As new regulations and best practices with research data evolve in academia, a new department at the University of Georgia Libraries is poised to help researchers navigate the changing technology and policy landscape at every stage of their project, from data management planning to analysis to publishing.
The Department of Research and Computational Data Management (RCDM) offers resources and support to faculty and student researchers whether they are experienced or just starting out. The five-person team, led by Dr. Beth Woods, offers seminars, workshops and one-on-one consultations with research data management planning; data discovery, access, and collection; data storage, analysis, and visualization; and publishing, copyright, and digital preservation.
The team also works closely with campus partners including the Office of Research, Office of Faculty Affairs, Graduate School, and EITS to facilitate collaborative and partner-led workshops and consultation opportunities.
“Although this is just the start of Research and Computational Data Management’s second year, our services are already striking a chord with UGA researchers,” Woods said. “We’re helping faculty develop research data management plans that align with funding agency requirements, connecting them to campus technology resources, and encouraging them to leverage open access publishing and data sharing resources available through the UGA Libraries. We’re also seeing increased student and faculty interest in our seminars and workshops to better understand current and emerging research topics and elevate their data science, GIS, and data visualization skills.”
While the home base for RCDM is at the Main Library, the faculty support work throughout campus. This includes weekly drop-in data consultations every Wednesday, 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the McBay Science Library as well as at the recently renovated Data Studio @ Main, which is located on the third floor by the RCDM offices. Researchers can also schedule in-person and virtual appointments directly from the RCDM website.
“The RCDM team brings together existing support for digital humanities, data management, GIS and scholarly communications into a unified team with the goal of supporting students, faculty and staff with data-focused research and publishing,” said Emily Gore, deputy university librarian and chair of the UGA Research Data Management Advisory Council. “Open publications, open data and open code enable an ecosystem of reproducible findings and collaboration on a global scale. With research of critical importance taking place at UGA, this team aims to help researchers share their findings with the world.”
This September, faculty, post-docs, and graduate students are invited to meet the team and participate in a series of workshops as part of the Libraries’ Fall Into Research series. The series begins Sept. 9 with an introduction to RCDM with an on-site visit to the Data Studio @ Main, as well as a hybrid option.
Other workshops during the week include virtual and on-site sessions on research data management, AI foundations, GIS and making, open access publishing, R, Python, and more.
Learn more about Research and Computational Data Management at https://researchdata.uga.edu/