An update on research data management at the Institute

After a fruitful open access week (4 events with Catherine Brendow, including a discussion with department heads about a future policy), it is time for us to focus back on Open Data and Research Data Management. Here is what’s happening at the Institute around research data support, mostly through the collaboration of the Library and the Tech Hub.

A course on open science and data management

Integrating research data management (RDM) training in curricula at all levels is one of the stated goals of the SwissUniversities action plan on Open Research Data (Line C2.2). This Fall was the first semester introducing such a course in the Geneva Graduate Institute curriculum. This attendance-based 2-credit course was made possible by the collaboration of the Library, the Tech Hub, the MINT programme and the Direction of Studies, through our programme on Research Data Stewardship supported by SwissUniversities.

This course was set in the MINT programme (Master in International and Development Studies) to allow students from all programmes to participate. While RDM and open science are of course matters of particular importance to young researchers such as PhD candidates, masters students can also benefit from that knowledge, especially in their second year, when they collect data for their thesis or applied research project.

Our first session was meant as a critical introduction to open science, focusing especially on the root causes leading to open access (OA) and open data policies. We also tried to help students realise that open science according to UNESCO is a much wider societal topic than they might expect. This session was presented by our OA specialist Catherine Brendow and our RDM specialist Guillaume Pasquier.

Three other sessions given by Guillaume Pasquier and Dr Pedro dos Santos Maia were mostly focused on various aspects of the research data lifecycle: data security and anonymisation, data organisation and documentation, and data preservation and sharing. Finally, two sessions featuring alumna Valentina Baiamonte focused on introducing R, open software for data analysis and visualisation, which can be applied to quantitative data (statistics) but also has some qualitative use cases (text mining).

A special guest and three case discussions

On November 21, we also had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Pablo Diaz, from UNIL, to discuss RDM with ERC candidates and other interested parties, for a presentation organised by the Research Office. The talk covered an introduction to the research data lifecycle, with specific attention to ethical concerns for researchers.

It was followed by three real-life data usage case discussions, with Dr Pablo Diaz elaborating on the issue of ethics in practical cases, and two Geneva Graduate Institute professors discussing specific experiences: Grégoire Mallard about the legal and ethical issues encountered using Wikileaks data for research, and Ugo Panizza describing the access, copyright, and security issues related to using National Bank and detailed financial data.

What else did we do?

The Data Stewardship project also started a Webex data discussion channel that anybody at the Institute can join to share information and request advice on open science, data management, digital research methods and more. To join, search for “IHEID Data Network” or contact us for more information.
Another event we are planning is our first Data Morning Coffee on Thursday 12 December at 9am (register now), a casual occasion to exchange good practices or discuss these matters with specialists.
Another development in the project was the collaboration with the Global Health Centre in creating the second Geneva Graduate Institute Zenodo community (after the Library’s). Other centres are also invited to ask for help in joining us there.
We are also occupying a part of the Open Science Corner created for Open Access Week to disseminate useful information about research data management through posters. Check it out on Floor 4 of Petal 1.
The Tech Hub’s series of podcasts will now try to feature the issue of open science more regularly through interviews with our researchers.
Some staff training took place about naming and organising files in shared spaces.
We also updated our guides on research data management and digital security.
Finally, you can expect more events and training from us and other universities in Switzerland and the world during Love Data Week, mid-February (website and programme still TBD).