Context-Based Roles and Competencies of Data Curators in Supporting Research Data Lifecycle Management: Multi-Case Study in China

Focusing on the main research question of what the critical roles and competencies of data curation are in supporting research data life cycle management, this paper adopts a multi-case study method, with data governance frameworks, to analyze stakeholders and data curators, and their competencies, based on different contexts from cases from enterprises and academic libraries in mainland China. Via the context and business analysis on different cases, critical roles such as data supervisor, data steward, and data custodian in guaranteeing data quality and efficiency of data reuse are put forward. Based on the general factor framework summarized via existing literature, suggestions for empowering data curators' competencies are raised according to the cases. The findings of this paper are as follows: besides digital archiving and preservation, more emphasis should be placed on data governance in the field of data curation. Data curators are closely related but not equivalent to stakeholders of data governance. The different roles of data curators would play their own part in the process of data curation and can be specified as data supervisor, data steward, and data custodian according to given contexts. The roles, competencies, and empowerment strategies presented in this paper might have both theoretical and practical significance for the fields of both data curation and data governance.