Spotlight on Skills

Authors: Iri­na Motoc, Dorien Hui­js­er, Leila Iñi­go de la Cruz, Nida van Leer­sum

Intro­duc­tion

A core part of our work at 4TU.ResearchData is focused on strength­en­ing the dig­i­tal skills and capac­i­ty of researchers and data pro­fes­sion­als, which sup­ports them in mak­ing data and soft­ware FAIR. While our repos­i­to­ry pri­mar­i­ly serves the Nat­ur­al and Engi­neer­ing Sci­ences (NES), our dig­i­tal skills ini­tia­tives extend beyond this domain. By strength­en­ing skills across insti­tutes, we help to cre­ate a broad­er and more resilient foun­da­tion for research data man­age­ment and open sci­ence.

We address skills and capac­i­ty gaps through three com­ple­men­tary per­spec­tives: build­ing dig­i­tal capac­i­ty, train­ing and cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment for data pro­fes­sion­als, and sus­tain­able research data and soft­ware train­ing. These per­spec­tives tar­get researchers, data pro­fes­sion­als, and train­ers with­in our part­ner insti­tu­tions and across the wider research com­mu­ni­ty. Togeth­er, they strength­en both the exper­tise and the long‑term infra­struc­ture need­ed for insti­tutes to grow and sus­tain their own dig­i­tal skills capac­i­ty. 

Our Three Perspectives on Skills

1. Building Digital Capacity

4TU.ResearchData leads a project on “Build­ing dig­i­tal skills train­ing and les­son devel­op­ment capac­i­ty in the Nether­lands NES domain” (DC4NES) to expand nation­al capac­i­ty for com­pu­ta­tion­al and data skills train­ing across the Nat­ur­al and Engi­neer­ing Sci­ences in the Nether­lands. As researchers increas­ing­ly rely on pro­gram­ming, data man­age­ment and repro­ducible work­flows, DC4NES address­es the short­age of qual­i­fied train­ers to meet this demand across Dutch research insti­tu­tions, by prepar­ing research sup­port staff and researchers to become cer­ti­fied Car­pen­tries instruc­tors. The project will also devel­op open­ly licensed, NES‑specific les­son mate­ri­als in fields such as chem­istry, physics or geospa­tial sci­ence, ensur­ing align­ment with cur­rent research prac­tices.

To ensure sus­tain­able growth, DC4NES will devel­op region­al train­ing ecosys­tems through Local Train­ing Hubs where insti­tu­tions share instruc­tors, rotate work­shop host­ing, and reduce organ­i­sa­tion­al over­head. This aims to cre­ate a sta­ble, recur­ring train­ing infra­struc­ture that con­tin­ues beyond the project and ben­e­fits stu­dents, PhDs, post­docs, and oth­er researchers. To learn more, vis­it the Dig­i­tal Capac­i­ty for NES project page on our web­site. 

“Teach­ing is shar­ing, and shar­ing is at the core of Open Sci­ence. I will fol­low the Car­pen­try train­ing because I want to cham­pi­on Open Sci­ence.” — Nami Suna­mi, Data Stew­ard, TU/e

2. Curriculum and Training for Data Professionals

Research Data Nether­lands (RDNL), with 4TU.ResearchData as one of its four core part­ners, is devel­op­ing a nation­al train­ing and com­mu­ni­ty plat­form for research data pro­fes­sion­als, fund­ed by Open Sci­ence NL. Through this project, we are not only train­ing data pro­fes­sion­als in the RDNL cours­es “Essen­tials 4 Data Sup­port” and “GDPR 4 Data Sup­port”, but also con­tribut­ing to a nation­al plat­form that will meet train­ing needs for the long term. This train­ing plat­form will pro­vide a nation­al cur­ricu­lum and a cen­tral place for data pro­fes­sion­als to con­nect with rel­e­vant com­mu­ni­ties. As part of this effort, RDNL recent­ly released an ini­tial ver­sion of the nation­al cur­ricu­lum. This cur­ricu­lum acts as a foun­da­tion for build­ing a full nation­al train­ing pro­gramme over the next three years, includ­ing offer­ings from RDNL, exter­nal train­ing providers, and new cours­es such as an RDNL Train‑the‑Trainer. As a way of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, learn­ers will be able to earn dig­i­tal badges to demon­strate their acquired knowl­edge and skills, sup­port­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty and life­long learn­ing through­out the cur­ricu­lum. To learn more, vis­it Research Data Nether­lands. 

“As a Data Stew­ard, it is essen­tial to have and update a knowl­edge base on man­ag­ing research data. The cours­es stood out for cre­at­ing new con­nec­tions across many aca­d­e­m­ic organ­i­sa­tions, where inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ty and exchang­ing solu­tions to shared chal­lenges is very valu­able.” — Matthi­js Net­ten, Data Stew­ard TU Delft

3. Research Data and Software Training

4TU.ResearchData works with our part­ner insti­tu­tions to build a sus­tain­able train­ing ecosys­tem that strength­ens data and soft­ware lit­er­a­cy across the Nat­ur­al and Engi­neer­ing Sci­ences (NES). This year we con­tin­ue to focus on embed­ding foun­da­tion­al repro­ducible research skills into insti­tu­tion­al train­ing, devel­op NES domain-spe­cif­ic work­shops, and con­nect researchers with 4TU.ResearchData repos­i­to­ry ser­vices such as the API, OPeN­DAP serv­er, and IIIF. Recent work has includ­ed  deliv­er­ing API‑focused work­shops, pilot­ing a les­son on Inter­op­er­abil­i­ty in Cli­mate and Atmos­pher­ic Sci­ences, and sup­port­ing software‑skills train­ing at TU Eind­hoven and Wagenin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty & Research.

To ensure long‑term impact, we aim to estab­lish institute‑embedded work­shops sup­port­ed by a scal­able train­ing cycle. Domain‑specific mate­ri­als, such as API work­shops built around real use cas­es, reflect this approach. In our most recent API work­shop, par­tic­i­pants empha­sised the val­ue of these ses­sions, not­ing their moti­va­tion to attend:

“Visu­al­iz­ing the datasets pub­lished by our insti­tu­tions and explor­ing poten­tial data reuse pub­lished at my insti­tute” - Min­si Li, Data Stew­ard, Uni­ver­si­ty of Twente

“Get­ting the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal skills to deploy an app that mon­i­tors data and code resources” — Nestor de la Paz Ruiz, Soft­ware Stew­ard, Uni­ver­si­ty of Twente.

To learn more, vis­it the train­ing sec­tion of our web­site. 

Conclusion

Our three per­spec­tives on skills show that we reach a wide range of audi­ences and domains. We also recog­nise that sus­tain­able skills and capac­i­ty devel­op­ment require good, long‑term struc­tures, which we active­ly help to build togeth­er with our part­ner insti­tu­tions and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er organ­i­sa­tions and ini­tia­tives such as the Nether­lands eScience Cen­ter, DANS, SURF, Health-RI, TDCC-NES and Open Sci­ence NL. This spot­light sum­maris­es recent progress and we look for­ward to expand­ing and strength­en­ing our skills devel­op­ment efforts in the years to come.