Needs assessment towards research data management at the Medical Faculty of the University of Freiburg - Data of the BE-KONFORM study

Urs A Fichtner; Lukas M Horstmeier; Boris A Brühmann; Harald Binder; Jochen Knaus

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2023.109084

Needs assessment towards research data management at the Medical Faculty of the University of Freiburg - Data of the BE-KONFORM study

Data Brief. 2023 Mar 22:48:109084. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2023.109084. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Authors

Urs A Fichtner^{1

2}, Lukas M Horstmeier¹, Boris A Brühmann¹, Harald Binder², Jochen Knaus²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics, Section of Health Care Research and Rehabilitation Research, Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center - University of Freiburg, Hugstetter Straße 49, 79106 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
² Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics, Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center - University of Freiburg, Stefan-Meier-Straße 26, 79104 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Abstract

In order to investigate employees' needs of the Medical Faculty of the University of Freiburg regarding research data management, the BE-KONFORM study was performed in a two-step approach. First, guideline-based qualitative video interviews with four researchers were performed to identify key constructs of relevance. Second, a standardized online survey was conducted from 1^st to 15^th of November 2020 based on e-mail invitation by the dean and a faculty newsletter. The questionnaire was provided bilingual (English and German) using a backward-forward translation method, no reminders and incentives were used to increase the response rate. The online survey was programmed in REDCap and was accessible via online link. The target population were members of the Medical Faculty (listed in the newsletter mailing list) regardless of the type of working contract signed. The final dataset contains 236 complete cases (90% German and 10% English). The study includes a randomised module asking for data publication (group A) or not (group B). 113 cases were randomized into group A and 99% of them consented to the publication of the collected research data in anonymized form (n=112). The dataset comprised questions about work-related characteristics (professional status, working experience, scientific field of work), data management-related items (definition of research data management, type of data used, type of storage used for saving data, use of electronic laboratory notebooks), experience and attitudes towards data publication in data repositories, as well as needs and preferences regarding research data management support. The produced data offers the possibility to connect with other data collected in this field in other contexts (faculties or universities).

Keywords: Digital infrastructure; Employee demands; Experimental study; Research data services; Survey; Theory of planned behavior; University research; User preferences.