other groups that are also historically under-represented in the field.

Open research data sharing is like a double edge knife. It has a lot of features and benefits of transparency and collaboration. However, it may bring other issues of ownership, license, and other trust challenges. Many scientists are divided over the pros and cons of open research data. I had those thoughts when I decided to come to the RDAP Summit 2022. RDAP Summit 2022 is my first conference that has focused on research data management (RDM). I’m currently in the process of writing my dissertation on open research data in health sciences research. Therefore, an event like RDAP Summit 2022 helps me to understand research data management, open data, and data sharing in various fields. RDAP Summit 2022 presented the dynamics of open research data in various environments. RDAP Summit 2022 was not only about serious discussions, however, but also loaded with some social and games events to make the event more fun and enjoyable.     

From the very beginning, the RDAP summit 2022 hooked the audience and me with interesting talks and presentations. RDAP Summit 2022 is a single-track summit with some parallel sessions. On day 1, I joined the workshop “Workshop 1: Open Science Data Curation, Preservation, and Access by Libraries.” This workshop guided us on how to use the Internet Archive, which is a very easy-to-use platform for archiving and sharing data.     

On the second day of RDAP Summit 2022 I found the first session interesting, learning about capacity building and skills needed for data professionals. I appreciated the new member event, where new members can join and have a chance to know RDAP better. This was useful to me since I’m new to the Summit, and I got to know the people behind RDAP, the committee, and other professionals and scholars who have similar interests as mine. We also played some games and quizzes about many things. Even though I was lost, it was super fun!     

The third day of the summit was packed with even more interesting talks and discussions. The presentation was full of new interesting info and knowledge. The sessions were fruitful for me as I can learn a lot from experienced presenters who were doing a great job sharing that knowledge with the audience. All presentations in the second session Track A (Woodbrook, Wood, Hahn, and Loera) left me with the good impression that data management is also about community. How libraries support communities and individuals whom they served. The poster sessions are also as interesting as finished study presentations. The other sessions on the third day are also about increasing and expanding access to minority and bigger-scope audiences.     

The fourth day is the last day of the RDAP Summit 2022. It starts with a social event to let participants get to know each other better with light everyday topics. The session was followed by the second poster session. This is where I learned a lot from one of the poster presenters, Andrew McKenna-Fosterone’s presentation of “State of Open Data 2021: Focus on Motivations for Sharing and Credibility of Open Data.” This study helps me with what is going on with open data, which is related to my dissertation study. The last session was the talk discussing the need for data support services.    

I can’t believe the RDAP Summit 2022 ended so fast. I learned a lot from the presenters. Next time I go to the RDAP Summit, I would like to present as an author of a paper or as a poster sharing my ideas, thoughts, and even publications.