Training in Data Curation as Service in a Federated Data Infrastructure - the FrontOffice-BackOffice Model

TL;DR

This paper presents a FrontOffice-BackOffice model for data curation training within federated research data infrastructures, emphasizing collaboration between archives and libraries to improve data management practices.

Contribution

It introduces a novel division of tasks in data curation training through a FrontOffice-BackOffice model and shares implementation experiences in the Netherlands.

Findings

Successful implementation of the model in the Netherlands

Positive impact on training digital librarians

Potential for international education collaboration

Abstract

The increasing volume and importance of research data leads to the emergence of research data infrastructures in which data management plays an important role. As a consequence, practices at digital archives and libraries change. In this paper, we focus on a possible alliance between archives and libraries around training activities in data curation. We introduce a so-called \emph{FrontOffice--BackOffice model} and discuss experiences of its implementation in the Netherlands. In this model, an efficient division of tasks relies on a distributed infrastructure in which research institutions (i.e., universities) use centralized storage and data curation services provided by national research data archives. The training activities are aimed at information professionals working at those research institutions, for instance as digital librarians. We describe our experiences with the course \emph{DataIntelligence4Librarians}. Eventually, we reflect about the international dimension of education and training around data curation and stewardship.