Policy needs to go hand in hand with practice

Policy needs to go hand in hand with practice: The learning and listening approach to data management

Cruz, Maria (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Dintzner, N.J.R. (TU Delft Management Support)
Dunning, Alastair (TU Delft Research Data Services)
Kuil, Annemiek van der (Universiteit Utrecht)
Plomp, E. (TU Delft Management Support)
Teperek, M. (TU Delft Research Data Services)
Türkyilmaz-van der Velden, Y. (TU Delft Management Support; TU Delft 3mE General)
Versteeg, A.M.C. (TU Delft Library Policy and Relations Coordination)

2019

In this paper, we explain our strategy for developing research data management policies at TU Delft. Policies can be important drivers for research institutions in the implementation of good data management practices. As Rans and Jones note (Rans and Jones 2013), " Policies provide clarity of purpose and may help in the framing of roles, responsibilities and requisite actions. They also legitimise making the case for investment”. However, policy development often tends to place the researchers in a passive position, while they are the ones managing research data on a daily basis. Therefore, at TU Delft, we have taken an alternative approach: a policy needs to go hand in hand with practice. The policy development was initiated by the Research Data Services at TU Delft Library, but as the process continued, other stakeholders, such as legal and IT departments, got involved. Finally, the faculty-based Data Stewards have played a key role in leading the consultations with the research community that led to the development of the faculty-specific policies. This allows for disciplinary differences to be reflected in the policies and to create a closer connection between policies and day-to-day research practice. Our primary intention was to keep researchers and research practices at the centre of our strategy for data management. We did not want to introduce and mandate requirements before adequate infrastructure and professional support were available to our research community and before our researchers were themselves willing to discuss formalisation of data management practices. This paper describes the key steps taken and the most important decisions made during the development of RDM policies at TU Delft.

Code
Data archive
Data champions
Data repository
Data stewardship
Open science
Policy
Policy development
Policy implementation
RDM
Research data management
TU Delft

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ece5c5a2-7413-4a93-bfd9-72f93aa669c7

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-045

Data Science Journal, 18 (1)

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2019 Maria Cruz, N.J.R. Dintzner, Alastair Dunning, Annemiek van der Kuil, E. Plomp, M. Teperek, Y. Türkyilmaz-van der Velden, A.M.C. Versteeg