Data Quality within the Bounds of Reality: Fostering Curation at the Harvard Business School

Research institutions seek robust pathways to manage, preserve, and sharing the data they produce.  Institutions desire that the data produced locally is created and managed with integrity and shared for broader societal benefit.  Yet many obstacles exist to the process of integrating these practices into the workflows of researchers, including: limited awareness and misunderstanding of service options, varied research practices involving multiple actors in the data collection process, licensing, and challenges in data quality and documentation, amongst other issues.

This lightening talk discussed how the Harvard Business School has instituted a set of new practices to improve curation of data at the School.  The new suite of practices includes: an overhauled communications program on services for safeguarding data, outreach and referrals through intermediaries and peer research service providers, flexible licensing, leveraging existing staff skills for curation, and integrating workflows of research professionals at different stages of the research data lifecycle.  Employing these techniques and anticipating use, the School aims to improve the quality, preservation, and utility of its data for society at large.