Skills4EOSC achievements: shaping the future of open science training in Europe!

Writ­ten by Nida van Leer­sum (Skills4EOSC Train­ing Coor­di­na­tor)

Data Stew­ard­ship is one of the fastest grow­ing jobs in the Nether­lands. If we look at what is hap­pen­ing across Europe, the trend with­in research per­form­ing organ­i­sa­tions is the increased need for pro­fes­sion­al­is­ing data stew­ards. Today we can’t think of an open sci­ence ecosys­tem with­out data stew­ard­ship in it. It is no won­der that train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al­is­ing data stew­ards has been a hot top­ic in the last half decade. It is not only vital to duly recog­nise the impor­tance of the role but also to retain good data stew­ards.

This is where the Skills4EOSC project (2022–2025) entered into the pic­ture. Skills for the Euro­pean Open Sci­ence Com­mons (Skills4EOSC), is a large Euro­pean project aimed to advance Open Sci­ence skills by uni­fy­ing the cur­rent train­ing land­scape in Europe.

Its aim was to address the lack of Open Sci­ence and data exper­tise, the lack of a clear def­i­n­i­tion of data pro­fes­sion­al pro­files and cor­re­spond­ing career paths, and the frag­men­ta­tion of train­ing resources. 

4TU.Research Data joined the project con­sor­tium as one of the 44 part­ners across 18 coun­tries to con­tribute to this project.  One of its key con­tri­bu­tions was to devel­op a train­ing cur­ricu­lum for Data Stew­ards. 

Con­sid­er­ing skills and com­pe­ten­cies

The train­ing cur­ricu­lum is aimed at entry lev­el Data Stew­ards and for­mu­lat­ed after con­sid­er­ing the min­i­mum viable skills and com­pe­ten­cies that are required by an entry lev­el data stew­ard. Through a series of com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tions, it quick­ly became clear that irre­spec­tive of the title or the place­ment of the role with­in research per­form­ing organ­i­sa­tions, entry lev­el data stew­ards across Europe demon­strate sim­i­lar skills and com­pe­ten­cies. 

Land­scap­ing what already exists 

There are already a pletho­ra of resources. The main goal was always to reuse and refer to exist­ing mate­ri­als rather than cre­ate some­thing new. The land­scap­ing exer­cise enabled us to review what exists but also bring to light what can be bet­ter. As a result of this analy­sis, cer­tain top­ic areas have been giv­en extra atten­tion such as Research Soft­ware Man­age­ment, Train­ing Skills and Trans­ver­sal and Soft Skills. 

Strength­en­ing qual­i­ty through con­struc­tive align­ment

A key step in final­is­ing this project was a thor­ough review of the train­ing cur­ricu­lum by an expert from TU Delft Learn­ing for Life. Their role was to help achieve con­struc­tive align­ment through­out, mak­ing sure that learn­ing activ­i­ties and instruc­tor notes sup­port­ed the intend­ed learn­ing objec­tives, and that each mod­ule formed a coher­ent whole.

Our train­ing cur­ricu­lum – what makes it dif­fer­ent?

The final train­ing cur­ricu­lum (link: Guide for Instruc­tors: Skills4EOSC Data Stew­ard Cur­ricu­lum — DataStew­ard Train­ing Cur­ricu­lum) has a total of 8 sec­tions. Each sec­tion is divid­ed into mod­ules with learn­ing objec­tives, learn­ing activ­i­ties, instruc­tor notes and sug­gest­ed resources. It is aimed pri­mar­i­ly at train­ers who can adapt the mate­ri­als, make them their own, and use them to devel­op and deliv­er train­ings for data stew­ards.

The cur­ricu­lum is unique in that it is: 

• Ful­ly open and acces­si­ble 
• Reuses exist­ing mate­ri­als and builds upon them 
• Designed using a FAIR by Design method­ol­o­gy (you can read more about this method­ol­o­gy here: https://fair-by-design-methodology.github.io/FAIR-by-Design_Book/)
• Adapt­able to country/local con­text (mul­ti­ple Euro­pean per­spec­tives)
• Devel­oped after exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with the data stew­ard com­mu­ni­ty

Co-cre­ation for suc­cess

It is hoped this cur­ricu­lum will serve as a major resource for the devel­op­ment of train­ing pro­grammes for data stew­ards, thus con­tribut­ing to the estab­lish­ment of good data stew­ard­ship prac­tices at Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er insti­tu­tions. The resource is a result of a three-year co-cre­ation between part­ners from across Europe. We hope that by shar­ing it open­ly, we have suc­cess­ful­ly pro­vid­ed a good start­ing point for train­ers to reuse, mod­i­fy and con­tex­tu­alise the mate­ri­als to their local con­text. We envi­sion the resource as a start­ing point, from which train­ers can build their own unique learn­ing pro­grammes tai­lored to spe­cif­ic audi­ences. We hope that with more learn­ing mate­ri­als and train­ings, we can meet the grow­ing demand for trained and rec­og­nized data stew­ards in Europe.

Check out the pro­jec­t’s leaflet: Skills4EOSC — Data Stew­ard Train­ing Cur­ricu­lum.

In pic­ture: on 11 June, the Skills4EOSC Final Con­fer­ence “Build­ing Capac­i­ty for Open Sci­ence” brought togeth­er researchers, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, train­ers, and insti­tu­tion­al lead­ers at Cam­pus Con­dorcet in Paris.