Running RISE Workshops for Research Data Management: An Organisation’s Guide

Are you keen to evaluate your organisation’s research data management (RDM) capability and take it to the next level? If so, you should consider running the RISE workshop to help determine your RDM maturity.

The ARDC previously ran these workshops with organisations around Australia. Now you can run your own RISE workshops with the help of this guide.

  • Infrastructure providers (including research facilities)
  • Data custodians/managers
  • Digital skills trainers

By the end of reading this resource, you should be able to:

  • understand the design and history of RISE workshops for assessing institutional research data management (RDM)
  • understand how RISE works by providing descriptors for different levels of institutional RDM maturity, against which your organisation can be assessed
  • plan, conduct and follow up on a RISE workshop by following the recommended steps.

A RISE (Research Infrastructure Self Evaluation) workshop is an activity for your institution to assess the maturity of its research data management (RDM). It brings together representatives from across your institution, who may come from:

  • research
  • library
  • research offices
  • IT
  • eResearch
  • ethics and integrity
  • DVCR offices
  • records offices
  • HDR training
  • any other parts of the institution involved in data management and sharing. 

Running the workshop will create shared knowledge across the organisation that can help identify gaps, priorities and planning for RDM services across the organisation into the future. Specific outcomes can include:

  • identifying your institution’s current level of RDM service
  • discussing current gaps in your institution’s RDM service
  • identifying areas for improvement
  • prioritising RDM service areas
  • input for a roadmap to increase the maturity of RDM service.

The RISE Framework was developed by the UK’s Digital Curation Centre and has been tested internationally by many universities. It offers descriptors of different levels of maturity of various research data management and sharing services, against which you can evaluate your own institution’s RDM maturity in an approximately 2.5-hour workshop. It will also allow you to benchmark your organisation’s RDM against other research organisations.

The ARDC has run RISE workshops with more than 22 institutions across Australia in recent years, delivering useful results. We now invite you to run your own RISE workshop using this guide.

How RISE Works

A diagram with 10 components: RDM policy and strategy, which feeds into business plans and sustainability; data management planning, active data management, appraisal and risk assessment, preservation, access and publishing, and discovery, which are linked up in a circle; training and advisory services, which feed into the circle
Figure 1. Ten research data service support areas. Source: Digital Curation Centre

The RISE model covers the 10 support areas of the Digital Curation Centre’s research data service model (Figure 1), some of which represent a stage in the research data lifecycle and all of which are key to an institution’s RDM. Using RISE involves self-assessment in each of the 10 components. 

For each area, statements describing 3 levels of maturity are provided. The 3 levels, from less to more mature, indicate:

  1. compliance
  2. locally tailored services
  3. sector-leading services.

You will identify the statement that most closely matches the state of your institution, and award your institution a score associated with that statement. Here is an example:

RISE statements for policy Development under component 1, RDM Policy and Strategy. At 0 or 0.5 points, the statement reads "Institutional policy articulates roles & responsibilities for researchers, other staff and students to comply with legal & regulatory obligations, external funders’ policy expectations"; at 1 or 1.5 points, the statement reads "Institutional policy articulates the value of good RDM practice to the institution and its rationale for retaining data of long-term value. Policy is subject to a regular, scheduled review process"; at 2 or 2.5 points, the statement reads "Institutional policies with a bearing on RDM (e.g. FOI, ethics, research conduct, etc.) are joined up and complementary. Policies are externally promoted, aiming to push the sector forward". There is a comment section at the bottom.
Figure 2. Maturity statements and corresponding scores for policy development under area 1, RDM policy and strategy, from the ARDC’s RDM capability self-assessment form

When carrying out the self-assessment, it is important to reference your institution’s strategic priorities and to keep in mind that no institution is likely to be resourced to excel in all areas. Also keep in mind that the scope of RISE is limited to research data (i.e. data produced by research), not research information (i.e. data about research or researchers).

How to Run a RISE Workshop

Follow these steps to run your own RISE workshop smoothly:

Step 1

Determine who will facilitate the workshop.

Determine who will take notes during the workshop. This person will be responsible for recording key points from the discussions.

Step 2

Determine if you will run the workshop in person or online.

  • For in-person workshops, make sure you book a suitable room for the event. 
  • For online workshops, set up the web conferencing (e.g. on Zoom).

Step 3

Identify participants for the workshop. These will be people who work in RDM and/or have an interest in RDM. Aim for no more than 15 participants.

Contact potential participants to see if they are interested in the workshop. Provide them with information about what RISE is and the workshop’s purposes.

Step 4

Once participants have been identified, determine the workshop’s date. Send out meeting invites, giving participants plenty of notice (at least one month) to ensure they are available to attend.

If the workshop will be held online, also send the participants the RDM capability self-assessment form, which contains the maturity statements for the 10 research data support components, for use during the workshop. Remind participants that they are not required to read the form prior to the workshop.

Step 5

A few days before the workshop, send a final reminder to the participants.

Step 1

Introduce the workshop to the participants.

  • Explain what RISE is.
  • Outline the workshop’s purposes and intended outcomes.
  • Clearly indicate to participants that they can be open and honest and that all responses will be treated in confidence and not attributed to a person or department.

Step 2

Ask participants to introduce themselves and state what they hope to get out of the workshop. Record their affiliations (e.g. the Library) and expectations, which can be reflected on at the end of the workshop.

Step 3

Describe how the workshop will be run and proceed as such.

  • The 10 components of RISE will be discussed in turn.
  • Participants will be taken through the maturity statements for each component. They can follow along using the RDM capability self-assessment form, which will have been sent to them (for online workshops) or provided in print on the day (for in-person workshops). A slide deck (template) may be created to display the statements.
  • Participants will share and discuss the scores they have given. You should:
    • look for similarities in the scores and further discuss them
    • look for outliers and invite the participant(s) who gave the scores to elaborate.

You may use these prompts to support the discussions.

The notetaker will record the key points of the discussions. They should look out for areas where the participants speak positively and, conversely, where they speak negatively and allude to a gap.

Step 4

As the workshop is likely to run for 2.5 hours, consider including a break halfway through to allow participants to regroup.

When the participants return, check in on how they are travelling. Ask what they have learnt so far and see if it has been useful, then work through the remaining components.

Step 5

Once you have gone through all 10 components, you may want to ask the participants:

  • what the key considerations are for their RDM strategy
  • what final thoughts do they have, having completed the RISE process.

Step 6

Explain the next steps in the RISE process:

  • analysing the scores provided
  • writing up a report on the feedback 
  • determining gaps.

Step 7

Thank the participants for their involvement in the process. Provide a means for them to follow up with you if they have further questions or comments.

Step 1

Collate and analyse the scores provided for each component. Determine the average score for each component, noting those with higher scores, and those with lower scores and requiring further work or investigation.

Step 2

Write up in a report the notes taken during the workshop, summarising participants’ thoughts and providing the evidence and reasoning.

Step 3

Based on the report, identify gaps and where work needs to be done with regard to RDM. 

Step 4

Share the findings with the participants if necessary and ask for feedback.

Step 5

Determine an action plan or approach with regard to what you want to do with the results from the workshop. Do you want to target a particular identified weakness? Will you assign a component to a unit of your organisation to investigate further?

Step 6

In 6 months:

  • revisit the 10 components particularly those that you’ve identified to need work 
  • assess what progress has been made towards improving your organisation’s RDM maturity.

Support

If you have questions or require support, please contact us.

Further Resources

View and download further materials that help you run a RISE workshop.

Learn more about institutional RDM through our:

Learn more about our advisory services.