Recognizing Open Data Through an Awards Program

Librarians advocate for open science in research, but it is often difficult to incentivize faculty and graduate students to take on the extra work required to share their research data. To address this issue, the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press (UD) established the Open Data Impact Awards. These awards recognize good open data practices among researchers, and aim to nurture a culture of data sharing. In this article, we provide an overview of the award, including a description of the partnerships that were key to its success, our marketing and communications efforts, and our evaluation criteria. We also discuss unexpected challenges such as the consistency of evaluation and the timing of the administration of the award. Though some of the criteria and logistics will be revised in future iterations, the award was ultimately successful at building engagement and enhancing efforts for open science at UD.