New Report Shares Findings from a Qualitative Study of Researchers at 29 Higher Ed Institutions.
(27 Mar 2025) Ithaka S+R collaborated over the past two years with 29 US and Canadian institutions to develop strategies for improving the coordination of research data support services offered across different campus offices. The project included the collection of institution-level data about the range and location of current data services across campus, design workshops geared toward creating new or strengthening existing data service infrastructure, and cohort-wide and individualized meetings to discuss topics and strategies for delivering effective research data services.
These findings, drawn from an analysis of interviews conducted by our cohort partners with researchers on their campuses, include a wealth of information about the data management needs and challenges of researchers as well as their current level of engagement with campus data services. Our analysis was guided by the following research questions:
- What needs and challenges do researchers encounter when creating or locating data for research? Managing research data? Analyzing or modeling data? Sharing data? Learning new data skills?
- What campus resources have researchers used to support their data services needs, and where are those resources housed?
- What was their experience using those resources? What could be improved about the process?
We learned that researchers are often unaware of data services as a form of assistance. Even when they use data services, researchers don’t always know that they are doing so. Other major challenges that researchers experience include difficulty using cloud-based systems to share and transfer data between team members; struggles with oversized data; challenges associated with managing the data pipeline; and affective barriers.
More details can be found here.
