By Mark Kerr, Senior Communications Officer

Technological advances have allowed researchers to capture and process more and more data. While increased information often leads to new insights and innovations, institutions, funders and individual researchers face the challenge of figuring out how to make data available to others once their project is finished.

To meet this opportunity, the Office of the Vice-Principal (Research), Queen’s Library and ITServices have partnered to offer the inaugural Data Day on May 26. The event seeks to raise awareness of the services Queen’s offers to researchers to manage their data and make it accessible and reusable by the wider research community.

“Around the world, research data management plans are being increasingly required by funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation in the U.S. and the Research Councils in the U.K.,” says Karina McInnis, Executive Director, University Research Services. “Canada’s main funding agencies are also moving in the direction of requiring data management plans in research proposals. We see this event as a way to kick-start the discussion around data preservation, dissemination and re-use.”

Managing data generated during research projects is the focus of an upcoming workshop in Stauffer Library.

The Data Day workshop will include:

• An overview of the Canadian digital scholarship landscape and infrastructure by representatives from the Library, ITServices, and Vice-Principal (Research)

• A presentation on data services offered at Queen’s by directors and managers of service units across campus

• An examination of data management and curation case studies from researchers in a variety of disciplines

“Data Day is a forum for researchers and data service providers to meet and discuss data management opportunities and challenges,” says Sharon Murphy, Head of Academic Services, Queen’s Library.

More information and a registration form are available on the Data Day website.