2026 IU Research Data Commons Virtual Resource Fair

Information about your research data resource or service will be gathered over email and forms. Generally, here is what you can expect to provide:

• Title of Resource or Booth
• Downloadable or linked materials
• Intro video (optional)
• The problem you solve
• How to learn more
• About your unit
• Campuses served
• Contact information

The appointments simulate the personal, one-on-one conversations that take place at a traditional, in-person fair. The RDC team will support the scheduling of these 10-minute chats via the Microsoft Bookings app.

What we need from booth hosts

1. Blocks of time available that week, totalling 3 hours. Even if a group hosts multiple booths (featuring multiple resources), the scheduling window will be the same (3 hours).
2. Names and contact information of participating team members. This could be one person or multiple people for the week.

What our team will do

1. Set up a Microsoft Bookings page for your group.
2. Ensure appointments are automatically added to your team's calendar(s). 
3. Support appointment scheduling communications and waitlists (if needed).

We need to know each other to guide others around the university quickly and efficiently. The services or resources your group offers are valuable, but the team members in your unit are the true powerhouse.

We will have both a voluntary virtual mixer for booth teams before we launch the event.

1. Supporting resource discoverability: IU offers many resources, but finding them can be difficult, especially for new faculty and graduate students. We want to make your resources discoverable to many, and we will curate them into different collections to capture attention. 
2. Problem-centered: Everyone is strapped for time, and learning about resources that might serve them is generally motivated by a pressing problem rather than general curiosity. We will ask that the materials you develop for us focus on how you help researchers solve their problems.
3. Personal contact: Forms and emails are acceptable for first contact, but many IU researchers would really like to put a face and name to a group and have a personalized conversation. The short 1:1 appointments offer this.  
4. Reuse and Recycle: Whatever we produce for this fair, we want to be able to refresh and reuse, and we want it to help your unit. The content you create will remain live on our website for up to a year after the resource fair, and you may easily repurpose them for your website. Each booth will have clear signposting to your resource/team’s contact information and website.
5. Experimentation: We want to learn as we go, and your input is welcome at all stages. If we decide to repeat this fair, we will prompt you to update your materials annually, and you will be welcome to update them at any time if they become outdated.