A follow-up study on data management and data sharing training in graduate education in the social sciences

Previous research suggests that many social science graduate programs are not providing data management or sharing training necessary for producing effective and ethical researchers. Understanding effective data management and the importance of data sharing is crucial and should be integrated into graduate education. This is especially important to the mission of data repositories and data libraries wishing to limit obstacles to data sharing and to respond to evolving research needs and data trends. The current study expands on our previous assessment of how social science graduate programs include formal and informal training in data sharing, management, and the use of repositories by conducting a syllabus review and analysis. Syllabi were gathered from databases such as OER Commons and from department websites from a random sample of American social science graduate programs. Text analysis was used to identify the inclusion of content within coursework. Consistent with our earlier work, we found that social science graduate programs often did not include content about data management or data sharing within their coursework. This new study provided insight into the need for supplemental coursework or certification in data management skills geared towards graduate students. We discuss potential strategies to implement this instruction