The Unit for Data Management Guidance and Development

New unit: Data Management Support

The Unit for Data Management Guidance and Development has merged with the Data Curation Unit (DCU) to form the new unit Data Management Support (DMS). DMS assists everyone at SLU who works with research and environmental monitoring with managing, publishing and long-term preserving of data, writing data management plans and other issues related to data management.

The Unit for Data Management Guidance and Development

The Unit for Data Management Guidance and Development (DMGD) will provide support to monitoring and assessment (EMA) projects to ultimately ensure the desired quality and increased coordination in the different parts or processes of data management: collection, reception, storage and provide. The work is being performed cross-faculty, in close collaboration with the departments and projects of the University, on behalf of the Council for Environmental Monitoring and Assessment and the faculties.

Another important part of the DMGD’s work is to carry out joint development projects that span all EMA activities. Examples include the development of a common meta-database of all environmental data, which ultimately promotes access to and use of data via the Internet.

DMGD provides consultative support, promotes knowledge-sharing and teamwork, and monitors the extent to which data management in SLU's environmental activities achieves the planned quality profile with respect to the demands of the recently developed quality guide. The following services are offered by the unit:

Support

• Supports coordinators and project managers in the preparation of data for improvement, such as IT development projects. However, it is the actual project owners which have to finance and take responsibility for the implementation of these projects.
• Provides templates and guidelines to promote harmonization.
• Offers some direct support for project management, business analysis and requirements management.
• Provides consultant contacts and some support in contractual matters internally and externally.
• General advice on technical solutions to promote harmonization.

Teamwork

DMGD is working to establish a strong network within the SLU EMA activities by:

• Formulating long-term goals for increased standardization of data handling and communicating these goals.
• Regularly conducting seminars (technical forum) and meetings in support of project managers and system developers, etc.
• Maintains a good knowledge of the needs and ongoing projects and arranges contacts regarding the technical solutions etc. used in data management at SLU.
• Conducts joint training activities.

Follow-up

DMGD also has the role of following up whether SLU's EMA projects reach a certain level of quality concerning data management. This is done by:

• Providing guidelines – a quality guide - for the quality levels each project's goal is to achieve in their data management in respective parts, from collection to presentation, which are applicable for the project.
• Providing advice on how projects, through self-evaluation, can map their quality profile and plan improvements to achieve desired quality levels.
• Regularly following up the project quality profile developed.