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Register for Research Data Management Sessions

Register here for a series of research data management webinars hosted by the Laurier Library about the new RDM policy, data management planning, and data archiving with Dataverse.

To tailor these sessions for a direct meeting with your research team,  please email Michael Steeleworthy, Coordinator, Research Data Services and Data Librarian at researchdata@wlu.ca or by online form.

Background

On March 15th, 2021, CIHR, SSHRC, and NSERC published the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy. This policy statement provides clear expectations for researchers and universities on how research data collected through the use of public funds should be collected, managed, stored, and sometimes shared according to RDM best practices and disciplinary norms. Research data should be responsibly managed, and when ethically, legally, and commercially allow, be available for reuse according to the FAIR Data Principles for research data management and data stewardship. 

The new policy is aligned with existing Tri-Agency guidance documents, including the 2016 Tri-Agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management, the 2014 Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, and the 2015 Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.

The policy also acknowledges Indigenous self-determination and data sovereignty: data related to research by and with Indigenous stakeholders must be managed in accordance with RDM principles developed and approved by these partners. It cites the First Nations Information Governance Centre’s principles of ownership, control, access, and possession (OCAP) as one model of data governance for consideration. 

The RDM policy has three requirements:  

1. Institutional Strategy 

Post-secondary institutions must develop a RDM strategy that outlines their current and future RDM capacity, challenges, and needs. Strategies should reflect the institution’s circumstances (e.g., research intensity, size, staffing) but also nurture research environments that enable and support RDM. 

Implementation timeline: Institutional strategies must be posted by March 1, 2023.

2. Data Management Plans

Tri-Agency grant proposals should include data management plans (DMPs) that reflect best practices in RDM. For some funding opportunities, DMPs may be part of the proposal’s adjudication.  DMPs include information on how data is collected and described, whether and how it is to be shared, roles and responsibilities, ethical constraints affecting data management, and information on how data collected with Indigenous partners respect their data sovereignty. 

Implementation timeline: Tri-Agencies will identify by spring 2022 which funding opportunities will be fully subject to the RDM requirement. 

3. Data Deposit 

Grant recipients must deposit research data, metadata, and code that supports any research conclusions in journal publications and preprints. Disciplinary norms should guide which data must be preserved. While data sharing is not required, Tri-Agency expects researchers to provide access to data when ethical and legally possible according to the FAIR principles. 

Research data collected in partnership with Indigenous communities will be subject to their RDM guidance. This could result in data repatriation and/or exceptions to this data deposit requirement. 

Implementation timeline: This requirement will be phased in after institutional strategies are reviewed by the Tri-Agency.   

Laurier Library’s RDM Services 

The Laurier Library and Laurier have been preparing for the RDM policy since the release of its first draft for consultation in 2018. This includes initial work on a university strategy with stakeholders from the Office of Research Services, the library, and Information and Communication Technologies. The library also provides DMP consultation services, including needs assessments, collaborative writing, as well as its online DMP Assistant. Researchers are also able to deposit their research data in the library’s research data repository,  Dataverse.  

For Further Information

For help, email Michael Steeleworthy, Coordinator, Research Data Services and Data Librarian at researchdata@wlu.ca or by online form.