6 Conducting a Needs Assessment
The first phase in creating a Research Data Services program is to find out everything you can regarding the current situation: what is already being taught, existing partnerships, who is involved, and what conferences and trainings people have attended. This will give you a solid footing on which to begin building your Research Data Services program, but this data by itself is not particularly actionable. It helps you get a clear picture of where you are, but doesn’t necessarily help you know where to go next. A Needs Assessment can help you find out what your Library and University need and how you can best address these needs.
Hosting a Dinner Party
Picture this scenario: You have friends coming over for dinner in a week, and you want to make sure everything is just right. You know what you have in your kitchen and you know what you like to eat, but over the past few days you have been receiving a barrage of messages from your guests:
- “I’m gluten-free. Do you have any desserts I could eat?”
- “Will there be any vegetarian options for the main course?”
- “Super excited for the dinner! My doctor said I have to cut down on dairy. Just wanted to let you know.”
- “Do you mind if I bring my brother? I know it’s last minute but he just told me he would be visiting this weekend.”
This presents some challenges for you as you get everything ready for the big event. You already have a pretty good understanding of your current situation, and now you have a much better idea of what the dinner itself will look like. Now you have to figure out the missing pieces that are needed to bridge the gap and pull off a successful dinner party, and one way to do that is by conducting a Needs Assessment.
A Needs Assessment is a process that involves gathering data to find out what pieces are missing between your current situation and your goal. When planning a dinner party with friends who have specific dietary requirements you almost certainly can’t pull off the event with what you currently have, but you might not know everything you need. To start your needs assessment you would gather data by looking through your kitchen cupboards and pantries to see what ingredients you already have. This would give you information on what to purchase at the store, or ask friends to bring, to help fill the gaps between what you are currently capable of cooking and the end goal of a fun social get-together. Of course you could head right to the local market and start filling up a shopping cart, but this would inevitably lead to food being purchased that you do not need, and money being wasted buying items that your guests can’t eat. Similarly, when building an RDS program, a Needs Assessment is is a formal process for identifying what will fill in the identified gaps in services so you can create programming that fills in those gaps.
Finding What You Need
The same idea holds true when building an RDS Program. Conducing a Needs Assessment will help