Session 2: 10:15-11:00

Monika Bargmann, Michael Feichtinger, Emily Kate

A Tale of Three Data Stewards: Lessons Learned by the Cross-Disciplinary Data Stewardship Team at the University of Vienna

In 2022, the University of Vienna (UNIVIE) began a data stewardship pilot program that sought to embed discipline-specific data stewards in faculties, institutes, and departments. To date, three data stewards have been brought into the program.

In the past year, our efforts have demonstrated that, regardless of discipline, there are several needs that uniformly exist among researchers. There is often a significant desire for basic services including assistance with the drafting of data management plans, the evaluation of available data storage resources, and the explanation of the FAIR and CARE principles. On the other hand, more discipline-specific requirements have emerged. For example, scholars in the humanities at UNIVIE often require assistance finding long-term archival solutions for project outputs like websites, digital editions, and databases. In contrast, researchers in the life sciences are more concerned with the maintenance of data production pipelines and the development of reliable onboarding and offboarding procedures for research groups with a high density of temporary members.

In the last year, we have found that every group of researchers is as similar as they are unique, often exhibiting comparable knowledge gaps, but requiring different day-to-day solutions to RDM problems. With this said, almost all respond favorably to a judgment-free attitude and a sincere and dedicated offer of help with their RDM related requests.

This presentation will discuss many of our observations from the last 18 month, the services we provide that are in high demand, and our plans for the future. We also hope to leave ample space for questions and conversation about interacting with researchers and their diverse RDM needs.