Research Article

Health Sciences Librarian Perspectives on Applying Research Data Management to Knowledge Synthesis Projects

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Abstract

Introduction: This study aims to investigate the perspectives of Canadian health sciences librarians on the research data management (RDM) aspects of knowledge synthesis (KS) search strategies and the potential barriers they may face. Data deposit of KS search strategies has many benefits, such as increasing access to complete methodological documentation of KS research and increasing transparency, discoverability, and reproducibility of KS research. This novel empirical study aims to address a research gap in the open science landscape.

Methods: This project incorporated a survey of librarians with responsibilities for a health science subject at Canadian academic, hospital, government, or special libraries. We invited 498 librarians to participate and received 128 submitted responses for a response rate of 25.7%. The survey addressed topics including attitudes toward and behaviors related to data deposit and reuse of KS searches and corresponding output files.

Results: Among survey participants, there is a broad interest in conceptualizing their KS work as code and data and in using data repositories to share and track this work. However, participants have a lot of concerns around time, expertise, and the benefits of the KS data deposit.

Discussion: The high rates of reported data reuse among the participants in this study, who are involved in KS, can be seen as an excellent opportunity to more broadly promote the role of health sciences librarians in contributing toward and facilitating open science.

Conclusion: The results of this study highlight an opportunity for more targeted engagement between RDM librarians and health sciences librarians.

Keywords: research data management, data deposit, data repository, knowledge synthesis, research reproducibility, systematic review methodology

How to Cite:

Rod, A.B., Boruff, J., Calleja, S., Gunson, K., Cunningham, H., Martyniuk, J., Ziegler, D., Pincivy, A. & Orchanian-Cheff, A. (2026). Health Sciences Librarian Perspectives on Applying Research Data Management to Knowledge Synthesis Projects. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 14(1), eP20414. https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.20414 

Rights:

© 2026 The Author(s). License: CC BY 4.0