Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Summary
The ResearchOps Community is more than halfway through their third global project, this one on Research Repositories. Join Dana Chrisfield and Brigette Metzler as they take you through a short tour of what the project team have done so far, what they've learned, and what's next.
Key Insights
-
•
Research repositories are inherently social tools that require a focus on people and community, not just technology.
-
•
Most organizations lack mature research repositories, often relying on ad hoc tools like Google Drive and spreadsheets.
-
•
Maintaining a repository demands operational effort and cannot rely solely on researchers, highlighting a divide between research and research ops roles.
-
•
The project took a broad inclusive definition of repositories to reduce shame and embrace the messy reality researchers face.
-
•
The research team conducted 49 interviews globally and synthesized themes to understand repository challenges and needs.
-
•
Governance, particularly around data laws internationally, is critical and was synthesized into a detailed Airtable resource.
-
•
Developing a shared vocabulary and taxonomy supports extensibility and consistent tagging across repositories.
-
•
Repositories face tension between supporting immediate, evaluative research needs and long-term, strategic archival value.
-
•
Incentivizing researcher participation in repositories is essential, as there is often no clear benefit for researchers to add to these tools.
-
•
Measuring the direct impact of repositories remains challenging, with limited examples of business cases or ROI clearly defined.
Notable Quotes
"Research repositories and libraries are social things."
"Having a repo isn’t the same as having a strategy for socializing and evangelizing the research."
"Most organizations are using a stack of tools like Google Drive, SharePoint, or Airtable, not mature repositories."
"Maintaining a repo often requires 100% manual participation from researchers and that can be hard to enforce and monitor."
"The skills involved in building and maintaining a repo aren’t necessarily those that researchers carry."
"We took a broad definition of research repositories to lessen shame and embrace the complexity."
"We want to create clarity because lack of clarity is why we struggle with research repositories."
"There’s a tension between immediate evaluative research and more durable insights for future use."
"In large organizations, research teams usually pay for the repo but the value is delivered across the whole company."
"If you put more in than you take out of a repository, that’s a good rule of thumb."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"You need well-defined frameworks and guardrails for experimentation success to prevent chaos across teams."
Jemma Ahmed Steve Carrod Chris Geison Dr. Shadi Janansefat Christopher NashDemocratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
July 24, 2024
"You need sponsorship from senior leadership but also buy-in from all corners of the company to succeed."
Nina JurcicThe Design System Rollercoaster: From Enabler and Bottleneck to Catalyst for Change
October 3, 2023
"Can a designer make a pull request and have it reviewed? That open boundary between design and code is key to unlocking design system potential."
Nathan Curtis Nalini P. Kotamraju Jack Moffett Dawn ResselDiscussion
June 9, 2016
"If we are working on something that does not ladder up to our KSPs, then we should not be working on it."
Saara Kamppari-Miller Nicole Bergstrom Shashi JainKey Metrics: Comparing Three Letter Acronym Metrics That Include the Word “Key”
November 13, 2024
"It’s really hard to make changes to these systems because it’s risk-ridden and a major undertaking."
Malini RaoLessons Learned from a 4-year Product Re-platforming Journey
June 9, 2021
"Stakeholders often have strong opinions; our job is to back decisions with solid, evidence-based data."
Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian FranklinIntegrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live
December 16, 2022
"Sponsor sessions are not sales pitches but truly high-quality content that you won’t want to miss."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
June 9, 2021
"If the investment isn’t paying out, we actually recommend that you divert that investment to another area."
Jackie HoLead Effectively While Preserving Team Autonomy with Growth Boards
January 8, 2024
"Design is about cultural imagination, not just problem solving."
Dan HillDesigning for the infrastructures of everyday life
June 4, 2024