Measuring the Impact of Digital Repositories

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

Digital data repositories have become increasingly important across research communities in recent years due to changing expectations around data from funders and scientists. Managers, funders, and users of digital data repositories are interested in assessing and communicating the impact of such repositories. A systematic approach and well-understood metrics, that may be quantitative or qualitative in nature, are needed to determine impact. Various stakeholders that include repository evaluators, repository managers, information studies scholars, and researchers and other data producers need to come together to develop relevant metrics to measure and document impact and outcomes. To this end, the College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park proposes to facilitate a workshop that will gather these various stakeholders for open discussion around digital data repository impact and evaluation. The goal of this workshop is to identify the current metrics, tools, and practices that are effective, and the issues that will require additional research. Improvements to metrics used for the evaluation of digital repository services and their impacts on research is a topic which is well-suited to the workshop format in this proposal. Conversations across stakeholder communities do not happen often enough, but they are vital to the sustainable development of digital data repositories. This workshop will bring together a diverse set of stakeholders around digital data repositories to discuss strategies and methods to better assess the impact of repository services. Impact assessments are key to understanding outcomes and necessary to refine and modify programs and infrastructures. The development of more robust repository metrics will influence and transform practices in these organizations, broadening access to research data. Additionally, a report will be publicly released following the workshop so the results will have increased visibility beyond the participants and their institutions.