A Research Data Management Implementation Workshop was held on March 13-14, 2013, with Alison Darrow (SRO) and Wendy Shook (LIS) attending selected webcasts.

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Take away points:

• There is a lot of energy behind data management, and many good standards and tools being developed, but the field is in a constant state of flux.
• Despite that energy, there is significant frustration.  Funding agencies are providing objective outcomes, but not implementation guidance.  They are waiting to see what consensus comes from the field, while users and providers are looking for some kind of direction or expectation from funding agencies to get them started. (I’d like to point out that this is a tremendous opportunity for the data management community to contribute to standards and best practices!)
• There is emphasis on big data, in part due to volumes produced and dollars consumed, but that emphasis leaves smaller implementations feeling isolated, even though small data are valuable assets that require as much attention as big data do.
• A variety of data management models were discussed, each with staunch proponents, but I expect the reality to be custom approaches taking the most useful element of each model.

An excellent collection of position papers are available at https://rdmi.uchicago.edu/page/submitted-experience-and-position-papers