How research data management “became a thing”: the DARIAH Research Data Management Working Group on a writing sprint

On exceptionally sunny days of 23-24th June, cultural heritage professionals, researchers, data stewards, open science officers and other data support professionals/experts working in the arts and humanities domain gathered at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN) in Staszic Palace for a two-day intensive writing sprint to work together on the publication “Research Data Management for Arts and Humanities: Integrating Voices of the Community”. 

The event has been made possible by the third Working Groups (WG) Funding Scheme Call for the years 2021-2023 and the resulting grant administered by the Digital Humanities Centre at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN). Participants from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands and of course from Poland came together partly face to face, partly via Zoom. 

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Having been collaborating remotely for more than 2,5 years now, the exercise also served as the first ever face to face meeting of the working group. The drafting team arrived back home from Warsaw with not less than 155.900 character, telling stories of how research data management has “become a thing” in policy, research support and scholarly practices across Europe; what are its special flavors in different national and institutional contexts; how certain arts and humanities institutions, workplaces of the authors, developed capacities for data support; what are the shared, domain specific challenges that all of us are facing regardless of the institutional specificities or national legislations; and what are trustworthy solutions, tools, and particles worth to be shared as part of the publication. 

The team is planning to finalize the drafting by the end of the summer and publish the collection in early 2023. The resulting Open Access publication will aim to provide practical know-how for both researchers and the new research support professionals (data stewards, subject librarians, open science officers, etc.) by bringing together case studies related to multilingualism, access to cultural heritage data, sensitive data and access management via AAI, innovative data publications, long-term archiving, or clarifying the notion of data in traditionally non-data-heavy arts and humanities disciplines.

Marta Błaszczyńska (IBL PAN), Co-Chair of the WG, says,

“We were relieved and delighted to see that the hybrid format of the meeting proved successful. Remote participants joined in the discussions and also more informal exchanges and updated us about their progress. The fact that we have all been meeting up online since the launch of the WG and feel like we know each other quite well by now has helped a lot. Together with Erzsébet we’re very grateful to all WG members involved in the sprint for making the time to join us!”

More about the working group:

https://www.dariah.eu/…/worki…/research-data-management/

Other projects funded under the DARIAH Working Groups Funding Scheme 2021-2023:

https://www.dariah.eu/…/dariah-working-groups-funding…/

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