Mikala Narlock
Director, Data Curation Network
University of Minnesota
At the Fall 2022 CNI Member Meeting, the Data Curation Network (DCN) presented on its three types of infrastructure, which can enable cross-institutional collaborations to be successful: tool-based infrastructure, collaborative administrative structures, and trust-based communication mechanisms. These structures of success surfaced from DCN members during a retrospective meeting, a three-day member-driven effort to evaluate the successes and the challenges faced during the first few years of building the network. Following discussions at the DCN Retrospective, the team collaboratively authored a comprehensive report on the development of the DCN, published in March 2023 by the University of Michigan Press. This project briefing builds on the fall CNI presentation and discuss the successes and challenges of establishing the DCN, as described in the book The Art, Science, and Magic of the Data Curation Network: A Retrospective on Cross-Institutional Collaboration. Specifically, the speakers discuss the success of the DCN’s three central programs—curation, education, and research— which have fostered an engaged community of practice. The speakers also describe the challenges they have grappled with as a network, and how they hope to overcome some of these issues moving forward. Finally, the speakers will reflect on potential future collaborative endeavors to support research data sharing and management.