Working with a research community to identify barriers to reuse in practice research

This presentation presents the preliminary findings of a qualitative and quantitative data mapping exercise, conducted with creative practitioners across the UK, to identify and overcome barriers to research data reuse in practice research. This research data mapping exercise was conducted as part of the AHRC-funded project, ‘Practice Research Voices: Scoping the Open Library of Practice Research’ (PI Jenny Evans), a collaboration between information professionals and researchers at the University of Westminster, King's College London, Jisc, and the British Library, and software developers at repository platform Haplo/Cayuse to make practice research FAIR.

Practice research outputs are typically multi-component portfolios or collections of non-text file formats which are disseminated and hosted in separate places, such as personal websites, institutional repositories, and commercial video-sharing platforms. These factors pose a significant challenge to the preservation and reuse of practice research data. The presentation sets the project in context before outlining the methods and results of the research data mapping exercise, based on a survey conducted with practice researchers across the UK. In addition to presenting the project’s preliminary findings, the presentation provides a practical model for - and demonstrates the value of - working closely with research data creator communities to enable and maximise reuse.

This research was presented at the International Digital Curation Conference 2022, 14 June 2022.