Dr Helena Lynn1
1University Of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
University Research Data Management (RDM) initiatives are traditionally driven by professional service areas such as Research Ethics, Information Technology, the Library and Research Portfolios. Ongoing, engaged academic input into these initiatives can be challenging to maintain, which may result in outputs being undesirable or underutilised by researchers.
The Petascale Campus was established in 2018 as a 5 year initiative to strengthen data-intensive research capability at the University of Melbourne, including a focus on revitalising RDM strategy. Key to the Petascale Campus is grounding of initiatives in academic culture and perspectives.
We have utilised a range of approaches to ensure that academic perspectives are centred in the RDM program of work. These include appointed academic leadership, use of human centred design (HCD) methodologies, formation of academic advisory and working groups and more ad hoc information gathering in the form of surveys and interviews.
These various forms of academic input have shaped the strategic direction of the University’s RDM ecosystem, including the development and implementation of new policies, frameworks, infrastructure and resources that have been rolled out over 2021 and 2022.
In this talk we will discuss the benefits and challenges of the various approaches we have employed, including reflections on their applicability for future initiatives and other institutional contexts.
Biography:
Helena Lynn is the Program Manager of Research Data Management at the University of Melbourne. She holds a BSc and PhD in Molecular Virology from the University of Sydney.
Following her PhD, Helena transitioned into research support and strategy. She supported and trained of researchers in RDM tools before conducting human centred design research into student experience at the University of Sydney.
As part of the Petascale Campus since 2019, Helena is now tasked with ensuring researchers at the University of Melbourne have the necessary tools, resources and support to manage their research data in a rapidly evolving regulatory and technological environment.