Opening data with trust: Reflections on a holistic approach to data governance at IFPRI
IFPRI’s experience building overall data governance for Research Data Management (RDM) has helped us to build trust among IFPRI staff for opening their data. We will highlight how policies, protocols and processes are equally important components for opening data in addition to infrastructure and digital repositories.
The mandate of IFPRI is to provide research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. In pursuit of that mandate, IFPRI generates data ranging from household surveys to process-produced data and makes those data available and easily accessible. IFPRI has moved progressively toward full FAIR compliance beginning with publicly available datasets hosted on the website in 1999, a published data policy in 2000, establishing a data repository through Dataverse in 2007, and a Data Governance Team (DGT) in 2017. Revisions to the data policy in 2005 required researchers to publish the datasets generated during research projects within two years of data collection/finalization. However, the intention of the institute did not lead to automatic compliance by research staff. The data policy was not observed consistently, and publishing datasets remained voluntary. Researchers repeatedly expressed hesitations for opening data widely.
To overcome resistance from research staff, respond to open data movements, regulations, and policies from donors and governments, and identify gaps in RDM within the institute, IFPRI established a term-limited DGT in 2017. The first undertaking of this team was launching a review of the data management practices by an external consultant. Based on the recommendations from the review, IFPRI established a permanent data governance body, Data Governance and Management Committee (DGMC). DGMC facilitates the implementation of other recommendations from the review and address staff concerns. IFPRI has established new policies, processes, incentives and systems for RDM. As a result, IFPRI has 420 well-documented open datasets, and researchers are more confident and trust the system.
Authors
Yerramareddy, Indira; Prasai, Nilam; Saito, Erica; Plummer, Leigh; Bayeh, Mulugeta; Shang, Xinyuan; Miller, Ryan; Jung, Yunchul
Citation
Yerramareddy, Indira; Prasai, Nilam; Saito, Erica; Plummer, Leigh; Bayeh, Mulugeta; et al. 2020. Opening data with trust: Reflections on a holistic approach to data governance at IFPRI. Poster Presented December 16, 2020 at the AGU Fall Meeting.
Keywords
Open Data; Governance; Research Data Management; Data Repositories
Access/Licence
Open Access
