[Rdap] Tracking data questions/requests

[Andrew Johnson]

My colleague Megan Bresnahan and I are in the process of writing a grant to build a tool (tentatively called DataQ) that would be somewhat similar to what Joe mentioned, except it would be tailored to the types of library data questions Sarah asked about. The basic idea is to have a venue for librarians to share data questions they have received (along with their answers if they so choose). Answers to questions would be crowdsourced with additional feedback provided by an editorial team who would also be involved with setting policies and guidelines for using the tool.

We are in the early stages of this project, but if anyone is interested in discussing this further and/or contributing initial content or expertise feel free to contact me off list at andrew.m.johnson at colorado.edu. 

Also, to answer Sarah's initial questions, we currently track research data management questions separately using a shared Google spreadsheet; however, we are considering a move over to the system the library uses to track all other reference questions. Part of the reason for this is to make sure we're capturing all data questions, not just those that come through our Research Data Services unit.

Best,
Andrew

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Johnson
Research Data & Metadata Librarian
University of Colorado Boulder Libraries

-----Original Message-----
From: Rdap [mailto:rdap-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of Joe Hourcle
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 9:22 AM
To: Research Data, Access and Preservation
Subject: Re: [Rdap] Tracking data questions/requests



On Wed, 28 Aug 2013, Williams, Sarah Christine wrote:

> Hello,
>
> As data services are expanding at the University of Illinois, we are thinking about how we track data questions/requests.  We are interested to learn more about how other libraries are tracking data questions, for example:
>
>
> *         Do you systematically track data questions?  Is this library-wide or just within a specific unit in the library?
>
> *         What system do you use to record data questions?  Is it the same system used to record reference questions or is it separate?
>
> We would appreciate hearing about practices and experiences at other libraries.


I'm not sure that I'd really say that it's a practice for libraries in particular, but depending on what sort of questions you're fielding, they might be suitable for crowd-sourced answers.

In some of the programming language & web development toolkit communities, they'll have multiple venues for questions, with one being Stack Overflow:

 	http://stackoverflow.com/

(they'll specifically mention on their website what tag to use, so they can more effectively monitor the site for questions that need to be answered).

Recently, the group that runs Stack Overflow set up a new site for 'open data'.  (unfortunately, there's still the question of exactly what is 'open data')

 	http://opendata.stackexchange.com/

It's a pretty low-traffic site right now, but it might pick up as one of the current redesigns for data.gov is taking the approach of linking to them for people to ask questions.

-Joe

(and I should mention that I'm currently one of the moderators on the site ... as is one of the data.gov people, and a phd student from Austria) _______________________________________________
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