RDM Roadmap@Edinburgh - An Institutional Approach

The first institutional Research Data Management (RDM) policy by a UK Higher Education Institution was passed by the Senate of the University of Edinburgh in May 2011. This paper discusses plans to implement this policy by developing services needed to support researchers and fulfill the University's obligations within a changing national and international setting. Significant capital funding have been committed to a major RDM and storage initiative led by Information Services (IS) for the academic year 2012-13. An RDM steering group, made up of academic representatives from the three colleges and IS,nbsp;has been established to ensure that proposed services meet the needs of university researchers. It also overees the activity of an IS cross-divisional RDM Policy Implementation Committee, charged with delivering those policy objectives. An RDM Roadmap (http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.101223!/fileManager/UoE-RDM-Roadmap201121102.pdf) was published in November 2012 to provide a high level overview of the work to be carriedout. The roadmap focuses on four strategic areas: data management support, data management planning, active data infrastructure and data stewardship. IS will take requirements from research groups and IT professionals, and are conducting pilot work involving volunteer research units within the three colleges to develop functionality and presentation for the key services.