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# Data management terminologies: from challenges to community recommendations

Anne-Sophie Bage, Romain David, Pedro Luiz Pizzigatti Corrêa, Françoise Genova, Giovanni Guerrieri, Liise Lehtsalu, Nektarios Liasko, Bénédicte Madon, Paul Millar, Melanie Nentwich, et al.

► To cite this version:

Anne-Sophie Bage, Romain David, Pedro Luiz Pizzigatti Corrêa, Françoise Genova, Giovanni Guerrieri, et al. Data management terminologies: from challenges to community recommendations. Plenary RDA P25, Oct 2025, Brisbane (AU), Australia., 1 p., 2024. hal-05400140

HAL Id: hal-05400140

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05400140v1

Submitted on 5 Dec 2025

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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INTERNATIONAL
DATA WEEK

13-16 October 2025
Brisbane, Australia

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OSCARS
Open Science Clusters' Action
for Research & Society

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INRAO

## Authors & Contact

Romain David, Anne-Sophie Bage, Pedro Correa, Françoise Genova, Yvan Le Bras, Liise Lehtsalu, Nektarios Liaskos, Bénédicte Madon, Paul Millar, Melanie Nentwich, Alison Specht.

(RDA Professionalising Data Stewardship IG / Sensitive Data IG)

Contact: [romain.david@erinha.eu](mailto:romain.david@erinha.eu)

# Data management terminologies: from challenges to community recommendations

## JOIN THE RDA SESSION!

Contribution to the Paper Sprint & Paper Validation
Assessing the Severity of Terminological Obstacles for a better Quality of Data Management in **your** context

Thursday, 16 October 2025 13:30 – 15:00 AEST

03:30 – 05:00 UTC | 05:30 – 07:00 CET | RDA 25rd Plenary

Meeting Breakout Session 5 | Venue: Plaza Terrace Room

Despite an increase in the availability of proposed definitions for many data ecosystem tasks, there remains an urgent need to harmonise data management terminologies that support FAIR principles and actively improve the quality of data management.

We use a **five-level severity scale** (from minor disruption to research termination), inspired by established risk assessment frameworks (*likelihood × impact*).

The approach **aims to link terminological obstacles** directly to **consequences on projects** such as time, cost, quality, compliance, and reproducibility.

## Session Objectives

This session is structured around **three interactive components**:

1. **Survey (20 – 25 min, Mentimeter/Slido)**

* Participant input on terminological obstacles they have experienced.

* Scores of the severity of obstacles (Levels 1 – 5) in participants' own contexts.

2. **Round Table (15 min)**

* Produce comparable insights across disciplines while capturing local nuance.

* Discuss how obstacles appear across different domains and communities.

* Compare severity ratings across contexts and examples.

3. **Discussion (30 min)**

* Identify stakeholders needed to address specific obstacles.

* Connect challenges to possible mitigation strategies.

* Shape next steps for the collaborative paper and checklist development.

**Wrap-up (5 min):** Summarise findings and explain how they will feed into the P25 paper sprint and future RDA recommendations (**all participants are invited to be co-authors**).

## 5 Levels of Severity
In your specific context (disciplinary / regional / ...)

## A severity level is assigned to each obstacle

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## 9 sources of confusion

### Negligible

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→ **Definition:** The obstacle causes only minor inconvenience (e.g. slight misunderstanding, quickly clarified).

→ **Impact:** Minimal disruption; workflow continues almost unaffected.

→ **Analogy:** Like a typo in a document that does not change its meaning.

### Low

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→ **Definition:** The obstacle introduces some ambiguity or inefficiency, requiring clarification.

→ **Impact:** Small delays, but work progresses without major rework.

→ **Analogy:** A mistranslation in a term that needs checking but doesn't derail a meeting.

### Moderate

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→ **Definition:** The obstacle generates significant confusion or divergent interpretations across roles, disciplines, or languages.

→ **Impact:** Requires discussion and harmonisation; project progress slowed.

→ **Analogy:** Different groups use “archiving” to mean storage vs. preservation, leading to rework.

### High

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→ **Definition:** The obstacle blocks alignment on responsibilities or processes in a critical part of the data lifecycle.

→ **Impact:** Substantial delay, additional cost, or risk to data quality and compliance.

→ **Analogy:** Unclear distinction between “data steward” and “data owner” leads to gaps in accountability for FAIR compliance.

### Critical

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→ **Definition:** The obstacle halts workflows or makes collaboration impossible until resolved.

→ **Impact:** Severe disruption, project risks failure, or results become non-reproducible.

→ **Analogy:** Lexical gaps or conflicting role definitions across infrastructures prevent agreement on data governance.

### Disciplinary divergence

same term, different meanings across fields

### Geographical variation

same term, different meanings across countries/regions

### Idiomatic usage

imported terms with context-specific meanings → ambiguity.

### Adoption barriers

new terms not yet endorsed or widely used by the community.

### Polysemy

one term or concept, multiple meanings → ambiguity.

### Linguistic confusion

multiple terms for the same meaning (synonyms)

### Lexical gaps

concepts without equivalents in the target language.

### Fuzziness

nuanced or evolving terminology → ambiguity.

### Vagueness

unclear meanings (e.g. administrative units differ in name/nature across regions)

Building on Specht et al. (2024)
https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311967

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