Thing 18: Data interviews: talk the talk

Learn some tips and tricks for responding to data queries and starting a data conversation.

  • Getting started: asking the essential questions to create metadata records, or find out about research data needs
  • Learn more: conversations starters about research data services, or think about how interviews uncover vital information useful for data planning
  • Challenge me: in depth interviews reveal the extent to which data reuse is dependent on tools and software - what’s your advice?

Getting started

Starting a data conversation

This thing offers a simple way to think about key messages and possible responses that can be used to quickly and succinctly pitch research data management to researchers. The responses can be contextualised to suit what is available at your organisation.

  1. Start by scrolling to the very last link on the bottom of this page and either open the PDF or download the Word version of the “What’s my pitch?” document.
  2. If you can, fill in the gaps in the document with your institutional services. If you don’t know the answer to some, see if you can find out. The result will be your own version of the toolkit.

Consider: what are some ideas you may have for conversation starters?

Learn more

Tools for data interviews

Option 1: Interviews to collect metadata

Imagine you are asked to gather information to complete a metadata record for either data which will be created as a result of a project or for existing data at the end of a project where the data now must be published.

Consider: the value of this toolkit. Compare it to other interview toolkits you know.

Option 2: Interviews which explore data management practice

The Data Curation Profiles Toolkit, developed by Purdue University in the US, is a resource to help launch discussions between librarians, archivists, IT professionals, data managers, researchers and others, to aid in the planning of data services that meet the needs of researchers.

  1. Start by reading the Data Curation Profiles overview
  2. Then have a look at the description of one of the most popular Data Curation Profiles which has been downloaded over 1000 times: History / Sustainable Development - Purdue University. Note the citation and DOI for this Profile.
  3. Click on the Download button to see the actual questions asked / not discussed and the answers. It is fascinating to see the strengths and gaps in the data management skills of the researcher.

If you have time: Browse over the four documents which make up the Data Curation Profiles Toolkit. Together, they provide a step-by-step guide for creating a Data Curation Profile like the one you have just looked at.

Consider: choose one question where the researcher did not know how to respond. What would you do to support the researcher with this concept?

Challenge me

Data Curation Profiles in depth

A ‘Data Curation Profile’ is a resource for people who want information about the specific data generated and used in research areas and how that may be published, shared, and preserved for reuse. Research projects increasingly use a range of tools, instruments and software. This activity considers what questions you would need to ask, and what options you could offer, to include information about tools, software etc in a metadata record or website where reuse is dependent on software.

Option 1: Geophysics and Seismology / Structural Geology and Neotectonics

This Data Curation Profile covers a data set generated from research on plate tectonics. The data management needs centre around data sharing, connecting the data to publications, and making the data discoverable.

  1. Open this Geophysics and Seismology/Structural Geology and Neotectonics Data Curation Profile
  2. Note the data formats and file sizes in the data table in Section 3.2 (page 4) and the tools used to generate the data in Section 9 (pages 8-9)
  3. Note the information to potential users at the end of Section 9 about what compute will be needed to be able to investigate or reuse this data.

Consider: given the data owners want this data to be open, what would you need to include in the metadata to ensure reuse of the data was possible?

Option 2: Sociology / Demographics

Section 9 of this Sociology / Demographics Data Curation Profile states that:

“If this data were hosted in an external data repository, it would be a high priority to be able to continue to use visualization tools such as Google Maps and Google Charts. The ability to annotate or comment on the data set was a lesser (medium) priority; possible uses would include knowing when a user reports that more recent data is available elsewhere.”

Consider: what options could you offer the researcher to achieve their high and medium priorities? If you can’t offer advice, how could you find a potential solution?

Do you have a question? Want to share a resource?

Keep on going to the next thing: Exploring APIs and Apps or return to all the things