Research Integrity Officers' Responsibilities and Perspectives on Data Management Plan Compliance and Evaluation

This paper presents findings from interviews with US Research Integrity Officers (RIOs) on their overall responsibilities as well as perspectives on Data Management Plans (DMPs). DMPs are formal documents describing the roles and activities for managing data during and after research. DMPs are now a required research criterion by many funding agencies globally. A purposive sample of Research Integrity Officers (RIOs) from the top ten US private and public universities were recruited for interviews using an open-ended questionnaire related to their job duties and perspectives on data management plan implementation and evaluation. Responses from 12 participants were transcribed, anonymized, and coded in NVivo. RIO backgrounds, duties, and perspectives varied. The mode number of staff/ faculty people dedicated to the RIO role at these institutions was a halftime appointment. All RIOs had some responsibilities related to Authorship, Publication, and Inventorship and Integrity and Information with 11 participants also responsible for offering some Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training. Most RIOs assumed that Principle Investigators are responsible for DMP compliance during sponsored projects as well as the long-term data management after a project ends. None of the twelve participants has received any Research Data Management training. Given the sea change in research practices, RIOs should have more training as data-intensive research emerges and DMPs become commonplace.