Data Stewardship addressing disciplinary data management needs

One of the biggest challenges for multidisciplinary research institutions which provide data management support to researchers is addressing disciplinary differences (Akers and Doty, 2013). Centralised services need to be general enough to cater for all the different flavours of research conducted in an institution. At the same time, focusing on the common denominator means that subject-specific differences and needs may not be effectively addressed. In 2017, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) embarked on an ambitious Data Stewardship project, aiming to comprehensively address data management needs across a multi-disciplinary campus. In this article we describe the principles behind the Data Stewardship project at TU Delft, the progress so far, identify the key challenges and explain our plans for the future. Received 22 January 2018 ~ Accepted 20 February 2018 Correspondence should be addressed to Marta Teperek, Research Data Services, TU Delft Library, Prometheusplein 1, 2628 ZC Delft, Netherlands. Email: m.teperek@tudelft.nl An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 13 International Digital Curation Conference. The International Journal of Digital Curation is an international journal committed to scholarly excellence and dedicated to the advancement of digital curation across a wide range of sectors. The IJDC is published by the University of Edinburgh on behalf of the Digital Curation Centre. ISSN: 1746-8256. URL: http://www.ijdc.net/ Copyright rests with the authors. This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence, version 4.0. For details please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ International Journal of Digital Curation 2018, Vol. 13, Iss. 1, 141–149 141 http://dx.doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v13i1.604 DOI: 10.2218/ijdc.v13i1.604 142 | Data Stewardship doi:10.2218/ijdc.v13i1.604