In recent years, as funders have increased their expectations for data sharing and machine learning use cases have multiplied, the need to develop an efficient infrastructure of research support services has become a strategic priority for many colleges and universities. Research data services—support offerings which enable and improve data-intensive research—have traditionally been delivered by libraries but also incorporate offices of research, campus IT, research computing, academic departments, and other campus offices. As systems for coordinating these various units have emerged in a largely ad hoc manner, obstacles such as decentralization and inefficiency have limited the impact of research data services to support the research enterprise.

In light of these persistent challenges, and in the interest of providing up-to-date data to inform university decision making, Ithaka S+R collaborated over the past two years with 29 US and Canadian institutions to develop strategies for improving the coordination of research data support services offered across different campus offices. The project included the collection of institution-level data about the range and location of current data services across campus, design workshops geared toward creating new or strengthening existing data service infrastructure, and cohort-wide and individualized meetings to discuss topics and strategies for delivering effective research data services.

Today, we are excited to publish findings from our final report for this project. These findings, drawn from an analysis of interviews conducted by our cohort partners with researchers on their campuses, include a wealth of information about the data management needs and challenges of researchers as well as their current level of engagement with campus data services. Our analysis was guided by the following research questions:

  • What needs and challenges do researchers encounter when creating or locating data for research? Managing research data? Analyzing or modeling data? Sharing data? Learning new data skills?
  • What campus resources have researchers used to support their data services needs, and where are those resources housed?
  • What was their experience using those resources? What could be improved about the process?

We learned that researchers are often unaware of data services as a form of assistance. Even when they use data services, researchers don’t always know that they are doing so. Other major challenges that researchers experience include difficulty using cloud-based systems to share and transfer data between team members; struggles with oversized data; challenges associated with managing the data pipeline; and affective barriers.

Other key findings of the study include:

  • Researchers point to the need for considerable support and changes throughout the research enterprise to make widespread data publication and reuse possible.
    • Researchers perceive data publication as a significant new responsibility and most are not well prepared for it, nor do they conceive of it as part of their scope of work.
    • Researchers also experience difficulties discovering and reusing published datasets.
  • Researchers consider securing permissions to collect or reuse data to be a major administrative challenge and perceive the IRB / ethics office and legal services to be integral to this work.
  • Researchers prefer data services that are 1) individualized, localized, or bespoke; 2) contain a strong instructional component; and / or 3) have memorable branding.

We are deeply grateful for the members of the cohort that made this report possible.

What’s next for Ithaka S+R?

The findings published today are an important addition to our ongoing work on supporting the inquiry, infrastructure, and communities that constitute the research enterprise. Later this year, we will convene an NSF-funded workshop on open source software for research, launch a national survey of academic researchers, publish a report on how instructors are using generative AI, and convene a cohort of institutions on AI literacy. For more information about these projects, contact Dylan Ruediger (dylan.ruediger@ithaka.org).