‘Roles and skills for Research Data Management’ workshop: 3 March 2020

On 3 and 4 March 2020, the Department of Library Services at the University of Pretoria (UP), in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh Library, hosted a workshop with the theme ‘Roles and skills for Research Data Management (RDM)’ on UP’s Groenkloof Campus. The presenter was data librarian Robin Rice, who is the Head of Research Data Support at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of The data librarian’s handbook (2017).

The workshop was attended by UP Library staff members and library and information professionals from across the country, as well as a number of colleagues from Botswana, and the topics that were addressed included concepts relating to research data management, such as the data life cycle, data creation, drivers for RDM, data literacy, FAIR principles, Open Data Licences and data citations; how to map services on to the data life cycle and identify gaps; Data Management Plans (DMPs); data sharing; data protection; and security. Among the other topics covered were the digital preservation and curation of data by using metadata standards, persistent identifiers, digital repositories and interesting concepts such as bitrot, linkrot and the OAIS Reference Model. The participants also completed various practical exercises, which they found very valuable, and each was presented with a certificate of attendance.

The attendees indicated that they had obtained the following valuable skills, which will help them with RDM at their institutions: