Data Management And Archives – Where Do We Go From Here?
Creators: name: Stam, Alexandra
name: Marmier, Auriane
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Education and training: How effective is current training in delivering knowledge and skills?
Education and training: What are established best practices in educating and training these groups?
data archives, social sciences, Open Research data; Data management training
data archives
social sciences
Open research data
data management training
Lightning Talks

description: Notions of the importance of openness, transparency, and data sharing for the betterment of science have been around for decades, and data archives have been significant players in promoting such notions within research institutions and different scientific communities. To fulfil their mission of preserving and disseminating high-quality data, and in the absence of the needed skills for data sharing among researchers, archives often took on a lead role in training researchers in relevant aspects of data management. For instance, at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, FORS, we have since our founding in 2008 maintained our national data archive as well as provided trainings, guides, and consultations in data management for the community of social science researchers in Switzerland.

However, with the rapid acceleration of the open data movement in the last decade or so, the role of archives regarding data management has begun to change. Policy changes among funders and journals have led to new pressures on researchers to comply with data sharing requirements. This has meant for archives an increase in submissions and workload, often with new and challenging data types (e.g., sensitive data). So, the related intensified needs of researchers in data management present challenges to archives with limited resources in this regard. At FORS, we have recognised that the current demand far outweighs our capacity to provide the needed trainings and advice. This may only amplify in the future with new initiatives whereby universities may move towards giving formal credit to researchers for data sharing for hiring and promotion purposes.

Fortunately, in recent years research institutions have begun to step up efforts to support researchers in relation to the data sharing requirements, specifically by way of data stewards and data librarians within their institutions, as well as intensified and broadened trainings in data management. Also, it is not inconceivable that data management will gradually become part of the core curriculum in graduate programs for researchers across disciplines.

For this lightning talk, we will briefly present how FORS has been involved in the provision of data management training over the last years according to researchers needs and the evolving open research data landscape. We will then look ahead, and address the question of the role that data archives should play in advancing open research data in the future, specifically with respect to data management. If institutions continue to invest in data stewards, data management trainings, and support services, what should be the nature of the relationship between archives and these institutional services? If data management is at some point fully covered within research institutions, how should resources be reallocated within archives? What should archives do in addition to facilitate the acquisition and sharing of high-quality data? We have some ideas on this and will open discussion on the question “Where do we go from here?”.