Guide for Instructors: Skills4EOSC Data Steward Curriculum
This page is currently under construction
The training curriculum is currently undergoing final revisions and quality checks. All materials will be released shortly. Until the official release, please refrain from using, distributing, or implementing any part of these resources.
Release Notes
1.0.0 (2024-01-01)
- Copy and paste similar sections at the top of the document as new versions are released.
- All sections need to be within the
<details>tags. - Alter the date in the brackets to reflect the actual date when the release has been made.
Description
This curriculum for entry-level data stewards has been developed by a working group in the Skills4EOSC project (Task 4.1 of the project), and is intended to provide guidance to teach the foundational topics required for data stewardship.
In this guide, we explain briefly what we intend with the different components of the curriculum, and how an instructor can use them.
Target Audience: Trainers/Instructors who wish to teach aspiring or entry-level data stewards
Expertise Level / Skill Level: Beginner
Primary Language: English
Access Cost: N
Prerequisites
No specific prerequisites are required to use this material. The material is aimed at instructors, who we expect to be familiar with the topics being taught. For the learners (entry-level data stewards), to whom the material will be taught, prerequisites may vary by context (for instance, if taught in a discipline-specific context, more discipline-specific knowledge may be required).
Objectives
- Equip aspiring/entry-level data stewards with key skills and competencies to best support researchers with data and software management
- Direct data stewards to stakeholders, policies and other relevant regulations within their institutes.
- Provide examples from across Europe that helps Data Stewards implement within their context.
Keywords
- Skills4EOSC
- DataStewardship
- Curriculum
- Data Steward
Overview of curriculum
The curriculum comprises the following sections and modules.
| Sections | Modules |
|---|---|
| Training Skills | Module 1: Lesson Development |
| Module 2: Licensing and Copyright of Educational Materials | |
| Module 3: Facilitation and Engagement | |
| Research Data Management | Module 1: FAIR Data |
| Module 2: Data Documentation and Storage | |
| Module 3: Data Organisation and File Formats | |
| Module 4: Data Curation | |
| Module 5: Data Preservation and Archiving | |
| Module 6: Data Sharing and Publication | |
| Module 7: Metadata | |
| Module 8: Ontologies | |
| Module 9: Data Management Plans | |
| Research Software Management | Module 1: What is Research Software |
| Module 2: FAIR Software | |
| Module 3: Software Management Plans | |
| Module 4: Software Development Practices | |
| Module 5: Software Sharing Practices | |
| Policy and Governance | Module 1: Awareness of National/Institutional Policies on RDM, Open Science |
| Module 2: Translating Institutional Data and Software Policy to Strategy | |
| Module 3: Balancing benefits of Open Science and Real-Life Data Related Obligations and Restrictions | |
| Usage Rights and Licenses | Module 1: Getting Familiar with EU Copyright Law and Data and Digital Legislation |
| Module 2: Using and Sharing Research Outputs within a Multi-Layered Rules Framework | |
| Module 3: Commercialisation Assessments in EU Projects | |
| Ethics | Module 1: Understanding Research Integrity |
| Module 2: Ethical Guidelines and Legislation Relevant to Research | |
| Personal Data and GDPR | Module 1: Strategies for Handling Personal Data |
| Module 2: GDPR and Other Applicable Regulations on Privacy | |
| Transversal or Soft Skills | Module 1: Advocacy – Building Soft Skills for Impact |
| Module 2: Mediation and Community – Liaison and Networking | |
| Module 3: Efficient Communication (Written, Verbal and Visual) |
The basis of the topics covered is the Minimum Viable Skillset for Data Stewards, which outlines the key skills and competencies necessary to undertake a data stewardship role. In addition, we consulted with data stewards, data management and open science specialists to help us identify what topics were most relevant to the curriculum.
Each module listed above is expanded further to outline its content and structure, and below we will elaborate on each of these components and what we intend with them. At the top of each module, you will find an overview of the learning objectives and the total duration needed to complete the activities suggested in the module (note that this does not include prep time by the instructor). We then expand the module's content according to each learning objective, so that an instructor can clearly identify what the different materials and activities are intended to help achieve.
The curriculum is both comprehensive and modular, so that an instructor may choose as many sections (or if necessary, modules) as they like. The components below are intended to help guide the trainer in using the material, and provide tips and activities to shape teaching and learning.
A note on Open and FAIR: Instead of creating standalone sections or modules on Open Science and the FAIR principles, these concepts instead run through our curriculum, providing a framework as we expand on different topics of data stewardship in relation to them.
Inside the curriculum
A guide to what the different terms mentioned in our curriculum mean:
- Learning Objectives: We use the backwards design instructional model in our curriculum, that is, we begin with learning objectives, or what we intend for learners to learn from each module. We are guided by the action verbs in Bloom's Taxonomy, so as to make the learning objectives as clear and actionable as possible. A module may have one or more learning objectives, depending on its scope. Using the learning objective as our base, we then expand onto other aspects of the module that are intended to enable the achievement of this learning objective.
- Module Duration: An approximation of how long given material and activities will take to cover, but it is completely at the instructor's discretion to use more or less time, based on the learners in question and the scope of the training session. If some materials/activities are better suited to preparatory or post-session work, that adaptation is possible.
- Learning Activities: Activities that a trainer could use in the training to cover the given topic. A wide range of activities are suggested which include:
- Slide presentations/Lectures: A presentation or lecture from the trainer introducing the topic to the learners is often one of the first activities mentioned in the modules. We do not provide the slides themselves as we want the material to be adaptable to context, but we equip the trainer with resources (where possible) to create the slides, and point to any existing lectures or material on the topics. In some cases we outline the key points that the instructor should cover.
- Discussion/Reflection activities: These are meant to assess how learners have engaged with the material, and also enable them to reflect critically on it.
- Quizzes: Short quizzes to assess how learners have absorbed the content (usually self assessed, but trainers can choose how to use them).
- Role-play or Think-activities: Taking on roles (such as a data steward role) to work through various practical scenarios.
- Pre-session activities: Pre-assigned reading or self-paced material/coursework to follow before a session, usually followed by a recap and other learning activities in the session itself.
- Materials to Prepare: Based on suggested activities for a particular module, we identify what materials a instructor may need to prepare for the session (slide presentations, questions to guide a discussion, case studies to illustrate specific points).
- Resources: As our curriculum attempts to reuse as many existing resources as possible, we have tried to link to helpful materials that can help curate the sessions. These could be used to design slide presentations, assign reading to the learners, pick up case studies for discussions and role play scenarios, among others.
- Instructor Notes: Here we include additional information that the instructor could use to teach the module. Sometimes these are key takeaways or messages to impart, or suggestions to guide a particular activity or presentation, or how to use a particular resource. We have tried to be as explicit and comprehensive as possible with how the material is intended for use, while still trying to leave room for flexibility, for an instructor to adapt to a specific group of learners or other context.
Co-creation
The curriculum has been developed by a working group of people from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Denmark, Finland, the UK, Spain and Greece, and reviewed by many helpful reviewers who helped shape the content (a full list of contributors and more detail about the curriculum development process is available in our Deliverable Report).
As a result of being worked on by so many different people at different stages, you may observe some differences between the sections as you navigate the curriculum. While we have tried to streamline this as much as possible, it is important to keep in mind that the curriculum brings together a diversity of perspectives, and sections reflect these differences. Some sections like Research Data Management have more detail and material than others, and we have chosen to retain this and hope that instructors will find the additional information helpful in designing a training. In some modules, you may find more detail in the learning activities, and more general guidance in the instructor notes, and in some it may be the reverse. These reflect the different approaches of the sub-groups that worked on the material, and we encourage you to read all the material associated with the module to get a sense of the guidance and materials available. Despite the challenges of working with a large group, we are happy to have had many content experts help us build this curriculum, enabling us to provide as wide of a base as possible from which instructors can choose what they find most useful and interesting.
Authors and Contributors
Nida van Leersum, Saba Sharma, Achim Winandi, Paula Martinez Lavanchy, Fernando Aguilar, Tuulikki Alamettälä, Diane Antoine, Mathilde Bernier, Valentina Colcelli, Benjamin Derksen, Kasper Drazewski, Dominique Green, Christine Hadrossek, Joanna Janik, Karsten Kryger Hansen, Carolin Leister, Per Møldrup-Dalum, Marta Musidlowska, Ekaterina Peters, Giorgos Psathas, Päivi Rauste, Luca Schirru, Fabian Schubö, Lorna Wildgaard
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Reuse
The curriculum is free to reuse and adapt in any way by trainers, within the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license applied to the materials. Any additional licensing restrictions on linked resources must be verified independently.
Materials from this curriculum can also be reused or adapted via our open GitHub repository.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5072/zenodo.1234567
Accessibility Mission
Skills4EOSC is dedicated to ensuring that all produced learning materials are accessible to as many visitors as possible regardless of their ability or technology. We have an active commitment to increasing our learning materials accessibility. The main standards that we aim to comply with are WCAG v.2.1 Level AA criteria and PDF/UA (ISO 14289).
Acknowledgement
These learning materials have been developed by following the FAIR-by-Design Methodology.
