Collaborative Research: Creating and Sustaining Cultures of Best Practice: Supporting STEM Labs to Develop Tailored, Comprehensive Data Management Plans

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The majority of responsible conduct of research interventions focus on broad compliance and are presented as an annual one-off training rather than being grounded in the actual experiences of researchers. This project aims to improve lab data collection, record-keeping, and data stewardship practices in STEM disciplines to integrate attention to responsible conduct of research. The project addresses these needs by creating and disseminating effective toolkits to support labs in creating and maintaining customized strong practices to document and share their discoveries and progress. This work includes two phases. A research phase focuses on the causal effects of a communication intervention focused on data management at a single university site. The development phase will draw on the research findings and the team's experience in creating responsible conduct of research materials to develop the toolkit to be disseminated widely to researchers.An earlier project demonstrated that the evidence-based communication approach (deliberative lab conversations) improved the way labs approach the issues of authorship and ethics. This project extends the work to data management practices. Through the research phase, the team will adapt the evidence-based communication approach to incorporate data management practices, assess its efficacy in context, and support its adoption by developing and disseminating an easy-to-use, practical toolkit. The efficacy of the approach will be tested by assessing the quality of labs’ data management plans, and their internal communication, before and after the intervention via pre/midpoint/post surveys. Participating labs will be federally funded STEM and biomedical research labs on a single campus. Using information from this investigation, the project will develop engaging, relevant video and written case study materials to help labs create tailored data management plans fitting their research personnel, equipment, and methods. This will include range of openly available introductory and just-in-time practical resources to support adoption and ongoing lab use to make the communication approach and data management practices more widely available.This project is jointly funded by the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education, Innovations in Graduate Education, and Ethical and Responsible Research Programs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.