Research Data Management Training Workshops

In 2018, Isak van der Walt and Johann van Wyk implemented a Research Data Management Readiness Training Toolkit, which consists of two streams of workshops. The first stream consists of workshops focusing on the fundamentals of Research Data Management (RDM) and is geared at all library staff and support staff and researchers.

The first workshop in this stream gives an overview of what RDM is and what has been done with regard to RDM at the University of Pretoria. The second workshop gives an overview of the University of Pretoria RDM policy and the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders. The third workshop consists of a hands-on session on Data Management plans and a session on jargon busting. The second stream of workshops consists of workshops focusing on the essentials of RDM. These workshops are geared at information specialists, cataloguers and researchers. Topics covered in these workshops include: data citation, metadata standards, data repositories, organising data, copyright, ethics, licensing of data, intellectual property, and data preservation.

The first stream of workshops started on 7 May 2018 and was spread over a two-month period with two sessions per week. Attendance was voluntary, and staff could decide which of these two sessions per week they wanted to attend. These workshops were attended by library staff (including staff from circulation, technical services, other library support staff, information assistants, and information specialists), as well as staff from the Department of Research Innovation (DRI). These workshops were then repeated by request. 54 staff members attended the first workshop, 47 the second workshop, and 42 the third workshop. Afterwards these sessions were also presented to staff at the Gordon Institute for Business (GIBS), by request. To determine the success of these workshops, a Digital Scholarship Survey was sent to staff before these sessions, and a second survey was sent to staff after attendance. The survey showed that these sessions were quite successful in equipping staff with a basic knowledge of what RDM is.

Narrated PowerPoint presentations of these workshops were also recorded and uploaded onto the Digital Scholarship Centre Website where people can re-visit the content. To see these presentations click here!

The second stream of workshops focusing on the essentials of RDM will be conducted in 2019. A third stream is also planned that will consist of data intensive workshops.

Below is an illustration of the RDM Readiness Training Toolkit and its planned three streams: