Interviewing a researcher
May-15
Learning material produced by RDMRose
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/research/projects/rdmrose
Research Data Management 2.6

Data profile interviews
• Witt and Carlson (2007) offer an overview of the research
data interview:
1. What is the story of the data?
2. What form and format are the data in?
3. What is the expected lifespan of the dataset?
4. How could the data be used, reused, and repurposed?
5. How large is the dataset, and what is its rate of growth?
6. Who are the potential audiences for the data?
7. Who owns the data?
8. Does the dataset include any sensitive information?
9. What publications or discoveries have resulted from the data?
10. How should the data be made accessible?
May-15
Learning material produced by RDMRose
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/research/projects/rdmrose

Investigating a researcher
• Plan an investigation of a particular
researcher
• Topics for the investigation: their
research; what their data is; how they
analyse it; how they manage data.
• Resources: Witt & Carlson, 2007;
interview guides from the DAF
implementation guide.
• To plan:
– Who will you approach?
– What sort of themes and questions do you
want to explore?
– What preparatory work can be done?
• Work as a team
• Do an
investigation
online vs face to
face interview
May-15
Learning material produced by RDMRose
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/research/projects/rdmrose

Investigating a researcher: an
alternative
• As an alternative to conducting an interview with a researcher using data
profiles or DAF interview guides, you could use the 5 case studies of
researchers and research projects available on the RDMRose website:
http://rdmrose.group.shef.ac.uk/?page_id=10#session-71-case-studies-of-
researchers-and-research-projects
• These are recorded interviews with researchers working in:
– Gastroenterology / oncology
– Electronic and electrical engineering
– Civil and structural engineering (international collaborative research)
– Psychology (longitudinal quantitative research)
– Sociology (longitudinal qualitative research)
• In each of these interviews, the researcher describes one of their research
projects, their research data management issues, how they resolved these
issues, how they handled metadata, and what they think of open data.

REFERENCES
May-15
Learning material produced by RDMRose
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/research/projects/rdmrose

References
• Witt, M. and Carlson, J. R. (2007). "Conducting
a Data Interview" Libraries Research
Publications. Paper 81.
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/lib_research/81.
May-15
Learning material produced by RDMRose
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/is/research/projects/rdmrose