Module 1: Advocacy – Building Soft Skills for Impact

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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.

Learning Objectives

• Learning Objective 1 (LO1): Identify the main soft skills required by the data steward.
• Learning Objective 2 (LO2): Apply soft skills to particular audiences.
• Learning Objective 3 (LO3): Identify strategies for being proactive and resourceful in a decision making context.

Total Module Duration

2 hours 15 minutes (without optional activity)

Learning Objective 1

LO1: Identify the main soft skills required by the data steward.

Learning Activities

• Presentation or video (10 mins): Introduction to soft skills: Definition of soft skills and distinction with hard skills.
• Self-assessment and discussion (25 mins): The learners can complete a self-assessment questionnaire on key soft skills and reflect on their strengths and what they need to develop further.
• Discussion (20 mins): In groups, identify the major challenges facing data stewards to meet the needs of data and research support and the soft skills needed to address them.

Materials to Prepare

• Slide presentation on soft skills.
• For the questionnaire, the answers can be gathered via an online platform (like Google/Microsoft forms) or paper depending on the mode of instruction and the preference of the instructor.

Instructor Notes

Presentation:

• The instructor can start off by defining soft skills (Resources 1 – 3) or play the video (Resource 4) with the aim to help learners identify and understand the importance of key soft skills necessary to promote open science and good research data management practices and addressing related challenges.
• The instructor can use the following case study of the Data Management Plan to discuss the role of the data steward, challenges that can be faced and associated skills that can be used to address the challenges. This case study can be used as a basis and paired with the Role Play Activity in LO2.
• A researcher approaches the data steward (learner) and is reluctant to create a DMP. The data steward must look at different aspects of why a DMP is important and try and make a persuasive case using a mix of their knowledge while also employing key soft skills. Some points and challenges to be considered are:
  • Resistance to drafting the DMP:
    Key skills: Empathy (understanding concerns and responding appropriately), communication (explaining the benefits, addressing misunderstandings), persuasion (arguing the benefits of open science and data management based on researchers' interests).
  • Lack of data management and sharing skills (lack of knowledge of FAIR principles):
    Key skills: Active listening (identifying needs), pedagogy (explaining concepts), collaboration (teamwork).
  • Lack of infrastructure and funding: Insufficient investment in open science and data management platforms, storage spaces, and tools:
    Key skills: Project management (finding and prioritising available resources), creativity (exploring alternative solutions), networking (building partnerships to obtain financial and technical support).
  • Legal issues or governance issues (open science and data management policies and regulations may vary by country and discipline):
    Key skills: adaptability (navigating a constantly changing environment), initiative (proposing internal policies adapted to local realities, finding solutions with legal experts), negotiation (working with decision-makers to find acceptable compromises)

Self-assessment:

The instructor can use the suggested questions below (and develop as needed) to help the learners identify soft skills they might have or need to develop. The questions can have the following answer choices: (Yes / No /Sometimes).

1. Communication and Active Listening
   • I can clearly explain data management concepts to various stakeholders (Researchers, PhD students, etc.).
   • I actively listen to researchers' needs and rephrase their request to ensure I fully understand them.
   • I adapt my language and level of detail according to my audience's knowledge level.
   • I ask the right questions to identify underlying data-related issues.
2. Collaboration and Teamwork
   • I work effectively with interdisciplinary teams (researchers, IT specialists, archivists, legal experts).
   • I facilitate collaboration and encourage exchanges between different stakeholders.
3. Empathy and Support
   • I consider researchers' concerns regarding data sharing and management.
   • I am patient when assisting individuals unfamiliar with open science principles.
   • I know how to reassure and motivate stakeholders who are resistant to change.
4. Persuasion and Influence
   • I can effectively argue the importance of data sharing according to FAIR principles.
   • I use concrete and relevant examples to raise awareness about open science issues.
   • I highlight the benefits of data management and sharing to encourage best practices.
5. Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving
   • I rigorously analyse researchers' needs to propose suitable data management solutions.
   • I can identify weaknesses in a data management plan and suggest improvements.
6. Proactivity and Leadership
   • I take the initiative to propose solutions and improve existing data management processes.
   • I actively participate in working groups and initiatives related to open science.

Once they have finished the self assessment, learners can share back with the group. The instructor can facilitate this discussion by asking them to provide real life examples to demonstrate their soft skills or where they could improve a soft skill.

Discussion:

• The instructor can ask learners to form small groups and brainstorm about specific soft skills relevant to data stewards (e.g. communication, collaboration, time management, problem-solving, and adaptability etc.)

Resources

1. TVETipedia Glossary. https://unevoc.unesco.org/home/TVETipedia+Glossary/lang=en/show=term/term=Soft+skills#start.
2. What Are Soft Skills? Definition, Importance, and Examples. Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/soft-skills.asp.
3. Owen, Kelly. What might we mean by soft skills? https://owenkelly.net/19918/what-might-we-mean-by-soft-skills/.
4. Video: What Are Soft Skills and Why Do They Matter? https://successatschool.org/advice/employability-skills/video-what-are-soft-skills-and-why-do-they-matter/1008.

Learning Objective 2

LO2: Apply soft skills to particular audiences.

Learning Activities

• Ice breaker (10 mins):
  • Instructor prepares a list of hypothetical situations based on the personal experience of the instructor in which a person is reluctant to adopt one or more open science practices or uses some of the examples below. The instructor presents the following situations to the learners, for instance:
  • Have you ever been in a situation in which a stakeholder:
    • Argues that using a DMP is useless.
    • Thinks that open science will do him/her a disservice for their career.
• Brainstorming activity (30 mins): Based on these shared experiences, the instructor and the learners can start to brainstorm meaningful arguments to convince a non-receptive audience to an OS subject and to do so, the right attitude to adopt.
• (Optional) Role Play activity (30 mins): in pairs, the learners start a role-play in which one plays a reluctant stakeholder and the other a data steward trying to convince them. The Case Study from LO1 can be used for this role play.
  • Appoint two observers to take note of any particular points in the dialogue: for example, if a researcher was impatient, or conversely, showed a lot of interest but had no understanding of the subject, what was the data steward's attitude? How did the data steward adapt to the circumstances?
  • At the end of the game, the observers report back and a discussion takes place on what strategies were most effective.

Materials to Prepare

• Ice Breaker (either use the suggested activity or come up with context specific examples).
• Brainstorm and Role Play: Facilitate the sessions by preparing which soft skills to focus on and highlight.

Instructor Notes

Ice Breaker:

• Through this exercise, the instructor helps learners to Identify the use of soft skills to promote Open Science (OS) practices through tailored arguments and strategies, recognise and address resistance in professional interactions, develop active listening, empathy, and constructive responses to challenges.
• For example: For the stakeholder that argues that using a DMP is useless. The instructor can prepare arguments in favour of developing/using a DMP or use the video (Resource 1).

Brainstorm:

• The instructor can use the DMP as an example to demonstrate how to develop an argument:
  • Organise the argument in such a way that the person sees that the use of a DMP is in their interest. For example, that it is not a waste of time but a time saver in the long term when the data cycle is perfectly described (this makes it easier to reuse data, and deposit data in repositories).
  • Suggest tools that could facilitate the writing of the DMP.
  • Try to think about success stories to support your arguments.
• Video of persuasion techniques: Can be shown after the brainstorming activity (Resource 2).

(Optional) Role Play:

• Through the role play exercise, the instructor can highlight the importance of listening, empathy, developing arguments, and so on. Below are some key points the instructor can use to facilitate the role play:
  • Listening:
    • Try to gather information on how the other person perceives things; what is the basis of their perception, what is the underlying reason for them not agreeing with you.
    • Understand what's important to them and what is bothering them, and choose arguments accordingly providing factual and tangible elements, reference documents.
  • Empathy:
    • Define the term empathy, "understanding the reality of the other".
    • Show that the stakeholder's point of view is being considered by using phrases such as: "I can understand the problem ...", "I used to think that and ...".

Resources

Input for Ice breaker and activities:

1. "Data Management Plans." TU Delft, https://www.tudelft.nl/en/library/current-topics/research-data-management/r/plan/data-management-plans.
2. How to convince other - power of persuasion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI3MgaFrKUw.
3. Miscommunication. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezOjYxIOonY.
4. Lyon, Alexander. Active Listening Skills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wUCyjiyXdg.
5. Lyon, Alexander. Empathetic Listening Skills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO1gpzakbik.

Learning Objective 3

LO3: Identify strategies for being proactive and resourceful in a decision making context.

Learning Activities

• Brainstorming activity or round table (20 mins): Where do decisions get made in your environment/institute? Where can you make your voice heard and how?
• Discussion (20 mins): Ask learners to discuss situations where they have seen examples of successful advocacy. Discuss the strategies that they (or others) undertook that made it a successful situation.

Materials to Prepare

• Slide presentation or case studies: the trainer can prepare a slide or case study depicting a person in action in a particular environment (in a situation with the Director of their laboratory, at the heart of a team meeting with a project manager, on the board of their laboratory), providing an opportunity to tell a real-life experience. Alternatively, videos can be prepared where data stewards tell their own stories/experience.

Instructor Notes

Brainstorm:

• The aim of the session is to help participants identify the right places to be in order to bring the right message. Discuss what it means to be a data steward and what place they have within their institute to have their voice heard.

Resources

The instructor might have to find/develop their own resources for this module. Examples shared during the brainstorm could serve as good case studies if this module is repeated.