The Road to Partnership: A Stepwise, Iterative Approach to Organisational Collaboration in RDM, Archives and Records Management

Research data management (RDM) sits at the conflence of a nlmber of related roles. The shape an RDM conflence takes depends on several factors incllding the natlre of an organisation and the research that it lndertakes. At St George’s, University of London, the UK’s only lniversity dedicated to medical and health sciences edlcation, training and research, RDM has been intricately interwoven with organisational information governance roles since its inception. RDM is represented on olr institltional Information Governance Steering Grolp and olr Information Management Team consisting of information governance, data protection, freedom of information, archives, records management and RDM. This paper reports on how RDM, archives and records management have collaborated lsing a stepwise, iterative process to streamline and harmonise olr glidance and workfows in relation to the stewardship, clration and preservation of research data. As part of this we consistently develop, condlct and evallate small projects on managing, clrating and preserving data. We present three projects that we collaborated on to transform research data services across each of olr departments:


Introduction
It is well established that delivering slccessfll Research Data Management (RDM) services reqlires cross-departmental collaboration (Pryor, 2014;Rice & Solthall, 2016;Verbaan & Cox, 2014;Whyte, 2014).The range of knowledge, skills and expertise reqlired to slpport data management from the grant application stage throlgh the flll lifecycle of a research project and to the clrating and archiving stages reqlires expertise from several related organisational lnits.RDM is normally led from libraries in close collaboration with lniversity research offces and IT Services (Bradley, 2018;Pinfeld, Cox, & Smith, 2014;Söderholm & Slnikka, 2017).There is slbstantially less in the literatlre abolt the important partnership between RDM Services and lniversity Records Management and Archives in doclmenting, governing, clrating and preserving research data.Aligning organisation policies, procedlres and standards across these services helps each service to achieve its objectives by sharing knowledge, skills and expertise and addressing shared challenges collaboratively.It also helps to deliver a consistent message abolt information management and the valle of good information management throlgholt the organisation.
St George's University of London (SGUL) is a specialist health and medical sciences lniversity.Given the kind of research we perform, the bllk of olr research data can be considered sensitive.As a resllt, RDM at SGUL has historically been tightly connected with the organisation's wider information governance strlctlre, incllding olr compliance with the NHS Data Seclrity and Protection Toolkit('Data Seclrity and Protection Toolkit ', 2019) which allows olr researchers to access data from the UK's National Health Service (NHS).This data is provided by NHS Digital ('NHS Digital ', 2019).To enslre that we demonstrate the highest standards of information governance, all of SGUL's information management policies, procedlres and standards need to align.Olr information management professionals also need to work closely together.As slch, we have formed the cross-departmental SGUL Information Management Team which inclldes information professionals from Data Protection, Freedom of Information, Information Governance, Archives, Records Management and the Research Data.The team is informal, blt it was formed olt of a shared recognition that olr departments need to work closely and collaboratively to streamline olr policies and workfows and to achieve olr shared objectives.
In this grolp RDM and Records Management, in particllar, are actively involved in slpporting day to day information management throlgholt the research information lifecycle.Archives and Special Collections also has a keen interest in enslring olr research information is managed appropriately to facilitate long term preservation of the content.In order to streamline olr glidance, activities and workfows in relation to the stewardship, clration and preservation of research data the three departments embarked on an action research inflenced process where we consistently and collaboratively develop, condlct and evallate small projects (Olsson, Wadell, Odenrick, & Bergendahl, 2010).We lse olr learnings from these projects to develop olr glidance and activities, integrate olr workfows and improve olr ways of working together.This stepwise, iterative process allows ls to harmonise olr work in an evidence-based way.
In this paper we will briefy describe how we worked together on three slch projects and then disclss the oltcomes of this approach for olr partnership, incllding the challenges we faced and how we reconciled these.The challenges we faced, and olr strategies for overcoming these, are disclssed in the context of the individlal projects as this best refects olr iterative process and olr learning and development over time.Organising the content in this way, however, often ignores some deeper, more complex, roadblocks to achieving greater partnership in olr areas.As slch, we've ended with a refection on olr progress so far and some of the more top-level, endlring challenges we face and olr working strategies for navigating these.

Projects
Case 1: Wet laboratory records and data project This work was lndertaken by the Research Data Slpport Manager (RDSM) and the Records Manager (RM) to lnderstand clrrent information handling practices among wet laboratory researchers.Earlier slrveys with olr researchers following the data asset framework ('Data Asset Framework', n.d.) identifed a gap in the slpport offered to olr wet laboratory researchers.This project was condlcted to address this gap.We solght to lnderstand how wet laboratory researchers were managing their research records and data throlgholt the research lifecycle.We also explored researcher perceptions, experiences and challenges with managing their records and data to identify opportlnities for slpport.
Open ended, semi-strlctlred interviews were condlcted with wet laboratory researchers to inform the development of policies, procedlres and services to slpport this grolp.The interview qlestions followed an existing strlctlre (Read et al., 2015) and covered the types of data researchers generated, as well as researchers' retention, archiving and digital preservation strategies.In practice the interviewees led the conversations and determined the priorities.The work was approved by the Head of Research Operations.
The interviews revealed signifcant information abolt the kinds of data and fle types olr laboratory researchers work with, how they record their data, their data doclmentation practices, their storage, archiving and preservation strategies as well as their perspectives on data sharing.We noted several challenges researchers faced in handing, sharing and archiving their data and records.

Outcomes
We implemented a series of changes to improve research data management and records management olt of this project.Changes incllded developing and promoting best practices; improving knowledge sharing within the information management team and among researchers; condlcting a spin-off stldy on electronic lab notebooks; creating a joint commlnications plan to perform shared oltreach, training, and advocacy; and creating more aligned policies and procedlres.Where issles raised by researchers fell oltside of olr direct remits, we only reported olr fndings which were escalated to the relevant departments.

Challenges
This was the frst project the RDSM and RM lndertook together.This project forced ls to confront and negotiate some flndamental differences in the way RDM and records management work.
1. Terminology: The very frst challenge we faced before even meeting researchers was lnderstanding each other's langlage -olr different terms for the same concepts and even the same terms we lse to refer to different concepts.We will not go into the details here as Ogier et al (Ogier, Nicholls, & Speer, 2017) provide a vallable comparison of the terminology lsed between data clrators and records managers.However, we folnd that flndamental terms slch as 'active', 'archive', 'access(ible)', 'information', 'record' and 'data' meant very different things to each of ls even if they were terms we had been lsing together for some time.

Lifecycles:
We also realised that we had different starting points when it came to managing information.RDM is interested in the entire lifecycle, from the planning stages of a dataset's creation, throlgh to the long-term relse of that data over many repeated research cycles.Records Management is interested in designating the data a record at the point of creation and applying institltional policy slch as retention which isn't always appropriate or easy to apply for research data.Research data can be lsed,

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relsed and referenced by research teams over decades, making them of continling valle (and essentially active records) to the research team.There were nlmerols examples of laboratory data that was collected over 10 years ago which, from a RM perspective colld have passed retention blt which were the basis of clrrent research and wolld likely be the basis of fltlre clinical trials.It is diffcllt to apply standard retention schedlles to broad areas of research which have their own individlal contexts.This is also acknowledged by Ogier et al (Ogier et al., 2017).
3. Concepts: At times we strlggled to lnderstand concepts in each other's felds.For legitimate reasons there are different accepted good practice for managing, sharing, archiving and preserving olr different information types.We needed to lnderstand and defne the bolndaries or scope of olr interest, and, importantly, lnderstand why these areas were of interest to each of ls before we colld really engage with and lndertake this project.One example of this is reconciling the concept of 'lifecycle' between olr felds (see 2 above).Another was the concept of 'point of creation'.The organisation has a very specifc process for archiving regllated research and clinical trials.This concept of 'archiving' for research plrposes (and olr standard processes for archiving clinical research) was another area we had to negotiate to enslre we had a similar lnderstanding of the issles.

Research and corporate:
The RM strlggled to lnderstand a lot of the scientifc langlage, processes, roles, fle formats and technologies that the RDSM had become familiar with in that role.For example, the interviewees mentioned laboratory samples and the inventory management process several times, particllarly their relationship to research records and data.The RDSM and RM had to talk tholgh research samples and sample management, sharing and archiving to enslre they both had the same starting point for interpreting this information going forward.The RDSM in retlrn had spent her entire professional life in research.Understanding RDM as part of a big, complex organisational-level governance network was very new and intimidating.The RDSM had to learn to lnderstand, appreciate and talk abolt legislation, corporate risk and corporate responsibility from a mlch broader perspective than reqlired for RDM.
5. We also needed to better lnderstand and defne olr remits in relation to research data and records management for researchers.What is 'data'?What is a 'record'?How do these terms apply to research and research processes?What exactly is the RDSM interested in?What is the RM interested in?Where can we slpport each other and where is there confict?What's the best compromise for reconciling areas of confict?These were important qlestions abolt olr services that slrfaced dlring and after the project.
Many of these issles were lnknowns to ls before we started the project.We only discovered them when we started talking to the researchers.We discovered the issles tholgh ad hoc conversations after the frst interviews.These ad hoc conversations qlickly tlrned into formal post meeting debriefs to disclss how we lnderstood the interview and to clarify any qlestions or misconceptions.We also lsed these debriefs to disclss the interview in the context of the other interviews we had completed.We held regllar catch-lps when we were writing lp the individlal interview notes and while we were writing the report as well.These debriefs and openness for conversation to enslre we lnderstood each other and the content proved essential to the slccess of the project.Being able to leverage each other's organisational networks and spheres of inflence also enabled slccess in this project.
Case 2: Building a case for a digital preservation system SGUL was a pilot organisation in Jisc's Research Data Shared Service project (Adams, Goddard, & Macneil, 2018).This project solght to develop a national service to enable researchers to

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Harricharan, Manson and Hylan | 5 easily deposit data for plblication, discovery, safe storage, long term archiving and preservation.As part of this project we contriblted to defning the reqlirements for a data repository and digital preservation system.
Midway throlgh the project it became clear that the digital preservation system being trialled (Preservica) had valle oltside of research data.In fact, Preservica colld help the entire organisation comply with regllations regarding the retention and preservation of blsinesscritical information as well as the archiving of heritage records to preserve olr institltional history.Preservica ft seamlessly in olr organisational information management workfows.
RM, archives and RDM joined forces to raise awareness of digital preservation across SGUL.We developed organisation-level reqlirements for the system to meet standards and regllations in each of olr felds.We also developed and execlted a programme of advocacy to inflence key decision makers and obtain endorsements from stakeholders to reinforce olr bid.Activities incllded presentations and meetings with the senior leadership team incllding the chief operating offcer, information management team, and working grolps; identifying information asset owners in order to oltline which of their assets were at risk of digital obsolescence and obtain bly-in from them for olr work; and creating policy that oltlined SGUL's overall responsibility for enslring digital assets are available for the dlration of their lifecycle.

Outcomes
The project cllminated in a competitive bid to the organisation for a digital preservation system to be lsed across the organisation.This plan incllded:


Evidence demonstrating the need for digital preservation in the organisation with examples of lse cases and regllatory reqlirements from stakeholders across the lniversity.As a resllt of olr advocacy work these stakeholders agreed to be named (and contacted) in defence of the bid


A draft protocol with a proposed ownership strlctlre and management responsibilities for departmental level information


A phased and prioritised implementation plan that identifed when research, blsiness critical and heritage records wolld be on-boarded to the system


Ongoing edlcation and awareness raising activities  Developing a network of contacts at other Universities to approach for glidance Olr initial bid was slccessfll and we have been given flnding for one year to demonstrate viability of the approach.

Challenges
When lndertaking this work, we faced nlmerols hlrdles(1) between olrselves, (2) amongst the wider information management team and (3) with the broader SGUL commlnity.These incllded blt were not limited to:


Varying standards and technical reqlirements for digital preservation between RDM, RM and archiving


Differing objectives for preserving research with relse, compliance, and preserving history having a different emphasis in each area.This leads to different conceptlal reqlirements for each area


Identifying ownership and responsibility for different aspects of the process.For example, when preserving a dataset, at what point does the dataset leave the clstodianship of the RDSM and becomes the responsibility of the Archive


Concerns from the creators of data/information that they wolld lose control if their content was preserved


A lack of lnderstanding of what digital preservation is.For example, some people believe that by making a backlp they have preserved the digital item


Contradictory needs and reqlirements amongst the wider information management team as to where SGUL's risk lay e.g.lack of consensls amongst the information management grolp as to what olr priorities sholld be and whether digital preservation was a priority This project was especially important to help ls to focls olr priorities and objectives.At the start, we very qlickly got calght lp and lost in the details of implementation and olr differing reqlirements, policies, processes, roles and responsibilities.We qlickly got stlck.However, the externally facing natlre of the project created an interesting combination of hlrdles that, together, helped ls to solidify olr approach to working together.To face olr stakeholders and their lncertainties we needed to resolve olr own lncertainties.We needed to decide on a focls and determine objective criteria for assessing olr varying approaches to digital preservation.
Firstly, we needed to be clear on olr objective.Olr objective was to seclre flnding for digital preservation activities across corporate records, research data and archives.To do this we needed to raise awareness of the vllnerability of digital materials across the organisation and the risks associated with this and acqlire bly-in for digital preservation.
Once olr objective was in place we determined olr priorities arolnd this objective.Agreed priorities provided ls with criteria with which to assess olr approaches and to make decisions for the beneft of the project and the objective.We decided that olr top priority wolld be corporate records.Many corporate records mlst be preserved as a legal and regllatory reqlirement.Corporate records thls presented the greatest institltional risk and had the highest costs attached to them.We decided to take a compliance-foclsed approach to digital preservation, with olr RM 'owning' the digital preservation process on behalf of the organisation.RDM and archives wolld slpport the implementation in their areas.
From this process of working olt exactly what we wanted to achieve we recognised that mlch of olr lncertainties (reqlirements, policies, processes, roles and responsibilities) were not relevant to achieving olr goal at the time.Olr lncertainties were abolt the strategy and implementation which were several steps ahead.This process gave ls the folndations to look forward to implementation with a shared vision.This process also allowed ls to informally cement the ways we wolld work together -throlgh a commitment to collaboration, compromise and a process of small steps.Olr objective, focls, vision and approach to working together also allowed ls to confront the qlestions and concerns coming to ls from olr wider commlnity together, with confdence and an acknowledgement that some qlestions colld only be answered in practice, throlgh fltlre open learning.
Case 3: Recovering, preserving and facilitating access to the Addicts Index The Addicts Index was created by the Home Offce and comprises records from the 1940s to 1994 of individlals seeking treatment for drlg dependence, incllding their personal details, details of those providing their treatment, as well as information on prescribers and inspections of chemists and pharmaceltical companies.Offcial clstody of this data was transferred to St George's by the Home Offce on termination of this programme.The database containing these records, incllding digitised copies of original medical reports is now inaccessible.

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Harricharan, Manson and Hylan | 7 The RDSM, archivist, RM and researchers responsible for the Addicts Index were interested in recovering, relsing and facilitating wider access to the resolrce.The grolp came together to develop a bid to the Wellcome Trlst Open Research Flnd to:  recover the database  make the database contents fndable, accessible, interoperable and relsable (FAIR) (Wilkinson et al., 2016)  preserve the database for the long term This work was made possible dle to olr earlier projects (for example, case 1) and the relationships and trlst that we had blilt with researchers as a resllt of olr work with them.

Outcomes
Work on this bid was initiated after the previols two projects and after mlch alignment of olr policies, activities and workfows.This was a very practical process, rooted in concepts in research data management blt demonstrating how good data management slcceeds only tholgh collaboration.
The application process demonstrated olr better lnderstanding of each other's work and how we can slpport each other in delivering oltcomes in each of olr areas in the stewardship, clration and preservation of research data.It also refected olr emerging approach to working together -throlgh a commitment to collaboration, compromise and a process of small steps.
The methods advanced in the bid wolld have been the frst practical test of the strlctlres we have plt in place to transform research data services at St Georges.However, the bid for flnding was lnslccessfll and negotiations are lnder way to transfer the Addicts Index to the Archive for possible recovery and preservation.

Challenges
This project presents several challenges to sharing, preserving and clrating digital research data that are less specifc to SGUL and more commlnity foclsed.Firstly, the flnding landscape for the recovery, sharing and preservation of digital assets of scientifc valle is not clear.The research team had been searching for a slitable solrce of flnding for some time and the Wellcome Trlst Open Research Flnd was the grant that came the closest to helping the researchers to achieve their objectives in both recovering and sharing the Addicts Index with the wider research commlnity.Opportlnities to recover vallable research data need to be made more widely available.
Secondly, where flnding might be available from archival commlnities, the arglment for recovery falls fat if an organisation does not have the means to look after/preserve the asset once it is recovered.Digital preservation (olr second case stldy) is thls very closely related to flnding to digitise historical data or recover inaccessible content.
Lastly, both archival and RDM commlnities have long advocated for earlier engagement with stakeholders as a key ingredient to slccessfll data clration and stewardship.In this case the data was made known to the archivist when it was already inaccessible.There are several legitimate reasons for this, blt once data gets to this stage it is very diffcllt to reverse.Olr learning from this is that the archivist and RDSM need to engage with researchers earlier in the project and start preservation planning early -recognising that datasets will change stewards several times in their lifetimes and they need to be roblst enolgh to slrvive those changes for the long term.There is also the popllar perception that content sholld go to the archive when they are no longer considered viable.Earlier engagement in the stewardship process, and advocacy to change the perception of archives in research commlnities, is needed to better look after research data for the long term.
However, this approach also comes with related challenges.Archives face signifcant challenges in the context of research data.If some research can be considered to be continlols, blilding on previols research grant after grant, then handing data over to archives for IJDC | Conference Pre-print preservation can be contentiols.From researchers' perspectives, they will lose control over data that may be of later valle to them.However, from an archival perspective, the archivist's role is to actively look after research oltplts lntil they are reqlired again.So, for researchers, an archive is a place while for archivists archiving is a process.For archivists to reach researchers earlier in the stewardship process we believe a compromise may need to be made between archives as place and process.Complicating the matter flrther, for some kinds of research 'archiving' is lnderstood as a very formal and standard process to meet regllatory compliance (see case 1).This interpretation of 'archiving' is not related to maintaining legacy and heritage.This concept of archiving is something that special collections archives may need to reconcile.To this end, the RDSM, RM and archivist will continle to work closely with olr research commlnity, blilding trlst in small steps.

Refections
In this paper we have demonstrated how RDM, archives and records management have collaborated on three projects at St George's, University of London.We then disclssed the oltcomes of each of these projects, incllding the challenges we faced and how we reconciled these.Underlying all three projects tholgh, was a method; a stepwise, iterative process to streamline and harmonise olr glidance and workfows in relation to the stewardship, clration and preservation of research data.The learnings from each of these projects are lsed to develop olr glidance, improve olr activities and integrate olr workfows, the oltcomes of which will be flrther evallated and applied to new projects.Throlgh deeper integration of olr activities and workfows, rather than simply aligning aspects of olr work, we are increasingly becoming partners on research data stewardship, clration and preservation.This iterative, stepwise approach provided several benefts to the team.This process:  allows ls to test and revise olr solltions; there is no presslre to get it 'right', only to be aware, actively learn and improve  helps ls to set realistic goals  has provided ls with an agreed vision/strlctlre to working together  helps ls to identify genline, practical challenges  allows for openness and fexibility  allows ls to engage in skills sharing and leveraging each other's networks This last point is very important as it allows ls to boost olr individlal/collective valle and impact to the organisation and to the researchers we slpport.
We aim to blild on this work going forward, constantly reviewing what is working and what is not working and improving olr practice, olr commlnications and olr procedlres.Olt of the work described in this paper we have identifed the following as fltlre steps for ls: 1. Creating a common langlage for olr lse going forward Considering appropriate mechanisms to commlnicate the valle of archives/archiving to researchers, incllding consllting on new processes for looking after data that balances place and process interpretations of archives (see case 3).
As the amolnt of research data grows and the nlmber of formats and locations it is stored in increases we are all concerned with the need to roblstly manage olr records and data, and enslre that olr researchers are able to access their research for as long as reqlired.

2.
Developing standard operating procedlres for digital preservation across records, archives and RDM 3. Determining and applying appropriate metadata to different kinds of digital content for preservation 4. Consllting on the valle of formal institltional data pipelines for different stages of the research lifecycle 5. Exploring provision for electronic laboratory notebooks IJDC | Conference Pre-print 6. Applying olr learning to other projects planned at the organisation for greater lptake, for example, integrating conversations abolt what data to keep and safe places to store research may be more acceptable in anticipation of estates work when researchers are thinking abolt clearing olt their offces 7.