2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Interactive Session: Exploring the Data Stewardship Toolbox Created by and for Multi-Disciplinary Research Teams

In today's world, where data are ubiquitous, practicing ethical data management is crucial especially in the era of AI and big data. Ensuring that data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable is becoming increasingly important. We are a multi-disciplinary research team whose goal is to embed ethical data life cycle management education into undergraduate research programs in Engineering and Applied Sciences. In this interactive session, we will present the "Data Stewardship Framework," which we have developed to serve as a guide for mentoring faculty and graduate students. We define Data Stewardship as the care and management of data throughout the project. It involves being able to identify underlying disciplinary, data management, and ethical principles and articulate trade-offs involved in making decisions throughout the project. We will also present an overview of the toolkit that we developed to prompt mentors and undergraduate researchers to reason through ethical considerations, future consequences, and trade-offs as they plan, collect, describe, manage, visualize, curate, and share the data. We will then lead interactive activities which will allow the participants to engage with examples of how the tools have been applied in an undergraduate research project and explore how these can be used in their own research and design projects.

We envision the primary audience for this session to be educators and researchers who mentor multi-disciplinary research and design projects. Participants who will benefit from learning how to be better data stewards in their research and design projects by engaging with these tools that integrate frameworks from data management, ethics and design reasoning, and as a result, effectively guide the graduate and undergraduate researchers to reason through ethical considerations, future consequences, and trade-offs throughout the data management lifecycle.

Description of Session

The session will begin with a short overview of the Data Stewardship Framework and tools we have developed to serve as a guide for mentoring faculty and graduate students and examples of how they have been applied. In small groups, session participants will engage with examples of how the tools have been applied in an undergraduate research project and explore how these can be used in their own research and design projects and strategies for highlighting and integrating the different disciplinary perspectives. Small groups will share key takeaways to facilitate a broader discussion among session participants. The session will finish with a discussion of next steps for our project and how participants can continue to learn engage in ongoing research and development of educational materials.

Agenda (90 minutes)

Introductions – 10 minutes
Overview of Data Stewardship Framework, Tools, and Application Examples – 20 minutes
Small group discussion of application examples – 15 minutes
Large group discussion – 15 minutes
Small group discussion of strategies for highlighting and integrating multiple disciplinary perspectives – 10 minutes
Large group discussion – 10 minutes
Wrap-up: 10 minutes

Authors

Dr. Carla B. Zoltowski http://orcid.org/0009-0003-1391-6800 Purdue University – West Lafayette (College of Engineering) [biography]

Carla B. Zoltowski is an associate professor of engineering practice in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and (by courtesy) the School of Engineering Education, Director of the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program, and Interim Director of the EPICS Program, all within the College of Engineering at Purdue. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education, all from Purdue. Dr. Zoltowski’s research includes the professional formation of engineers, human-centered design, and engineering ethics.
Dr. Wei Zakharov http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-7805-6675 Purdue University – West Lafayette [biography]

Dr. Wei Zakharov is an Associate Professor and Engineering Information Specialist in Libraries and School of Information Studies and (by courtesy) the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She is the faculty liaison to four Schools Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Semiconductors, Engineering Education, and Aviation and Transportation Technology from Polytechnic Institute at Purdue University. She works with students and faculty to address their needs regarding information resources, research data management, and scholarly communication. Dr. Zakharov teaches and conducts research in data and information literacy education, and AI and online learning. As a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI, she has multiple internal and external grants, including grants from National Science Foundation (DUE, CCRI, RAPID) and one Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant. She serves as an editorial member and reviewer for several international research journals.
Dr. Senay Purzer http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0784-6079 Purdue University – West Lafayette (College of Engineering) [biography]

Senay Purzer is a Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research is on engineering design reasoning.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026