Successful research data management (RDM) at the University of Cologne can be achieved by networking data practitioners across the boundaries of disciplines and faculties. The task of C³RDM is to identify the cross-cutting and disciplinary needs of researchers, to develop centralised services based on these requirements and to communicate them in a target group-oriented manner. A close dialogue with data practitioners and researchers from all disciplines is an essential prerequisite for this, which is why we would like to invite you as interested data practitioners and researchers to get into conversation with each other, to build a network of practitioners with us and to benefit from the regular exchange of experiences.

What are Data Stewards?

It is currently difficult to provide a standardised definition for data stewards. It can be observed that more and more jobs in RDM are associated with the term data steward. We therefore use a fairly broad approach:

Data Stewardship is the overarching concept of long-term and sustainable care for research data. Data stewards are therefore people with job profiles that cover specific research data management tasks and have a specific institutional location.
(DataStew project)

Data stewards are data practitioners from all disciplines and status groups who often face very similar challenges:

• Legal aspects in relation to research data (e.g. IP law, GDPR)
• Socio-technical issues: often it is not directly about the technology, but about the people who are to use these new technologies and have to adapt their work processes (policies, ramps)
• Finding vs. developing tools for processing certain data types/formats
• Finding or developing a good documentation process
• Provide training for researchers
• Translating requirements between researchers and IT staff and vice versa Long-term sustainability of workflow solutions

How do Data Stewards benefit from networking?

Through networking, data stewards

• get to know other interested people from working groups and disciplines and make contacts
• exchange experiences with other data stewards on the development and implementation of data infrastructure solutions and learn from and with each other
• expand your consulting and communication skills and gain further qualifications for your professional development

What does C³RDM offer?

C³RDM offers information events, training opportunities and coordinates network meetings. Together with the data stewards, needs are collected, good/best practices are identified and presented to the community.

Documentation

The documentation of the activities, events etc. can be found here.