Session 2: Capacity and skills issues

Audio from the session

To downlod the MP3 click here

This session was chaired by Joy Davidson (Digital Curation Centre) and took the form of a brainstorm.

Three main areas were covered. The session began by thinking about the careers of researchers, and discussion centred on how data management can be embedded from the earliest possible opportunity, right across people’s lives (looking at digital literacy from primary school to the skills of experienced data scientists). The fact that data management skills are not seen as important was discussed, with a need for reaching into different disciplines and raising awareness (particularly badging and tailoring training in ways that researchers are likely to recognise and respond to) a recommended response.

The session also discussed the need for a canon of digital curation practice, from which more disciplinary research and training can be drawn - is it possible to define a canon of generic data curation practice that is valid across disciplines, and should that canon be called ‘curation’? (would data science or managment be a better term?).

Joy introduced the session by saying the overarching goal was to help JISC and projects like DCC to refine training programmes, to better target them, and how they can work with other projects tasked in the same area.

A show of hands showed that the majority of people learned on the job, with only one person having accredited training.

Four questions were discussed:

Question 1: What are the current data management skills deficits and capacity building possibilities?
Question 2: What are the longer term requirements and implications for the research community?
Question 3: What is the value of and possibilities for accrediting data management training programmes?
Question 4: How might formal education for data management be progressed?

Most of the researchers coming out of short-term projects (eg those run by DCC) are trained on specific tools and approaches. So people don’t understand the bigger picture, the life-cycle approach.

This could possibly be countered by

Raising awareness is also a problem. This could be countered by funder badging - funders would carry more weight when running events.

The issue was raised that different funders have different requirements (especially for data outputs etc) and different standards - it’s difficult to think about training that covers all these requirements.

And to be relevant across the disciplines, training needs to be at a fundamental level – if you hit postgraduates, then it’s embedded with practice as they go through their careers.

Ideas included:

A lot of the training needed is technical (eg databases, algorithms).

Concerns that practitioners will become uncompetitive, as other people (with training from undergraduate or postgraduate onwards) will come through.

There are also concerns about the word ‘data curation’ - that people see it as a dead end career, with no career path. ‘Curator’ may have backwards-looking connotations. There was some discussion about whether ‘data scientists’ or ‘data managers’ may be a better method of description.

How do you determine what is valuable data? How can librarians/information managers mesh their skills with those of researchers to improve the curation experience?

There are several best practice/existing models of training which could be looked at, including:

Continuing with training, other issues that need to be looked at include:

As the infrastructure gets more complicated, how do you keep up with change (and train people to do so?). It’s problematic because data curation is seen as a practical discipline, rather than a progressive, academic discipline.

UK CoRR, (United Kingdom Council of Research Repositories) has been collating job adverts (eg for data managers), bringing up a list of skills. The adverts could also be used to look at a career structure - as there is no hierarchy defined at present.

The point was made that awareness-raising of data curation is needed. Public engagement is required if we want to draw people into these future career paths – it’s a discussion that needs to be taken to other sectors and parts of society. More real-life case studies might help.

Joy summed up: it’s helped to pinpoint some of the directions that need to be taken in the long term.

July 15, 2008 | Filed Under jif08 | Author Rach Colling 

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One Response to “Session 2: Capacity and skills issues”

  1. Session 3: Technical and infrastructure issues : JISC Innovation Forum 2008 on July 16th, 2008 1:05 pm

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