Data Management and Data Sharing Training in Social Science Graduate Programs, United States, 2017-2018

The Data Management and Data Sharing Training in Social Science Graduate Programs collection includes data gathered as part of an exploratory analysis of current graduate training practices for data management and data sharing in the social science fields. The exploratory analysis was conducted in two stages. <br><br>In the first stage, a survey of a select set of social science graduate programs was conducted to assess the inclusion of data management and sharing-related content, as well as the experiential development of these skills as a result of participating in the program. The final sections of the survey asked respondents to assess graduates’ skills in research and data management and sharing upon graduation. The survey was sent to program directors, administrators, and other representatives designated as the contact person for the program on their university website. The survey was administered to 150 graduate programs across six social science disciplines, and used a mix of closed and open-ended questions focused on the extent to which programs provide such training and exposure. The survey data is included in the file DS1_Graduate_Program_Survey_Data.sav.<br><br>In the second stage of the study, a conducted a syllabus analysis was conducted to further explore the content of graduate programs beyond self-report. Syllabi were gathered to conduct a text-analysis to explore how prominently data sharing or data management material appears in the syllabi for research related courses, if at all, as a means of determining the degree of instruction time devoted to the material. Syllabi were sought for a random sample of 140 programs from seven social science disciplines. The dataset was constructed through text analysis of the syllabi, looking for several key words and phrases that indicated both explicit and implicit inclusion of data management and sharing topics in coursework. Researchers searched through the syllabi to highlight predetermined keywords, highlighting both exact mentions of phrases like “data collection” and “data analysis,” but also synonymous phrases such as “gathering of data.” Additionally, implied use of the word “data,” such as in a list of actions applied to data, were also included as multiple unique mentions (e.g. “data collection, management, and analysis” would be considered three mentions of “data”). Lastly, syllabi were read to identify course requirements of research projects, assignments requiring data collection, or other types of research related presentations. The syllabi analysis data is included in DS2_Syllabi_Analysis_Data.sav<br>