Is it someone in the library? Or maybe in the office of institutional research? What about the office of the vice president for research? Or maybe the provost’s or rector’s office?
It depends.
Practices vary regionally and also institutionally, and we hope to learn more about these variations through the international Survey of Research Information Management Practices, which has been collaboratively developed by OCLC Research and euroCRIS. As we articulated in a recent OCLC Research position paper, Research Information Management: Defining RIM and the Library’s Role, because of the enterprise nature of the data inputs and uses, there are numerous institutional stakeholders in research information management, including the research office, institutional research, provost or rector, library, human resources, registrar, and campus communications. In some institutions, such as the University of Arizona, the library has assumed a leading role. In other institutions, such as Universität Münster, the research office takes the lead.
Connecting the survey with the right person within each institution is a central challenge for this study. And that’s where we need your help in promoting this survey and getting it to the right person at your own institution. While completing the survey itself should take only 10-30 minutes, we recognize that it may take some additional legwork to answer all of the questions on behalf of your institution. That’s why we’ve provided a PDF version of the survey for you to review in advance. We also want to encourage all research institutions and universities to participate, regardless of the status of RIM adoption. One survey per institution, please.
In the meantime, OCLC and euroCRIS are working to promote the survey through multiple channels, including:
- OCLC blogs & lists
- euroCRIS blogs & lists
- User group communities
- Research management and library organizations & lists
- OCLC Research Library Partnership
- Presentations at events like the Charleston Conference, Pure International Conference, North American Pure User Group, Force11, and euroCRIS strategic membership meeting
Our goal is to collect and share meaningful information on behalf of all stakeholders within the research information management landscape worldwide. We need the leadership and engagement of each of you in the community. Thanks for participating, and contact me if you have questions.
Rebecca Bryant, PhD
Rebecca Bryant, PhD (she/her), previously worked as a university administrator and as community director at ORCID. Today she applies that experience in her role as Senior Program Officer with the OCLC Research Library Partnership, conducting research and developing programming to support 21st century libraries and their parent institutions.
