Research data management in health sciences: assessment of Hacettepe University graduate students' awareness

Since data collection activities take the largest share of the budget in research, the expectations of funding organizations for data reuse are increasing, and research data management practices are becoming increasingly important. Sharing and reuse of data gathered in health research has become an important economic and scientific force at the international level. However, successful data management practices are especially important to manage health data well throughout their lifecycle, to ensure the sustainability of data resources and to protect against data breaches. For this purpose, as important as setting comprehensive policies on research data management and data reuse is the provision of training opportunities for researchers to develop data literacy skills. In this study, the current situation of the data management practices, training needs and views about data sharing of students in Hacettepe University Institute of Health Sciences was revealed. In addition, it was examined whether there are contents that can improve data literacy skills in the curriculum. In the quantitative part of the parallel mixed designed research, a questionnaire consisting of 31 questions was conducted to the participants. 140 respondents participated in this study, and according to the findings obtained from the survey, their training needed improvement especially in data reuse, copyright and data citation. Although they are willing to share their data, they think that the biggest barrier to sharing may be ethical violations. In the qualitative part of the study, the curricula of the programs affiliated to the institute were examined and the contents of the courses aiming to develop the skills of planning, conducting and reporting a scientific research were examined by thematic analysis method. When the contents were examined in terms of data management practices, most were found to be not sufficient, and it was suggested that data literacy should be added to the curricula.