The University of Queensland is one of 25 Australian universities coming together to develop a framework to bring consistency to the management of research data across the university sector.
The universities answered a call in 2020 to be part of ARDC’s Institutional Underpinnings program, to develop, test and validate a nationally-agreed framework for research data management (RDM).
The program aims to increase Australian universities’ capability in RDM and encourage collective problem-solving and alignment across the sector.
ARDC, manager and coordinator of the national program, is co-investing $65,000 in each participating university to encourage broad coverage of and collaboration within the sector.
At UQ, RCC is steering the project alongside UQ Library and the UQ Research Data Manager (UQRDM) team.
RCC Director Professor David Abramson said UQ’s main goal in joining the national program is to better understand data deletion rules. “It’s going to be a problem for us [UQ] — we are capturing more and more data and have no clear policy guidelines for how to constrain the cost,” he said.
Nichola Burton, the ARDC Program Manager for the Institutional Underpinnings program, acknowledged that “good research data management is hard”.
“It requires investment, effort and culture change. It’s a constantly evolving problem and each university [has been] trying to solve it by themselves,” she said.
Having a nationally-agreed framework will streamline the creation of national data assets and make collaboration between universities easier. Achieving these aims will also bring systematic improvements in research integrity and data reuse, she said.
As well as some universities “drowning under data”, Nichola said another driving factor for change is the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research, jointly developed by the ARC, NHMRC and Universities Australia, which researchers are required to abide by if they receive grant funding from those bodies. “The 2018 Code is specific around research data management infrastructure [for the institution] and those requirements are only going to get stronger.”
As well as the growing burden of storage, data poses challenges in terms of the management of access and sensitivity, and the need to make decisions about long-term retention and disposal.
The framework will describe the principles underlying good RDM; the policies, procedures, infrastructure and services required; and the decisions about data that must be made during the lifecycle of the data.
It will help universities with long-term planning, with identifying and internally coordinating required services, and with building a case for investment.
It will be technology-agnostic and not prescriptive. “It’s about policy, procedure and decision-making around infrastructure rather than the technology infrastructure. For example, it will not be specific about storage or repository systems but if you need a solution for storing data [it will say], these are the factors you should consider,” said Nichola.
While all members of the Group of Eight have signed up for the program, Nichola stressed that the goal is to uplift capability across all Australian universities.
“The framework should help each university’s strategic view of which parts of their organisation need to be working together [on this]. And if all universities are working from the same playbook, we will have more cohesion and opportunity for collaboration across the sector.”
Ultimately, the universities will own it, said Nichola. “The framework will be developed by and owned by the institutions. ARDC is providing a forum and structure for cohesiveness across the sector.”
This article is largely based on an ARDC article published on 24 March 2021.
