From the ground up: Building a roadmap of research priorities for a national research data management community

Abstract

Launched in 2015, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Portage Network is dedicated to the shared stewardship of research data in Canada through fostering national communities of practice for research data, and building national research data services and infrastructure. Portage has developed a large network of expertise comprised of Expert Groups, each with mandates related to specific areas of research data management (RDM). The objective of the Research Intelligence Expert Group (RIEG) is to provide the Portage Network with research intelligence on the state of RDM in Canada for a variety of related topics through the development and oversight of targeted studies designed to gather supporting evidence.

In order to set research priorities for RIEG, a high-level roadmap was developed to bridge gaps in our knowledge about RDM practices, developments, communities, and policies in Canada. To understand the existing landscape, an environmental scan was conducted, guided by a custom taxonomy developed by RIEG. Topics including data curation, data sharing and reuse, services, policy and law, and information technology were examined from an international and Canadian context to determine gaps and priority areas. This poster will offer an overview of the development of this roadmap, detailing how it helped to formalize recommendations for action, prioritize research tasks, and set objectives for RIEG and the Portage Network moving forward.