Monitoring and Accountability

SPORR partners with Stanford researchers and other key stakeholders to develop resources and tools for the Stanford community that support monitoring and accountability. 

SPORR Projects:

Focus Groups and Stanford-Wide Survey on Data Sharing and Management Practices

Stanford Program for Rigor and Reproducibility (SPORR) in collaboration with Stanford’s Lane Library aimed to understand data sharing and management practices of Stanford early career researchers, as well as support they might need to follow the 2023 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Data Management and Sharing policy.

We conducted 4 focus groups with a total of 16 participants from 14 different departments across Stanford’s School of Medicine. 

Results

Participants stated that writing data management plans was done only when required by IRB or funding applications. Similarly they shared data only when required by the funders or journals. Most participants had not received education, nor had departmental or lab templates or guides on how to manage data. Currently, most use cloud-based services to store their research data, and to share it with collaborators or statisticians, but they expressed uncertainty in the security and best methods of doing this. Participants emphasized that it takes a lot of effort to prepare and store the data properly, and that without dedicated funding, incentives, or mandates to make these practices required or being implemented by all equally, they fear that currently investing the time in data management might leave them at a disadvantage for the career advancement. Their wish for web resources are presented in the Figure on the left. 

The results obtained were used to help develop a survey that will soon be sent to all of Stanford School of Medicine.  

CTSA Institutional Survey on R&R Activities

The goal of this project was to determine the degree to which Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) funded institutions incorporated R&R activities into their translational research infrastructure. 

Results were published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science (JCTS).

The resources shared by institutions and discovered by search of institutional websites are also available in our data repository.

We INVITE institutions that did not respond to our inital survey as well as non-CTSA institutions to share their R&R activities with us by filling out the Activities Form. Shared resources will be available on our website. 

 

Media Coverage:

The article announcing our project was published in the Spectrum News