Pioneering Data Stewardship in the Humanities: One Year of Experience at the University of Vienna

The University of Vienna, Austria, supports its researchers in managing their research data in various ways. In autumn 2021, the research data management (RDM) policy was adopted. It codifies RDM support and clarifies responsibilities and opportunities for the institution and the researchers. Summer 2022 saw the establishment of a data stewardship programme. It is based on the "data steward network" model developed in the FAIR Data Austria project: There is one coordinator at the University Library and embedded data steward:esse:s at faculties/centres – in addition to the central services that are offered by various departments and coordinated by a university-wide strategy board. Two faculties and one centre participate in the pilot phase set on three years.

Data steward:esse:s – in contrast to the data managers in the central services – are the central go-to persons with discipline-specific know-how and have a bridging function between the people who use RDM services with those who design and develop them.

The first faculty to employ a data steward:ess was the Faculty of Philological and Cultural studies. Being the largest faculty of the university, it has about 800 researchers in fourteen departments of philologies and area studies. As part of the humanities, the faculty addresses the world’s cultural heritage in its material and immaterial form – languages, literature, music, religious practices, as well as artefacts and media of every type – and has a strong focus on Digital Humanities.

The poster reports on the experiences as a data stewardess in the humanities - the first of its kind in Austria – and addresses the following aspects:

• specific requirements of humanities scholars
• establishing the role within the faculty
• possible differences between being a data steward:ess in the humanities and having this role in other disciplines