Contextualising FAIR Data in Architecture and Design

Intern­ship type: Com­mu­ni­ca­tion & case study devel­op­ment
Lead insti­tu­tion: TU Delft
Dura­tion: 3 months
Hours/week: 20–40 (Nego­tiable)
Pre­ferred start-end date(s): April-June; Sep­tem­ber-Novem­ber 2022
Super­vi­sor name & con­tact details: Diana Popa (Data Stew­ard, Fac­ul­ty of Archi­tec­ture and the Built Envi­ron­ment, TU Delft) d.m.popa@tudelft.nl

Project description

Archi­tec­ture and design research faces spe­cif­ic chal­lenges when it comes to achiev­ing data that is Find­able, Acces­si­ble, Inter­op­er­a­ble and Reusable (The FAIR prin­ci­ples) due to the diver­si­ty of data types cre­at­ed; the chal­lenges of dig­i­tiz­ing some types of data; and, the lim­it­ed access to all arte­facts required to repeat or build upon past research.

This intern­ship aims to con­tex­tu­alise what FAIR data means to archi­tects and design­ers, show­case the val­ue of data shar­ing and bring to light addi­tion­al insight for researchers and data sup­port pro­fes­sion­als about the cre­ation and reuse of FAIR data with­in these dis­ci­plines. The intern will devel­op case stud­ies that: 

• Define what ‘research data’ means to archi­tects and design­ers and how they approach mak­ing their data ‘FAIR’. 
• Iden­ti­fy typ­i­cal research work­flows, tools and gaps where sup­port is need­ed to help researchers achieve FAIR data.  
• Are sup­port­ed by exam­ples of archi­tec­ture and design datasets open­ly pub­lished in 4TU.ResearchData. 
• Eval­u­ate the moti­va­tions and chal­lenges of data pub­li­ca­tion and shar­ing with­in these dis­ci­plines. 
• Show­case the poten­tial ben­e­fits of data pub­li­ca­tion and reuse from a researcher’s per­spec­tive. 
• Show­case the val­ue of shar­ing data in terms of equi­ty and glob­al impact. 

This could involve inter­view­ing researchers from rel­e­vant fac­ul­ties and depart­ments at the 4TU.ResearchData part­ner insti­tu­tions and beyond.

Case stud­ies will be pub­lished as ded­i­cat­ed arti­cles on the 4TU.ResearchData web­site and pub­lished with­in our social media chan­nels (Slack, Twit­ter and LinkedIn) and newslet­ter. The intern will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present their work at meet­ings, con­fer­ences and as a peer-reviewed pub­li­ca­tion. 

Prerequisite skills

• Research expe­ri­ence or famil­iar­i­ty with the research life­cy­cle in architecture/science/engineering/design/social sci­ence dis­ci­plines is desir­able. 
• Good com­mu­ni­ca­tion and writ­ing skills are essen­tial, and expe­ri­ence of con­duct­ing inter­views is desir­able. 
• A goal-ori­ent­ed mind­set is nec­es­sary. The can­di­date is expect­ed to be prag­mat­ic and coop­er­a­tive while think­ing inde­pen­dent­ly. 

Benefits for interns

Interns will:

• Obtain insights into research data man­age­ment from an insti­tu­tion­al per­spec­tive.
• Gain insights into challenges/opportunities of dis­ci­pli­nary data man­age­ment.     
• Learn and prac­tice case study devel­op­ment and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills
• which are fun­da­men­tal for both research and prac­tice.
• Learn about the lat­est dis­ci­pli­nary top­ics around research data man­age­ment and open sci­ence prac­tices 

How to apply

Please send your CV and cov­er let­ter (in Eng­lish, 2 page max for each) to researchdata@4tu.nl with the sub­ject line ‘4TU.ResearchData Intern­ship Pro­gramme’. In your cov­er let­ter please include your moti­va­tion for apply­ing for this project. Please briefly explain what inter­ests you the most in this project, and feel free to men­tion any­thing par­tic­u­lar that you would like to explore/learn from this project. All appli­ca­tions will be sub­ject to a review process. 

For ques­tions about the project activ­i­ties, please con­tact the super­vi­sor, Diana Popa (d.m.popa@tudelft.nl). For more infor­ma­tion about how to apply, con­tact our com­mu­ni­ty man­ag­er, Con­nie Clare (c.e.clare@tudelft.nl).