Recognizing a pressing need for data management education in the sciences, the Lamar Soutter Library and the George C. Gordon Library at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) collaborated on a project “Planning a Data Management Curriculum and Requirements for a Collaborative Repository,”. to develop frameworks for a case based data management curriculum for science, health sciences, and engineering students at undergraduate and graduate levels, and to identify user needs for repository software for storing data sets.

The purpose of this grant has been to develop:

• a flexible, case based curriculum that teaches data management best practices to students enrolled in a broad range of scientific disciplines
• an evaluation of user requirements for open source software for storing data generated by student research projects

The libraries have worked with faculty, curriculum, evaluation, and instructional design consultants to develop Frameworks for a Data Management Curriculum , a modular case-based approach for data management instruction.
Included in these frameworks are

• lesson plans for seven course modules
• real life research cases
• readings and assignments
• a simplified data management plan
• a prototype of developed content for one module, and
• assessment questions and answers.

The modular design of the curriculum allows faculty to pick specific course module(s) that are relevant to their courses. The curriculum could be delivered by faculty or librarians in a variety of ways: face-to-face classes, as self-paced online modules, or a hybrid format.

The Research Computing and Academic Support Group at WPI conducted testing of three open source software programs to evaluate user requirements for storing data. A summary of the testing process and a matrix of the results of the software testing are available on the project website.

The Planning a Data Management Curriculum project is collaboratively funded through NER and the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ National Leadership Planning Grant.

For further information, contact Donna Kafel, eScience Project Coordinator.

What happens when you add some great learning with a great time?  That’s right!  A science boot camp for librarians!

Please mark your calendar for this year’s professional development day that will feature a presentation by Diane Hillmann, Director of Metadata Initiatives at the Information Institute of Syracuse.

The 4th annual e-Science symposium will be happening on April 4th, 2012.  It will feature Christine Borgman, PhD., Merce Crosas, PhD., Patrick Flynn, PhD, and Dorothea Salo, MA.  It will also feature Glenn Gaudette, PhD from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Regina Raboin and Rebecca Reznick-Zellen both who sit on the e-Science portal for New England Librarians board.