Enhancing data literacy among students in health and care-related subjects: An application-oriented lecture week

In the contemporary context of accelerating digitalisation and the paradigm shift towards open science, the demands on research data management (RDM) are increasing. Consequently, data literacy is a vital skill that should be imparted to all students at the outset of their careers. Despite the plethora of education programmes in RDM available for researchers from doctoral level onwards, there has been a notable absence of systematic integration of RDM subjects into the curricula of German bachelor's and master's degree programmes. This issue is of particular relevance for academic disciplines predominantly taught in the context of universities of applied sciences, which have, unlike universities, later started to strengthen their focus on research. The GesundFDM project, funded by the BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), addresses this shortcoming with a concept for a spring school that is designed to promote data literacy among students of health and care-related sciences. A special focus is placed on providing application-oriented, subject-specific and reusable educational material for lecturers in the field, aiming to encourage them to integrate RDM topics into their curricula. Requiring no prior knowledge, the GesundFDM Spring School is a comprehensive training course introducing benefits, challenges and areas of application of RDM and covers the entire research data life cycle. Based on the frequently cited 'Learning objective matrix on the topic of research data management […]' [1], learning objectives for the target group of bachelor and master students have been identified. Consequently, subject-specific teaching and learning materials were developed to address the particular requirements of these disciplines. The course is divided in five four-hour-units covering the following topics: (I) general introduction into concepts of RDM, (II) ethical and legal aspects, (III) quality of data, (IV) data organization documentation, and (V) data publication and -reuse. The didactic approach is character-ised by a constant alternation of theory and practice, enabling participants to apply their newly acquired knowledge on various topics directly linked to subject-related use cases and scary tales ('What could possibly go wrong?'). The unique feature of this concept is the use of ficti-tious personas, which are designed to familiarise participants with the requirements and benefits of RDM in a manner that is accessible and engaging to them. The personas serve the purpose of transferring the acquired knowledge to the participants' own situations, thereby underscoring the benefits of RDM for them in the present and in future careers. The GesundFDM Spring School was initially implemented as a face-to-face lecture week in March 2025. The objectives of this pilot were to test the didactic material and to obtain tangible feedback from the students' perspective for the purpose of further improvement and to assess the extent to which the contents reflected the actual needs of students in these disciplines. This contribution provides insights into the concept of the spring school and its various didactic features. It also reports on initial learnings from the pilot programme and explores visions for prospective implementation of these units into the main curricula of disciplines in health and care-related sciences in the future. [1] B. Petersen, C. Engelhardt, T. Hörner, J. Jacob, T. Kvetnaya, A. Mühlichen, H. Schranzho-fer, S. Schulz, B. Slowig, U. Trautwein-Bruns, A. Voigt, C. Wiljes, "Lernzielmatrix zum Themenbereich Forschungsdatenmanagement (FDM) für die Zielgruppen Studierende, PhDs und Data Stewards (Version 2)", 2023, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.8010617