Delivering Data Education: Bridging communities and anchoring library data services

The Countway Research Data Services (RDS) Librarian was a newly created position in 2017 to determine and prioritize the RDM services most applicable to the local Longwood Medical Area (LMA) community. As a member of the “Publishing and Data Services” team, the Countway RDS Librarian serves as a subject expert, providing direct support to biomedical and public health researchers in navigating the data landscape.

A key activity of the RDS Librarian is teaching regular Research Data Management Seminars on data management topics. In 2018, the Data Management Seminar Series was launched, offering seven in-person classes and establishing an official program for data education at Harvard.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the seminars became webinars, allowing members outside the LMA to learn about RDM. The introduction of online classes has allowed the RDS Librarian to teach more classes to more participants. For example, in 2020 the program offered 38 classes to over 1,500 students. While this level of programming was not sustainable, the RDS Librarian found a balance over the last four years for consistent open data education for Harvard constituents and beyond.

This lightning talk will explore the development and sustainability of the RDM Seminar Series, provide insights on partnerships and collaborations across the university, and how the program responds to the needs of the research community in order to provide high level data literacy education to an diverse, expert audience.