Briana Wham
Research Data Librarian – STEM, Data Learning Center Manager
The Pennsylvania State University
Matthew Harp
Research Data Management Librarian, Director of Research Data Services
Arizona State University
Douglas Dodson
Research Computing and Data Analyst
The Pennsylvania State University
Philip Tarrant
Research Data Management Officer
Arizona State University
Supporting researchers who are facing numerous challenges navigating an increasingly fast-paced, digital, and open research ecosystem needs a university-wide, researcher-centered, infrastructure and support services approach. Through a collaboration between research administration, campus IT, and university libraries at the Pennsylvania State University and Arizona State University, we have initiated development of a data needs assessment tool. This tool aims to reduce researcher burden by facilitating a just-in-time, single point of entry for researchers to a coordinated, research data support service network that can seamlessly provide help with data management, data acquisitions, ethics and legal compliance, storage and backup, and data sharing and preservation. Additionally, we hope that the data needs assessment tool can increase (1) researcher connection to university-wide, research data support services, (2) crosstalk and collaboration across research data support service providers throughout the research lifecycle, and (3) transparency of the research data support service process for researchers. This presentation will describe case studies from our two institutions that highlight the need for such a tool, report out on development of a platform-agnostic, flexible framework and building of a prototype, as well as discuss early stakeholder feedback.
