Data management in the liberal arts: Current practices and attitudes at a Big 10 American University

<p>The diverse nature of liberal arts research makes identifying needs and providing support for data management a complex task. Attesting to this diversity, in our survey of 29 departments at Minnesota, we found differing practices, attitudes, and awareness about managing data and research materials. Many respondents identified need for data management support across the research lifecycle, with the largest needs for data security, preservation, and sharing. However, there are striking differences across the social sciences, arts, and humanities in attitudes and perceptions towards data management and what it entails, perhaps due to differing requirements and cultures in the fields. These demonstrate that a one-size-fits-all approach to support data management is not appropriate for a broadly diverse liberal arts college; rather, the services we develop should be sensitive to discipline-specific needs. To further explore these possibilities, we plan to administer our survey to other colleges within the University. As Minnesota is one of the few Big 10 Universities to institutionally separate the liberal arts from sciences, comparing our results with other more disciplinary-specific colleges should allow us to evaluate the roles institutional organization and disciplinary expectations may play in the emergence of data management needs and support.