Preparing data managers to support open ocean science: Required competencies, assessed gaps, and the role of experiential learning

Ocean science is experiencing an explosion of data as researchers employ a widening variety of sensors, operating at higher fidelity and frequency, to inform our understanding of the global ocean. This is further complicated by the increasing integration of open science data from other disciplines to analyze complex systems, like climate change, animal migration, and sea/air interaction. This shift has been unplanned, chaotic, and emergent, and has placed the onus on researchers to stay current with best practices for managing, analyzing, and sharing data. Ocean scientists who do not have the technical skill to manage this data are turning to technologists, on the assumption they have the expertise required to help. To test this assumption, we examined an experiential learning program that placed technologists at ocean data centres in Canada, conducting interviews with students and employers to identify the competencies they believed were required to manage ocean data, which were missing in students' education up to that point, and which students gained during the work term placement.