Objective: This poster illustrates the Frameworks for a Data Management Curriculum that was developed by the Lamar Soutter Library of UMASS Medical School and the George C. Gordon Library at Worcester Polytechnic Institute through an IMLS National Leadership Planning Grant. These frameworks are intended undergraduate and graduate students studying science, health sciences, and engineering disciplines.

Methods: An Education Committee composed of librarians, faculty, a curriculum consultant, an evaluation consultant, and an instructional design consultant collaborated in the development of these frameworks. At both schools, consultants collected data from students regarding their current data management practices and interviewed faculty about their students’ data management skills and learning needs. A literature review of current data management courses was conducted. From these resources learning objectives were identified, a simplified data management plan was developed, and a lesson plans for seven course modules were created. The evaluation consultant and a WPI librarian interviewed faculty to develop real-life research case scenarios that illustrate data management practices in the lab and clinical settings.

Results: The curriculum frameworks are mapped to the data management plan requirements of the National Science Foundation and include lesson plans for seven instructional modules, a simplified data management plan, course readings, research cases in medicine, biomedical lab research, clinical behavioral health, and aerospace engineering. The Education Committee fully developed course content including readings, activities, research case excerpts, and assessment questions and answers for the fifth module, “Legal and Ethical Considerations for Research Data” as proof of concept.

Conclusion: Faculty and librarians have responded that the curriculum frameworks, when fully developed, will be a useful tool for providing data management instruction to students at the undergraduate and graduate levels who are enrolled in diverse science, health science and engineering courses. The modular format of the curriculum and variety of research cases is flexible ; allowing faculty to select modules that are relevant to their course programs. When completed, the curriculum can be delivered in multiple ways: face-to-face, as online interactive modules, or hybrid. Implementation funding for full development of the course modules, additional research cases, and piloting the curriculum modules is proposed.