When
February 19, 2026
12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Where
Cost
Free - Registration Required
Communities Empowered by Data 101: Tools and Best Practices
Community-led data practices empower and support community-led grassroots actions and initiatives. Data are valuable and we need to work together to take care of them, from the initial planning stages of a project to where it lives after the work is complete. In this 101-level session, we’ll introduce the Community Research Data Toolkit—a new Pressbook filled with guidance and resources to support communities in taking an active role in data management. Topics include using data management plans as tools for building trust, exploring options for long-term community-held data, and more. Following an interactive overview, we’ll save some time to workshop challenges and possibilities through a set of applicable case studies.
Participants will learn to:
- Summarize RDM best practices and what Data Management Plans and Data Deposit look like in community-based research
- Locate available tools, training, and guidance
- Appraise the tools and prepare to implement Community control for data in your work.
This session is designed for non-profits, activists, community organizations, and the researchers and data professionals who work with them!
Details: Any preparatory work for the session can be found on its information page. This virtual workshop will be recorded and shared on the same page, and discoverable via the Sherman Centre’s Online Learning Catalogue.
Facilitator Bios:
Danica Evering holds broad experience with research support, education, project management, advocacy, and knowledge translation; with fluency in social practice art, healthcare, community research, data, and systems development. Danica supports students, postdocs, faculty, and staff with RDM through the data lifecycle—Data Management Plans, storage and backup, data security, data sharing. With an MA in Media Studies from Concordia, they are interested in fostering RDM within curious scholars and disciplines.
Isaac Pratt (he/him) is a research scientist by training and has a PhD in Anatomy & Cell Biology. He leverages nearly a decade of interdisciplinary research experience to help support students, staff, and faculty. His expertise lies in questions surrounding data storage, security, planning, archival, and sharing. Isaac also provides support and curation services for McMaster Dataverse. His other interests include reproducible research methods, open science, and data science.
Subhanya Sivajothy (she/her) brings a background of research in data justice, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. She is currently thinking through participatory data design which allow for visualizations that are empowering for the end user.