The Library is Not Enough: Building the Data Governance Community at Your Institution

While many open science programs and services are initiated by or hosted within academic libraries, managing data and open science practices at the institutional level requires the broad engagement of many offices and departments. Greater demand for data sharing means increased expectations for documentation, infrastructure, and staff expertise to enable data discovery and reuse, which demands a larger support system than what presently exists at most institutions. Current practices at many institutions center on a single view, such as that of information security compliance, or have inconsistencies between institutional needs, goals, and obligations. A broader community—a community kitchen—is needed in order to address the gaps between existing services and emerging institutional needs and aspirations in order to better support the research mission of our institutions.

A community kitchen is a place for shared planning, creating healthy and affordable meals, and preserving food for the future. Shared governance of research data recognizes the needs of all stakeholders and creates space for developing shared values. Creating a community kitchen can occur under the umbrella of “data governance,” which is “a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and when, under what circumstances, using what methods” (Data Governance Institute, 2023). Governance is not just a set of compliance requirements; it is a collective activity that should reflect the priorities and needs of the community. While governance serves the institution, it is also about building a community of support for those who support research data.

Data governance at colleges and universities has historically been established for administrative and institutional data, such as financial or student data, but the evolving policy landscape and interest in open science have created new needs related to research data governance, such as open data sharing. A logical next step for librarians is to participate in or to coordinate research data governance activities at their institutions.