How to Establish a network of Data Ambassadors
Open Science – Connecting the Actors – 21/11/22
The story of the FWB DA Community
Judith BIERNAUX
ULiège
Research Data Officer
Head of Research
Management Unit
jbiernaux@uliege.be
Céline THILLOU
UMons
Head of Research and
Technology Transfer
Office
celine.thillou@umons.ac.be
Sarah ZAHREDDINE
ULB
Research Data Officer
sarah.zahreddine@ulb.be

… to work on several important issues
and projects :
Data Management Plans
Training
Awareness
Data Repositories
[…]
Since then, the FWB RDOs work in close
collaboration on these issues Projet « HRS4R – Research Data Management » : Faciliter la gestion ouverte et responsable des données de la
recherche, Biernaux, Judith & Halleux, Isabelle, 2022
In late 2020, FWB Research Data Officiers got together…

… to work on several important issues
and projects :
Data Management Plans
Training
Awareness
Data Repositories
[…]
Since then, the FWB RDOs work in close
collaboration on these issues
In late 2020, FWB Research Data Officiers got together…
Projet « HRS4R – Research Data Management » : Faciliter la gestion ouverte et responsable des données de la
recherche, Biernaux, Judith & Halleux, Isabelle, 2022

How could we improve our work ?
As institutional staff, RDOs usually lack :
- Hands-on, sector-oriented knowledge of what a researcher really needs to match the
FAIR principles
- Discipline-specific, actionable advice
- The ability to reach each and every member of the scientific staff

How could we improve our work ?
As institutional staff, RDOs usually lack :
- Hands-on, sector-oriented knowledge of what a researcher really needs to match the
FAIR principles
- Discipline-specific, actionable advice
- The ability to reach each and every member of the scientific staff
Inspiration from Cambridge Data Champions program and TUDelft Data Champions in the
Open Science Community Delft
We need to build a community of Data Ambassadors in the FWB Universities !

The FWB DA Community : the launch
Action plan (late 2021)
Obtain support and funding from FWB
Communicate to researchers and
research staff about the initiative
Invite Delft Data Champions to share their
experience
Community call for DA recruitment
DAs are recruited continuously, for a two-year mandate
Objectives
Increasing the general RDM skills and
spreading good practice by activating
peer-to-peer support
Discover and highlight the already
existing RDM expertise and initiatives
Place RDM beacons in research units and
institutes

The FWB DA Community : the expectations
What RDOs can expect
Help from DAs in creating discipline-
specific training or tools
Help from DAs in pointing their
colleagues towards the right resource
(RDO, DPO, Legal, TTO…)
Field data from DAs’ work environment
(questions, needs, common issues…)
What DAs can expect
Networking spaces to exchange good
practice, ideas, resources, tips…
Upskilling opportunities, access to
dedicated training sessions and seminars
Recognition and career development
through visibility and endorsement

The FWB DA Community : the expectations
What RDOs can expect
Help from DAs in creating discipline-
specific training or tools
Help from DAs in pointing their
colleagues towards the right resource
(RDO, DPO, Legal, TTO…)
Field data from DAs’ work environment
(questions, needs, common issues…)
What DAs can expect
Networking spaces to exchange good
practice, ideas, resources, tips…
Upskilling opportunities, access to
dedicated training sessions and seminars
Recognition and career development
through visibility and endorsement
DAs are expected to organise one advocacy or awareness activity within their work
environment in the first two years of their mandate
Any form, any time, with on-demand help from RDOs and institutions

The FWB DA Community : the management
Networking
Since Nov ’21 :
80 members
6 events (2 in-person, 3 webinars, 1 remote training
session with DCC, ave. 30% attendance)
Slackspace + mailing list
Web page under construction
Training & good practice
Creation of a training session dedicated to
qualitative data management in collab
with 2 DAs

The FWB DA Community : success
Success and observations
Interdisciplinarity boosts mutual learning and
sparks a lot of conversation
Social sciences and humanities have expressed
the greatest need for training and tools in RDM-
> high representation in DAs
Train the trainer: support staff and RDOs skills
have increased too thanks to the DA network
(we have attended and provided training)

The FWB DA Community : success
Success and observations
Survey conducted in June 2022
Presented as a poster
Main motivation = increasing own
and colleagues’ skills
Increase of 1.5 pt out of 5 in self-
evaluated skill level in RDM topics
Up to « moderately good knowledge »
Sense of community > sense of
identification
=> Confirms the strength of networking and
importance of upskilling

The FWB DA Community : future & lessons learned
Bottom-up initiative: the need and relevance has been expressed, but the network
needs to be sustained and grown after this initial boost
The operating costs are low (events catering & mobility)
 The RDOs need to be made dedicated, permanent staff members
29/11: Open Data : Testimonies
1/12: Connaissez-vous le Dual Use ?
16/2: Bonnes et mauvaises
techniques d’anonymisation
Up next:
Half-term assessment with first wave
of DAs (we are the ones being evaluated )
Website completion
Collaboration with Data Stewards?

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?
“I have always been advocating for open data, open and free
software, and privacy preservation […] these activities made me a
go-to colleague for research data questions.
Jean-Baptiste, PhD Candidate @ Law Faculty, ULiège
“In the context of an ever-increasing amount of available research
data, the proper data management is becoming more and more
important. The DA network is so helpful because we are provided
with new information and examples of best practices that we can
easily spread further among our colleagues.”
Maren, Research Logistician @ Business School Dept, ULiège

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?
“Having worked on visualization and virtual reality for several
years, I've always been depending on the availability of scientific
data for my work. [...] Convincing [researchers] to actually
publish [data] can be daring and challenging at times, so I was
curious about different approaches to make that argument.”
Philippe, Computer Scientist @ Geology Dept, ULiège
“It prevents us from reinventing the wheel by pooling experiences,
resources and efforts”
Rémi, Cognitive Neuroscientist @UCLouvain

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?
[…] We need to train, raise awareness on this technical topic that
includes legal, IT and ethics issues, this takes time. The [DA]
network must bring together skilled people to share ideas, good
practice, and increase the number of initiatives. The network
brings operational support to the DAs.
Jean-Baptiste, PhD Candidate @ Law Faculty, ULiège
[Losing data] essentially means wasting time and funding.
Having witnessed and experienced [it] first hand, it always makes
me sad when it can't be helped because of technical problems,
but it's even worse when organisational issues are the cause of
data loss, because this should be avoided.
Philippe, Computer Scientist @ Geology Dept, ULiège

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?
Aside from being comforting, meeting with like-minded
researchers and colleagues to share experiences and
knowledge […] while also gaining some insight into their
domains and problems was [also] enhancing for my domain.
Philippe, Computer Scientist @ Geology Dept, ULiège
[…] Despite coming from very different fields […], we have a lot
more in common and lot more to learn from each other than I
had anticipated
Rémi, Cognitive Neuroscientist @UCLouvain

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?
What surprised me is the high number of people from the
“hard” sciences and thus the dominance of quantitative logics
as opposed to a qualitative approach, centred around data
privacy and ethics and not around data valorisation. [Those
diverging perspectives] are rewarding.
Jean-Baptiste, PhD Candidate @ Law Faculty, ULiège
After all it is quite heterogeneous between social scientists and
“hard” sciences as well as quals and quants, for instance.
Ferdinand, Research Coordinator @ Political Sciences Faculty, UCLouvain

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?
A presentation at the department level. Depending on the
feedback and interest, this might lead to a small workshop […]
The main focus should be on data and formats rather than
trendy tools and platforms. I'd like to avoid […] commercial
software and proprietary data formats to increase
sustainability […].
Philippe, Computer Scientist @ Geology Dept, ULiège
[…] Showcase some examples of data standardization and data
version control that come from my field that can either inspire
others or be directly reused in other fields.
Rémi, Cognitive Neuroscientist @UCLouvain

The FWB DA Community : testimonies
Why did I choose to join the Data Amb network ?
What did I do or am I planning to do as a Data
Ambassador, how can I advocate for good
research data management ?
Why is this initiative important ? What
should it implement ?
What did I expect by joining this network ?
Were my expectations met / was I surprised ?
As a first step, I am sharing the information obtained through
the DA network […] on an new section on RDM on our intranet.
The next step is to give an introductory presentation on RDM
during our annual research day.
Maren, Research Logistician @ Business School Dept, ULiège
[We] plan to launch a series of workshops / seminars on
RDM principles and practices that may become regular on a
(bi-)annual rhythm and are supposed to help implement
common and shared practices and consciousness.
Ferdinand, Research Coordinator @ Political Sciences Faculty, UCLouvain