Unlock your Potential: How The MLA Data Services Specialization Can Help You Meaningfully Engage with Your Communities

Submitted by: Margaret Henderson

The rapidly evolving research data landscape presents unprecedented opportunities and challenges. Navigating these challenges and opportunities requires data literacy expertise among medical and health sciences faculty, researchers, clinicians, and students. How do clinical researchers clean, transform, analyze, and manage data to accurately communicate findings openly and ethically? Librarians, as stewards of knowledge, information, and resources, are uniquely positioned to meet our community’s emerging research data management needs.

The MLA is pleased to offer a two-tiered Data Services Specialization (DSS), based on the Data Services Competency¹. The competency is designed to equip librarians with the skills needed to effectively support stakeholders’ research data needs. The Data Services Specialization (DSS) Level I Certificate provides librarians with an understanding of core foundational data concepts and skills. The DSS Level II Certificate is open to those who have completed DSS Level I Certificate.

A DSS Level I Certificate signifies proficiency in developing research data services, finding and managing research data, providing guidance on data best practices for funding and publishing, and upholding ethical privacy and transparency standards. These are essential skills for librarians who plan to meaningfully support their institutions’ research data needs.

The newly unveiled DSS Level II Certificate provides training for librarians to elevate their role in their institution by establishing and expanding research data service support, engaging with stakeholders across the institution, and strengthening domain-specific expertise. The DSS Level II provides training in these skill areas:

1. Applies principles of data literacy
   • Critically appraises data and data collection methods to help ensure the integrity of research endeavors.
2. Establishes and advances data services
   • Evaluates and expands upon existing data services by developing strategic partnerships and becoming integrated into the institutional research environment.
3. Supports research data best practices across the data lifecycle
   • Identifies and implements domain-specific research data best practices in disciplines relevant to their institution and library.
4. Applies knowledge of research methods, ethics and rigor, and open science practices
   • Applies specialized knowledge of one or more disciplines and research methods to advanced, domain-specific data-related problems and supports researchers who want to develop open research practices in their subject area.
5. Provides training and consultation on data-related topics
   • Provides customized discipline- and context-specific training on advanced data-related topics, including those requiring computational approaches, catering to the diverse needs of their users.

With Level I and Level II Data Services Specialization certificates, librarians can showcase their commitment to excellence, their dedication to staying abreast of new developments in the research data management landscape, and their ability to provide a range of high-quality data services to users.

As libraries increasingly embrace their role as hubs of data services, health sciences librarians stand poised to lead the charge, offering invaluable support and expertise to users at every stage of the research process. With the Medical Library Association Data Services Specialization as their framework, librarians can unlock the full potential of data services, helping to move forward the frontiers of knowledge and innovation in health and biomedical research.

Explore what you can learn through DSS, the value of obtaining the specialization, and the requirements for the DSS Level I and II on the MLANET DSS page. Most of the Level I DSS courses are free from NNLM. Level II courses are now available with significant savings through the DSS Level II Pathway.