Data Management and Care

Data management is a critical part of the research process and implements safeguards against ethical, financial, and security risks. In academic libraries and other research supporting organizations, managing human subjects data is often taught with a range of motivations to encourage staff and researchers: compliance with funder requirements, securing sensitive information, ethical obligations, and more.

In this lightning talk, I will propose a reframing of the discussion around data management in academic libraries. Rather than promoting research data management as a tool to primarily benefit the researcher or the institution, I will propose that data management should instead be reframed as an act of care for the research participants who have contributed their time, energy, and information for the purpose of the researcher’s own goals, which ultimately benefit the institution. This is especially true for members of vulnerable and minoritized communities.

Research data management tutorials and resources warn of the impact on researchers when they do not effectively manage the data that they collect and control. These warnings often focus on research, legal, and financial ramifications of poor data management practices. However, an often overlooked potential harm is the impact on the individuals who are part of the research data. Treating data management as an act of care is one approach to elevating the safety and security of the people behind the data points. This is distinct from the ethics of data management, which often distances the research subjects from the researchers by abstracting the real harms that can come from poor data management.

This lightning talk will also propose questions for further discussion, a couple of which include: How do we move from compliance-based ethics frameworks to community-developed ethics frameworks? What role does aggregation play in both data invisibility and data management practices?