datastewards.ie

Our vision is a network of data stewards to promote and support the transition to a FAIR and open research data landscape.

In 2022 the Higher Education Authority funded key initiatives in Ireland’s transition towards Open Research identified by Ireland’s National Open Research Forum. The 2022 Open Research Fund call was designed to implement six priority actions in Ireland’s National Action Plan for Open Research 2022-2030. The establishment of a national data stewardship network was one of the priority actions, Sonraí Irish Data Stewardship Network is the outcome of that call.

Sonraí aims to enable the development of data stewardship skills across the national research landscape through raising the profile data stewards, greater recognition of the need for data stewardship, professionalisation of the role of data steward and skills, and knowledge development throughout the emerging community. By developing these skills nationally we can ensure the curation, preservation and dissemination of our national data assets, and the continued growth and development of our FAIR data landscape.

What is a FAIR Data Landscape?

FAIR stands for findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. These principles are intended as guidelines for best practice in the management and stewardship of research data as open as possible but as closed as necessary. A FAIR data landscape recognises, facilitates, and rewards sharing and reusing valuable research data and various types of outputs.

What does a Data Steward do?

While there is no universally agreed definition of data stewardship, there is a variety of tasks and skills that are widely recognised as central to the role. These can include: research data management planning; metadata creation and application; database management; data curation and preservation; supporting Open Data and the FAIR principles; data infrastructure development and management; teaching and skills development for researchers; advocacy; and policy development.

So a data steward is responsible for all the tasks associated with the research outputs of a project throughout its lifecycle from planning and active research to post-project preservation and data sharing.

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Ask yourself

Am I a data steward?

Regardless of your formal job title, if you answer yes to one or many of the following questions, you are doing the work of a Data Steward and engaged in data stewardship.

Do you often find yourself minding the data*?
Are you the ‘data person’ in your research group, team, department or service?
Are you the person who develops/implements data processes, databases and workflows within your unit?
Do you spend a significant portion of your time on data, metadata handling/wrangling, alignment, quality, cleaning and mining?
Do you administer or provide support for data infrastructure or service?
Have you reviewed, written or implemented a data management plan?
Do you provide research data management support, training or implementation as a central service or to a research group or team?
Are you tasked with data curation, preservation or FAIRification?
Are you working on Research Data Management policy development or implementation?

*Data can take many formats spreadsheets, databases, text, images, audio, video are just a few examples. In the context of research or a research project data can be defined as the evidence underlying a primary finding or publication.

Dawning Realisation – ‘I am a Data Steward’

Licensed under CC BY 4.0

Want to get involved?

Sonraí is an emerging network. We need members!
If you are interested learning more and getting involved even if you are not quite sure your are a data steward please get in contact.

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