Data Steward Handbook

Last updated: [3 December, 2024]

Welcome to the Data Steward Handbook, an ELIXIR Research Data Management (RDM) Community resource that offers practical guidance to data stewards on relevant topics in their daily job, encouraging the use of existing resources and best practices to improve local data management.

Why a Data Steward Handbook?

• In many organisations the data steward position is a new, often solo activity. Beyond the silos of local organisations and from the perspective of data stewards’ experiences, this Handbook aims to make their knowledge more accessible.

• A Data Steward Handbook was raised by the community as a missing element in the RDM ecosystem. In contrast to other resources that provide guidelines and best practices, the Data Steward Handbook provides examples on how to actually perform your tasks.

Target audience

Data stewards dealing with life science data, regardless of their level of proficiency.

Note: some people may not have “data steward” as their job title, but are still responsible for support in data management, curation and coordinating. For a definition of this role, see the RDMkit Data Steward page.

Goals

• To offer practical guidance to data stewards on relevant topics in their daily job.
• To facilitate knowledge exchange on implementing good data management practices.

Out of scope

• The handbook does not provide legal advice and users must assess if its content is applicable to their institution, ELIXIR node, and/or country.
• The handbook does not address how an individual can manage their own research data nor is it a registry of resources (training materials, tools, standards etc.) as this is addressed by other ELIXIR resources such as RDMkit, DSW, FAIR Cookbook, FAIRsharing and TeSS.

What to get out of this Handbook

• Real-world examples of how other data stewards run data management activities in their institute, with tips and ideas that help others.
• Existing data management know-how, as well as exchange on the practical implementation of these in a specific institute as a best practice.
• Good practices in training and community building, to stimulate data stewardship skills, local peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing in your institute.
• Information on how to assess data management practices and apply these assessments to (further) develop your institute’s data management strategy.
• Guidelines around data steward competencies, job profiles and career paths.
• Link lists (i.e., where to find all the resources)

Licence and citation

Content is made available under a CC-BY license. Software is using ELIXIR Toolkit Theme which is available under an MIT license.

Cite us:

Data Steward Handbook. A deliverable from the ELIXIR funded DATAREX implementation study. URL: https://elixir-europe.org/internal-projects/commissioned-services/datarex

Tools and resources on this page

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National resources

Tools and resources tailored to users in different countries.

Contributors