Researchers’ Perceptions on Research Data Management: A Survey

An Effective Research data management
(RDM) practices associated with more benefits particularly in increasing
research impact, enabling the data reuse, data preservation and archive for
future use. To maintain research integrity, researcher hold the responsivity to
practice the effective research data management with data which they have been
generate while pursuing research activities, but researcher needs the supports
from either libraries or universities to establish proper data management
practices. Therefore authors of aimed to conduct an assessment to understand
the researcher perceptions, current practices on research data management and
their willingness to share data if libraries or universities offer the some
support in managing and storing research data. The study undertaken the online
survey method to collect the data and it includes 34 researchers’ perceptions
on research data generation, various types and formats of research data
generated, infrastructure for data storage and archive, practices of research
data sharing, awareness on research data repositories etc. The results provided most of researcher
generate the research data irrespective of various types & formats, but
they are not more aware about proper research data management and sharing
though researcher have been preserving research data using offline
infrastructure like desktop, pen drives, hard disks, CD/DVDs etc. and most of
researcher very much keen to avail under the library support in managing
research data. The study helps a better
understanding of the current practices and needs of researcher at Central
University of Gujarat about research data management and sharing. From the
study results author provides suggestions for improve the researcher awareness
on research data management by conducting training, consulting, special
lectures, seminars and workshops of research data management, sharing, and storage.

A survey with
simple online questionnaire method was used for this study to collecting the
data regarding researchers’ perceptions on research data management in the
Central University of Gujarat (CUG). The
authors set out to the following questions in online questionnaire:

· Have you generated any research data while
you are pursuing research activities?

· Roughly what kind/ type of research data
generated or created while you are pursuing research activities?

·
What format and volume of research data
generated?

·
Where do you store your research data for
future use?

·
Does the practice of research data sharing
exist in your discipline/school/centre/ department?

·
How important is research data sharing and
make available for free access?

·
Are you aware of any research data
repositories?

·
Do you have submitted your research data
to any following research data repositories?

·
Do you feel that the libraries should
offer some support in managing, storing and archiving your research data for
future use?

Mail communication
channel was used to send online questionnaire to the researchers and there were
three attempts to get the responses. The
study involves the Thirty Four (34) researchers’ responses from various schools
and department of Central University of Gujarat. Statistical tools were used to
analyse & interpret the collected data from survey method.