Leiden University Research Data Management Community

All University staff involved or interested in research data management are invited to join Leiden University Research Data Management Community.

What is it?

The Research Data Management Community brings together support and research staff from across all faculties and central services at Leiden University who have an involvement or interest in resesarch data management (RDM). In the community we exchange knowledge and experiences on RDM through in-person and online meetings and events, and through an MS Teams space.

Are you also interested in good data management? Then join us through this registration form. 

In these images you can see a selection of our past events:

Who?

Many people across Leiden University have an interest in, or a responsibility for, good research data management (RDM) within their group, institute, or faculty, as part of their research or support role. If you are one of these people, you are invited to join the Leiden University Research Data Community by means of this registration form.

At the core of the community are the data stewards, based in faculties and in central services, who offer data management support. Other research support staff and researchers are also an important part of the community. Community events and communication are facilitated by staff at the Centre for Digital Scholarship in the Leiden University Libraries. 

Why?

The goal of the community is to contribute to good Research Data Management and the continued development of RDM support services across the university by enabling an exchange of information and the building of relationships between community members. It provides a forum where ideas and suggestions for RDM can be raised, discussed, and addressed. 

The aims of the community are: 

• To communicate with others and exchange knowledge about best practices in RDM.
• To contribute to the development of RDM support services across the university.
• To develop relationships and set up collaborative working groups.
• To develop workflows and materials that support (other) Leiden researchers in practical RDM.
• To learn more about RDM developments taking place at Leiden University, in the Dutch support community, and beyond.
• To provide a forum for raising ideas and suggestions for the development of RDM support at Leiden.

How?

Community members can learn about, and contribute to, RDM developments in different ways:

1. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the MS Teams space by sharing news, raising points, and commenting on news and discussion items raised by others.
2. All community members have the opportunity to meet virtually once a month to communicate best practice and discuss new services - our so-called 'Connect &' events. Topics can be generic, like file formats or a data publication platform, or Leiden-specific, like the FGGA ethics committee.
3. We also organise special one-off or annual events to focus on particular topics in-depth, to plan and exchange ideas, and to set up collaborative working groups. A recent example is the Data Reuse Day.
4. For data stewards and others with data stewardship tasks, we have a monthly data stewards meeting and a data stewards channel within the community Teams space.

Get involved

• Register to join and become part of the community. We invite staff from all faculties to join the community, both support staff and research staff are very welcome.
• Communicate: Community members are added to the dedicated MS Teams space for chat, news feed, and shared documents. They also receive event invitations by email.
  • For staff working in data stewardship roles, we have a sub-community (or community within a community) with its own Teams channel.
• Join an event: The community has regular online events and monthly data steward group meetings. For details of upcoming events, see the calendar. You can read more about past events on the Digital Scholarship blog.
  • Suggest event topics or speakers through the Teams or by emailing us.

Resources produced by the community

One of the Leiden data management community's aims is to develop materials that support (other) Leiden researchers in their research data management.

A fieldwork interest group exchanged experiences and tips regarding data management during fieldwork. This working group produced the guide 'Checklist for data management when working abroad'.

You can find more materials produced by the community and community members in the following Zenodo communities and YouTube playlists:

• Zenodo community Centre for Digital Scholarship (UB Leiden)
• Zenodo community FSW RDM
• YouTube playlist Open Science Tips
• YouTube videos RDM for Leiden University Social Sciences

If you have any questions, please contact us at datamanagement@library.leidenuniv.nl or reach out via MS Teams.

An note on Research Data Management support at Leiden University

The Research Data Management Community brings together staff from all faculties and central support services who have an interest in and/or a role to play in research data management (RDM) support. Data stewards -in its broadest sense, including those that identify as such or have data stewardship tasks as part of their role- form a natural and core part of the community. The data stewards and information managers based in the faculties and institutes form the first line of RDM support, while the ‘digital scholarship librarians’ at the Centre for Digital Scholarship in the library form the second, central line of support. In the Research Data Management Community, the data stewards and data librarians form an active sub-group, often taking part in, and being a driving force behind the meetings and events. They have their own Teams channel to exchange information specific to the group. RDM support staff also form part of the broader Leiden Research Support Network (LRSN), in which all research support staff are connected. 

If you have a question about data management, you can find your faculty’s or institute’s data steward through the Research Support Portal, by selecting your faculty and institute in the menu in the upper left.