Finding the Connection: Research Data Management and the Office of Research


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A
s our researchers each navigate their own particular
research lifecycle and we seek to develop library
services to meet their needs, it behooves us to try

and understand their entire research process. Fortunately,
we’re not the only ones interested in our users. Campus
offices of research have the mission to assist researchers in
getting and managing research funding. These units range
from a few people processing grant forms to large and
distributed organizations complete with educational
programs. In recent years, there have been several case
studies of partnerships between the office of research and
institutional libraries, both within the United States
[1][2][3] and abroad [4][5][6]. By pooling resources, both
the libraries and the offices of research get better results. 

In particular, the data management plan requirement
from U.S. federal funding agencies creates a natural fit
between data management librarians and research
development professionals. As part of an office of research
team, research development professionals work to match
researchers to funding opportunities, prepare grant
materials, build research teams, interact with funding
agencies and provide training [7][8]. As external funding
has become more competitive and important to institutional

revenue, the National Organization of Research
Development Professionals (NORDP) was created to
support these individuals [9]. If you peruse their annual
conference program, you’ll see many topics that overlap
with librarian interests: data management, research impact,
unique identifiers for researchers, funding agency
regulations and digital scholarship. 

I’ve held data librarian positions at three different
academic institutions and the office of research has always
been a welcome ally. My first position was at a small,
research-intensive institution, right after the 2011 National
Science Foundation Data Management Plan was
announced. I reached out to the local office of research to
find out what training opportunities they intended to
provide. This contact led to my facilitating a conversation
around data ethics at their annual Responsible Conduct of
Research training. Topics surrounding data ethics lead to
talking about best practices in data management – that
poor documentation results in the inability to repeat
experiments, that the lack of standards results in isolated
data sets and how to implement better practices.
Expectations have changed, and now the responsible,
ethical researcher consciously engages in good data
management practices. 

When I took a position at a large, public institution, 
I again reached out to the office of research, only with
different results. At an institution known for developing

Finding the Connection: Research Data Management 
and the Office of Research
by Amanda Rinehart

Amanda Rinehart is assistant professor and data management
librarian at the Ohio State University Libraries. She can be reached at
rinehart.64@osu.edu

EDITOR’S SUMMARY
Academic and research librarians
can enhance the services they
provide to researchers by
collaborating with university offices
of research. The requirement that
projects have data management
plans to qualify for federal funding
has stimulated alignment, partnering
and pooling of resources between
service providers. The author’s
experiences in data librarian
positions illustrate various routes
and results of interaction, from
demonstrating the value of reusing
data for different purposes to
promoting data ethics and best
practices in data management.
Librarians should seek out
opportunities to collaborate with
their campus research offices,
understand commonalities in service
to researchers and focus on data
management as a complement to
research professionals’ work.

KEYWORDS

academic communities

academic libraries

research libraries

collaboration

data curation

library and archival services

funding

R D A P R e v i e w

mailto:rinehart.64@osu.edu


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best teaching practices, data management needed to be
embedded into that framework. While there were no obvious
joint training opportunities, the director of the Office of
Research suggested that I pursue an internal grant that
targeted cross-disciplinary research. In conjunction with a
faculty member in political science, I proposed to properly
prepare previously digitized U.S. Supreme Court records
and demonstrate how this data could be re-used in the
classroom. A presentation at the annual university-wide
symposium on teaching and learning led to wider campus
recognition of how best practices in data management can
lead to re-use in the classroom. 

In my current position at Ohio State University there are
two levels of research development professionals: those at
the central Office of Research and those embedded in
specific colleges. Reaching out to both has paid off.
Collaborating with the central Office of Research has
resulted in joint workshops, such as “Getting Grants:
Finding Funding and Planning for Data Management.” 

At the college level, I have been conducting specialized
events, such as presenting on data management in the
responsible conduct of research training for the College of
Veterinary Medicine and conducting guest lectures at the
College of Pharmacy.  

How can you engage with your office of research, and in
particular, your research development professionals? First,
if you haven’t had the opportunity to manage a grant, learn
a bit about their language [10] and identify opportunities
[11] for collaboration. Consider services that are adjacent
to each other on the research lifecycle [12], ask your
colleagues for introductions or simply go to their office or
set up a time to have coffee. Articulate that you aren’t
looking to duplicate services and define what you mean by
data and data management. Like all relationships, it may
take a bit of time, but the advantages are multifold: the
benefits of targeted contact networks, more direct referrals,
better timing of events and information and the potential
ability to demonstrate value in terms of direct revenue. �

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R I N E H A R T , c o n t i n u e d

T O P  O F  A RT I C L E

Resources on next page



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Resources Mentioned in the Article

[1] Bedard, M., Hendrickson, D., Lubas, R., & Reenen, J. V. (2012). Library information technology collaborations at the University of New Mexico. 
Journal of Library Administration, 52(2), 203‐216.

[2] Black, C., Harris, B., Mahraj, K., Schnitzer, A. E., & Rosenzweig, M. (2013). Collaboration between the University of Michigan Taubman Health 
Sciences Library and the University of Michigan Medical School Office of Research. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 32(2), 179‐184.

[3] Delserone, L. M., Kelly, J. A., & Kempf, J. L. (2010). Connecting researchers with funding opportunities: A joint effort of the libraries and the 
university research office. Collaborative Librarianship, 2(1). Retrieved from www.collaborativelibrarianship.org/

[4] Ball, J. (2013). Research data management for libraries: Getting started. Insights: The UKSG Journal, 26(3), 256‐260. Retrieved from 
http://insights.uksg.org/7/volume/26/issue/3/

[5] Clements, A. (2013). Research information meets research data management … in the library? Insights: The UKSG Journal, 26(3), 298‐304. 
Retrieved from http://insights.uksg.org/7/volume/26/issue/3/

[6] Richardson, J., Nolan‐Brown, T., Loria, P., & Bradbury, S. (2012). Library research support in Queensland: A survey. Australian Academic & 
Research Libraries,43(4), 258‐277.

[7] Levin, J. (March 7, 2011). The emergence of the research-development professional. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from  
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Emergence-of-the/126906/

[8] National Organization of Research Development Professionals. (2012). What Is Research Development? Retrieved from 
https://nordp.memberclicks.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=118

[9] National Organization of Research Development Professionals. (2012). Home. Retrieved from https://nordp.memberclicks.net/

[10] Rinehart, Amanda. (2015). Creating Sustainable Data Management Services: The Office of Research and You [poster]. ACRL Conference 2015,
Portland, OR.

[11] Rinehart, Amanda. (2015). The two-for-one workshop: Mapping data management services to the research lifecycle [poster]. ASIS&T RDAP 
Summit 2015, Minneapolis, MN. 

[12] University of Central Florida Libraries Research Lifecycle Committee. (2012). The research lifecycle at UCF [Online Graphic]. Retrieved from 
www.library.ucf.edu/ScholarlyCommunication/ResearchLifecycleUCF.php

www.library.ucf.edu/ScholarlyCommunication/ResearchLifecycleUCF.php
https://nordp.memberclicks.net/
https://nordp.memberclicks.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=118
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Emergence-of-the/126906/
http://insights.uksg.org/7/volume/26/issue/3/

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