The study looks at how major universities are assisting faculty in developing data curation and management plans for large scale data projects, largely in the sciences and social sciences, often as pre-conditions for major grants. The report looks at which departments of universities are shouldering the data curation burden, the personnel involved in the efforts, the costs involved, types of software used, difficulties in procuring scientific experiment logs and other hard to obtain information, types of training offered to faculty, and other issues in large scale data management.
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
- More than half (63.33 percent) of all libraries in the sample offer advice to faculty on how to develop data management plans for grant proposals and/or personal use. This practice is more common among participants in the United States (72.22 percent) than it is among those outside the U.S. (50 percent).
- Survey participants estimate that a mean of 27.55 percent of the college/university overall spending on data curation is contributed by the library.
- 29.41 percent of all survey participants say they it is “very difficult” to procure and archive video, photographs, and other images, while an identical 29.41 percent say it is either “quite easy” or “relatively easy.”
30 major universities participated in the survey including: Case Western Reserve University, Indiana University-Purdue, the London School of Economics, Monash University, Rutgers University, Stockholm University, Trinity University, Tulane University, the University of Arizona, the University of Minnesota, the University of Victoria, and the University of Virginia, among many others.
The report (USD98.00) is available from Primary Research Group and also from major book vendors such as Amazon, Baker & Taylor, Yankee Book Peddler, Midwest Library Services, Overdrive, Research and Markets and other distributors of content. A pdf version is available now and a print version will be ready to ship on 22 July 2013 and can be ordered now. For a free excerpt, table of contents and list of survey participants, or to place an order, visit http://www.primaryresearch.com/
