The NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy for non-data librarians

The NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy went into effect early last year. That means that the policy that so many medical data librarians have been talking about is finally in place and affecting researchers. Any organization that receives research grant funds from the National Institutes of Health will need to add a new “Data Management and Sharing Plan” to grant proposals, and then follow that plan. Libraries are being mentioned by many organizations as the place to find expertise and support for this new data policy.

But can librarians that don’t usually do data still help their research community with the policy? Absolutely! Libraries do not need a data expert or an institutional repository to get started with supporting NIH grants with this new policy. Reference interviewing skills and a basic knowledge of the NIH DMS Plan format can be combined to walk researchers through the basics. In this session, librarians who are new to the NIH DMS Policy will learn the essentials: what is the NIH DMS policy, who is affected, and how do researchers incorporate it into an NIH grant application. Participants will learn the six sections of a DMS Plan, with tips for the reference interview and advice on what is still being developed at the NIH. Participants will also learn about the essential role of data repositories in the new Policy. This will lead to practicing how to search the NLM’s “NIH-Supported Data Sharing Resources” list of select key data repositories, in order to be ready to advise researchers how to address the issue of where to preserve and share their data.

If you have heard of the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy but are unsure what it is, yet still may want to inform researchers how to apply it, then this session is for you! Move from “we don’t do that” to “I can help with the basics” if you are asked about library support for NIH-funded researchers.

Speaker 

Dr. Nina Exner is the research data librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Nina serves both the medical and nonmedical campuses of VCU. In that capacity, Nina advocates for data “as closed as it needs to be, and as open as it can be.” Nina has occupied national service roles in the NIH DMS Plan implementation period. These roles have included being the inaugural NNLM National Center for Data Services Ambassador and co-chairing the DMPTool working group on the NIH DMS Plan. Nina’s work emphasizes interprofessional collaboration with research administration and research development teams and technology professionals to support researchers and their data.

This presentation addresses health information resources and data and the NNLM/NLM/NIH initiative of Building Data Resources to Enable Research Progress by discussing the NIH DMS Policy and how to better support researchers and data sharing.

By registering for this class, you are agreeing to the NNLM Code of Conduct.