University Data Ownership and Management Policies

Data ownership and management policies can affect how research data are supported at a university. This Pecha Kucha presentation will highlight the preliminary results of our current research on university data ownership and management policies. In contrast to previous studies on institutional data management policies, we examined the university websites of 206 institutions with a Carnegie Classification on Institutions of Higher Education of either "High" or "Very High" research level as of July 2014. Some of the major questions we asked included: Does the institution have a data sharing or management policy? What does the policy cover? Who owns the policy (e.g. Office of Research, Information Technology, Libraries)? What happens to the ownership of the data if a researcher leaves the institution? Are universities with data management services provided by the library more likely to have a policy on data management? Ultimately, our goal is to determine if universities support data management comprehensively with complementary policies and services. The topics that will be covered include data stewardship, ownership, retention, and sharing in regards to university research data policies