Adaptive Governance for Research Data Management

My proposed presentation, "Adaptive Governance for Research Data Management" will provide an overview of how to apply adaptive governance to RDM practices in libraries and repositories. Adaptive governance was originally conceptualized in the late 1900s as a strategy for resource land management and is defined as "the evolution of the rules and norms that promote the satisfaction of underlying human needs and preferences given changes in understanding, objectives, and the social, economic and environmental context" by Hatfield-Dodds, Nelson, and Cook in their paper "Adaptive Governance: An Introduction and Implications for Public Policy. Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society", 2007. This concept was later adopted by data governance groups to ensure that rules and policies were adhered to while providing enough flexibility to meet the various data needs and nuances that exist across the data management landscape. In the context of research data management, adaptive governance can be applied by ensuring researchers meet university policies, funder and publisher requirements while providing flexibility to respond to researcher differences and concerns, such as data types and sharing restrictions. This presentation will cover the history and definition of adaptive governance as well as tips and examples for applying this concept to data management activities at each stage of the research data lifecycle. Included are data management planning, file naming and organization, data documentation, storage location and repository selection, and preservation considerations.