RDM Optimization - ON-/OFF Boarding

The majority of tenure-track faculty members in science and engineering disciplines leave their research universities after about 10 years of being hired (compare https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1214844). Students working on research projects in course of their PhD thesis or master thesis will leave much earlier. In all cases, it makes sense to have a documented strategy on how to welcome newcomers or handle the transfer of knowledge, responsibilities, and data management when persons leave a research group. A good onboarding strategy allows to address quickly all relevant topics to integrate new research staff, thus enabling the continuity of research projects, as well as facilitate data sharing and re-use, reduce possible data storage costs, and increase data reproducibility. Similarly, offboarding strategies y allow for a smooth knowledge transfer.

Checklists for on- and offboarding can be found at RDM onboarding check list by Harvard Longwood Medical Area Research Data Management Working Group, and RDM offboarding check list by Harvard Longwood Medical Area Research Data Management Working Group