Some takeaways from two recent workshops organised by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS): RDM101: Research data starter for research data support staff and Hip topics: What’s trending in RDM in Victoria?

Trying to find datasets online is not a completely straightforward process. Multiple searching methods are required in different data ‘portals’, and ANDS lists a few:

• Research Data Australia
  Atlas of Living Australia
  Australian Data Archive
  Tropical Data Hub (this one has a great interactive map)
  Australian Ocean Data Network
  CSIRO Data Access Portal
  data.gov.au

One interesting point that was discussed after investigation of the portals was that mobile-compatible websites are few in this space – this is a major drawback if researchers want to upload datasets from the field using mobile devices. If the death of the PC comes to fruition with the majority of the populace switching to mobile devices in the near future, it would be good to see mobile compatibility developments hastened for data portals.

A group note-taking session documenting reasons data is valuable resulted in a collaborative Meeting Words document.

Skills
The changing skill set of librarians was examined. Data librarians need to be across many different areas to do their job well – research data management, open access and copyright issues, datasets and dataset management, and increased IT skills.

Socio-informatician is the name given to two new information management roles at Melbourne University, adding yet another term to the librarian job titles lexicon.

A constant re-evaluation of skills is required to be successful in the fluid environment that is research data management.

Tools
A metadata group tool called Redcap was discussed.

ORCIDs
So far there hasn’t been an end-to-end roll out of ORCIDs in Australia, and the ORCID consortium model currently being drafted by the ORCID working group (CAUL, ANDS, ARMS, CAUDIT, AAF, UA – with input from ARC, NHMRC) was discussed. A minimum of 20 members will be needed to implement, and more information on this will be forthcoming in the next month or two.

It was good to hear that the Wellcome Trust is now mandating ORCID IDs for research grants – it does seem that mandates are needed from the top so that they trickle down and become embedded in processes.