Library-Based Data Curation, Management and Interdisciplinary Research at Florida International University: Reciprocal Use of Data through Collaboration

Expo Center

This paper shows the Florida International University (FIU) Libraries' efforts in research data management, implementation, and practice. The FIU Library-based data team has led research projects that are directly built upon institutional and other data repositories, data hubs, and data visualization tools, through collaboration with the user community. We will present the technology setup and configuration of such a data framework, which includes Dataverse, ESRI’s ArcGIS Data Hub, and other data collection and visualization tools. We will also discuss the fiscal and organizational structure needed to support research data management initiatives. Using a couple of our applied research projects, we will demonstrate how users interact, collaborate, and contribute. We will discuss the challenges we encounter when it comes to data sharing, data curation, management, and most importantly, serving users at all levels of data literacy. In addition, we will present from a researcher’s perspective how he/she can manage his/her publications and associated research data and make them discoverable. We will showcase the websites of interdisciplinary research projects, such as the FIU Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy’s (JGI) Security Research Hub (see also: https://srh.fiu.edu/home/) and the USAID-funded Global Water for Sustainability Program (see also: http://dpanther.fiu.edu/glows/). These project websites use FIU institutional repository and research data management platforms (see also: http://rdm.fiu.edu/dataverse/). We will demonstrate how we support a community-based research project using FIU’s research data repository and data hub, as well as community-based data repositories such as ESRI’s Living Atlas of the World.